Guild Wars 2

Honestly, with having to micromanage the pet to make it affective. Having another set of passives is pretty kitten handy.

I think it is designed to accompany the pet system. Signets and spirits + pets = Win. In theory

I run a full signet build and 30 BM I do pretty well in dungeons. Pet wolf even tanks bosses though you have to call him back when you know boss is about to do a big hit etc.

Simple. Increase spirits affective range to 1200 or 1500. This will allow for tactical placement which means they wont get their kitten killed while you’re fighting. Placing behind walls and rocks etc would be handy. especially in sieges.

And a lower cooldown as well please 60 seconds on a ranger is like an eternity… considering you usually drop in about 10 seconds lol

You are kidding right? I brought my ranger into AC exp path one and after the Guardian and someone else failed to keep the graveling’s off hodgekins I took over. Pretty much single handedly kept them off his kitten

That area is never about killing the gravelings. Just kite them and make sure they agro your kitten Your pet (Im 30 BM) also attracts a lot of gravelings.

It’s easy as hell.

Though I share the pain with not being able to hit the kitten burrows. dunno wtf happened there. Can’t be a hard fix tbh. Dev’s sort it out.

Perhaps you should test some builds in SpvP. You can equipment change for free so you can test out as many builds as you want.

@comment about CC in WvW.

I run the Juggernaut build any conditions that give status affect clears in 1 second or less. I use 2 stun breakers. I know when to dodge. 5-10 people? if you have around the same number its not a big issue. If you are fighting with slightly less, its not a big issue. Don’t solo roam.

Anyway, If you hate zerg vs zerg, you should move to the bottom servers. This is where the small group roamers play

Naaa their silence about the ranger class only highlights that they are working and testing many aspects of the class. They aren’t allowed to say anything because none of it has been finalised.

Doubt ranger will get a big change in this upcoming patch. It will probably be the one after that will be the big one. They still need a lot of data considering the massive changes tot he game they are planning i.e no culling!

I would drop writ of the merciful in WvW. AH builds are very powerful in any aspect of the game its completely viable.

WvW is 30% build 70% skill

That hammers nasty lol who the hell would pay that kind of price for it????

Ummm that’s 1.9k as an extra heal every 16 seconds. If its too much for you to understand let me explain.

The enemy/boss will hit for 10k damage. Anyone in your party that drops below 10k is instantly dead. Condition damage will chip away at Hp and can drop it below 10k. The more heals you have that will keep the Hp above the 10k line, the bigger the buffer your team has to a wipe. This is happening as you are actually trying to buff your team to do EXTRA damage.

Unless you are playing with a dedicated dungeon group who are perfect at dodging EVERY attack, the more buffers you have for the team the higher the % of success without a wipe which means you can run with pugs. In any dungeon even fractals and complete it relatively quickly.

I do agree some people need to let go about how Trinity support works. It does not work in this game. Hell some people need to learn how to support in this game period.

A guardian support increases the overall damage output of the entire party whilst also providing defensive support at the same time. I wont even go into the maths as to how much extra damage the entire party will increase by as ive done so on other threads but it is massively higher than the output of the increased difference between a full glass cannon and a bunker.

Honestly, I have a feeling a lot of you people don’t know what you are talking about and just hop onto the glass to win bandwagon.

Can you even calculate the damage difference between individual damage and the combined team damage?

Welcome to the big leagues lol this games combat mechanics is meant to be fluid. You really should never stand still and skill spam like in most mmorpgs where its just calculations working in the background.

1,1 dodge 1, 2,3 give it a shot.

As sword is a fast good crit weapon, you will always have endurance to roll. If you Pvp a lot you will understand. In pve its almost not needed as 5 mobs attacking you is not much problem.

Larger maps with far more spaced out objectives to force armies to split up and capture and hold certain areas.

At the moment, the maps are so small for the size of the zergs that it forces the players to do zerg vs zerg.

This will also reduce the stress on the servers and players hardware as the players will be distributed far from viewing distance unless its for the final objective etc which should never happen since another objective should be relative far away enough to be recaptured by another army.

New larger maps! open areas for pitched battles! forrests to hide and ambush in! Sieges are getting boring.

If the issue affects people too much. It is a good incentive to migrate to a low end server (like FoW Lag free. No culling WvW. This is where real skilled WvW is at. Just ask Arborstone lol their zergs get busted by 3 or 4 of us daily

lets say 15 stacks of might gives 200 extra dmg per person. 200×5 = 1000 extra dmg non crit. Those who go for full Glass or even high crit builds will multiply this number based on their builds.

Even if you only manage to buff 2 people on your team that’s an extra 400dmg per hit unmodified by build crits and and crit dmg multiplier.

Even if you go full glass cannon, the likeliness of you doing the damage output of your team buffed is still lower. Not to mention every dmg skill multiplier will also work off those numbers.

Factor in that you also give retaliation group wide. That is more dmg to factor in. Also popping VoJ will also give your entire team burning (or whoever is in range) for more dmg. If a mob does an aoe and hits all 5 of your team with retaliation up and lets say retaliation does 300 dmg 300×5 another 1500 dmg.

Going support does not mean it is purely defensive support as the way the class works is it gives both types of boons to play with.

But then no one should go full support either as then you are just gimping yourself far below the level where buffing the team outweighs the benefit of your own dmg output. If you are looking to dodge heal to win. Use a staff. Its cone AOE is wide enough for you to hit anything in range and give you 5 seconds (that’s a few swings to get a crit so even with 30% crit chance you WILL crit within 5 seconds) to maintain perma vigor.

Some people can only play DPS, Some can only play support, others can do both. Just tailor it to your own play style. You are only limited by your own skill. The class itself allows for much more

Thz.7569:

KensaiZen.3740:

I run the set up and traits for my Boon Guard. I wouldn’t change it to knights. Once you get skilled enough to dodge everything you wont need the extra toughness.

Weapon wise, I mainly use a staff for a Boon Guard so I have absolutely no problems getting crits things. By constantly maintaining 15-20 stacks of might for the entire team you are sufficiently making up for the damage you may are losing from not doing single high crits by spreading the damage through multiple mobs and critting more often (staff is also using sigil of strength to give more might to the team)

Even with 30% crit chance you will crit A LOT with the staff. By going Boon guard you aren’t really focused on self damage anyway. It is far superior to give the entire team extra damage as the entire groups overall DPS goes sky high. 30% is more than enough for what you need to do.

I have another set of knights armour with soldier runes with using all berserkers accessories and the damage is comparable.

I disagree with Thz about not taking AH though as no one is going to Buff the team if they are dead. Removing AH from the build reduces your own survival very dramatically. In higher lvl fractals without any AR it means life and death as it will save you if your main heal is on cooldown.

Healing in higher lvl fractals is a good buffer, but it wont save the team.

Re-read what I said in its entirety instead of looking only at the notion of dropping AH. He said he’s wearing clerics. AH basically doesn’t scale with healing power. Having added healing power will = high heal dodges on top of regens, etc. This gives yourself an auto replacement of AH and room to put points into more group utility. YOU need AH because you’re a boon duration guardian. Healing power guardians do not.

How can you heal if your dead? a healer Guardian needs to stay alive long enough to get out all his heals.

You cannot dodge roll if your dead. You cannot use healing breeze or shelter if your dead. Cant do anything if your dead. Self survival is also integral to contributing to the team. If people are constantly picking your kitten off the floor, your not doing your job. If hit by agony, your dodges alone will not give you enough healing to withstand it AND be hit by a mob since you’ve already wasted the dodges to heal yourself. Relying on dodges to heal means you wont have them when you need them the most.

Dropping AH means a reduction to your own survival. Reread my post again and replace the word buff with heal as its pretty much the same thing in a AH healing build.

I run the set up and traits for my Boon Guard. I wouldn’t change it to knights. Once you get skilled enough to dodge everything you wont need the extra toughness.

Weapon wise, I mainly use a staff for a Boon Guard so I have absolutely no problems getting crits things. By constantly maintaining 15-20 stacks of might for the entire team you are sufficiently making up for the damage you may are losing from not doing single high crits by spreading the damage through multiple mobs and critting more often (staff is also using sigil of strength to give more might to the team)

Even with 30% crit chance you will crit A LOT with the staff. By going Boon guard you aren’t really focused on self damage anyway. It is far superior to give the entire team extra damage as the entire groups overall DPS goes sky high. 30% is more than enough for what you need to do.

I have another set of knights armour with soldier runes with using all berserkers accessories and the damage is comparable.

I disagree with Thz about not taking AH though as no one is going to Buff the team if they are dead. Removing AH from the build reduces your own survival very dramatically. In higher lvl fractals without any AR it means life and death as it will save you if your main heal is on cooldown.

Healing in higher lvl fractals is a good buffer, but it wont save the team.

Well then there’s your problem. No 30 valorous. No immortality

What? lol seriously? I normally main a Guardian and love being godlike but my first run through AC as a ranger was still kitten easy. Now my ranger is lvl 80 with exotic weapons and 2 exotic armour pieces its even easier.

Just learn to manage your pets. I do quite well in WvW as well. Though to be fair I use signets for utilities as it makes it easier to manage the pets

lol Hack tide, that is such a fitting name. The sheer amount of Hackers was amazing. Don’t think we have come across any other server like that yet at the bottom

Why is there a need for complicated systems for this tiered match up?

Winner goes up. Loser goes down. Team in the middle stays in same tier.

It’s not rocket science.

I would be happy with a change in sceptre 1 animation. You can fire magical balls out of a pointing sceptre… don’t even need a proper animation. And increase the speed by an extra 10% or at least a trait that will increase its speed by 10%.

That will do nicely Speed increase trait lol

“see if a guard can take 20-50+ people + pets and clones beating on him for 18-25 seconds..and NOT die.

I think I this is more him talking about invulnerability than actual healing. No one can take that much damage and out heal it. Not even if 2 profs combine healing. He is talking out of his kitten img src="/include/images/smilies/smile.png" />

Well how did you do it with your warrior? did you kite? or did you face tank? which champion was this? etc etc

Can’t tell you how to do it if the details are missed out. Hell at lvl 31 it might have been best to put 30 into valor and then you can kill anything.

The build is viable for PvE. I used to run something similar. However, utility wise you should go for shout based and take superior aria. The boons will synergise with AH betterand give you more retretaliation as I see you also enjoy face rolling 6+ mobs at a time.

Get rid of your divinity runes and replace with melandru so you wont need to bother about conditions or take boon runes as it will synergies with your shouts better.

If you find taking on 10 mobs is too easy. Begin exchanging def for ark. Keep doing so unroll you reach your happy medium as not everyones preference is the same.

If you cant solo a champion its a L2 kitten ue. Granted it will take time but its doable.

I’ve made 3 sets of clerics armour in the past and salvaged them all as I didn’t see it was that good. However, now that I’ve made one set and used it for my Boon Guard build I find I cant stop using it for dungeons.

However, in other areas of the game I would go with something else. As my priority armour set as healing isn’t neccessary.

For dungeons its a must

Shimond.2478:

KensaiZen.3740:

This is where a decent Boon Guard focused on giving might will shine the most. with indefinite 20+ stacks of might your groups DPS will go Higher then if you were to solo spec for DPS.

That is about an extra 200 points of damage for everyone whilst under the affects of the boon. 200×5=1000 extra damage output (your own base damage has already been factored in) This multiplier also affects skills what not that the other group members use.

Another aspect of the Boon Guard which does so well is that it also gives superior defencive boons and healing as a knock on from trying to bring as much might tot eh table as possible OR you are bringing as much might as possible whilst trying to heal and defend everyone.

I really don’t see a negative side to the boon Guard at all. The damage output of my Boon Guard wearing full clerics with Boon duration runes is comparable to my Knights/zerker Guard. Not exactly losing out on much at all.

I urge you to try it in any dungeon as practice. I run dungeons ALOT and have been doing fractals up to lvl 19 with it and it works very well. This is without any AR what so ever (can out heal the AR damage with burst healing from shouts and signet)

Greatly depends on the group composition. A boon d/d ele or warrior will do the same – and then you’re just wasting effort since you cap out on stacks while lowering individual effectiveness.

How would it lower individual affectiveness? Carry 1 Dps weapon, carry staff as secondary. You can still Dps when you need to. The group will benefit from 25 stacks of permanent might. Even if you miss a skill, downed or out of range, the group will still be full of might.

If the group was so worried about burst Dps, why would they pick a boon eke or boon warrior? Doesn’t make sense. Guards have superior sustained damage but terrible burst. If your aim is to kill as fast as possible it makes sense to let the non bursty guy do the huffing.

That’s actually an ideal starter set for most Guardians who want to be tanky and do DPS. Your on the right track ^_-

This is where a decent Boon Guard focused on giving might will shine the most. with indefinite 20+ stacks of might your groups DPS will go Higher then if you were to solo spec for DPS.

That is about an extra 200 points of damage for everyone whilst under the affects of the boon. 200×5=1000 extra damage output (your own base damage has already been factored in) This multiplier also affects skills what not that the other group members use.

Another aspect of the Boon Guard which does so well is that it also gives superior defencive boons and healing as a knock on from trying to bring as much might tot eh table as possible OR you are bringing as much might as possible whilst trying to heal and defend everyone.

I really don’t see a negative side to the boon Guard at all. The damage output of my Boon Guard wearing full clerics with Boon duration runes is comparable to my Knights/zerker Guard. Not exactly losing out on much at all.

I urge you to try it in any dungeon as practice. I run dungeons ALOT and have been doing fractals up to lvl 19 with it and it works very well. This is without any AR what so ever (can out heal the AR damage with burst healing from shouts and signet)

Ive come across similar builds before in sPvP. And this was before the spirit weapon nerf (which meant spirit weapons were invincible).

I wont be using it because of reasons Ive already put across

2.6k is fine. If you go with Boon Guard, you will pretty much be permanently under protection which is -33% damage. If you use PVT or knights, your high toughness will make your regen boons and VoR became more effective by itself.

Gear wise, you have 6 armour pieces, 6 rune slots, 6 accessories, 2-4 weapon slots. You can mix and match to find your happy medium geared to your own play style. Myself, I preferbringing good dps to the table as well as support (when playing a boon guard) which means all my accessories are berzerker+ruby jewels. This allows me to tweak my build for any situation by swapping armour sets changing traits on the fly.

Just completed a lvl 17 fractals last night with 0 AR. Damage support is provided via EM and empower. I still hit just as hard as I would in knight/zerker gear. Healing support comes from using the staff (I would rate this as the best dungeon weapon for the Guardian in dungeons hands down) and regen from boons (virtues and utilities) utilities are giving as much boons as possible which has 2 benefits. 1. The boons benefit your team in def and atk 2. You heal yourself for every boon you give (AH)

There is absolutely no negative side to this build. Its all about balance. Don’t do extreme builds. They are one trick ponies.

Teamkiller.4315:

KensaiZen.3740:

Funnily enough warriors are like scalpals. You can choose soft targets to kill quickly and move onto another. This weakens the enemy team by reducing numbers but leave the rest of the group unscathed.

I think you’re getting thieves and warriors mixed up there brah.

Yes, Guardians are very effective at line breaking a zerg but here’s the thing: they can’t do it alone. We simply dont have the DPS and the AOE that the warrior has at the same time.

I think Rifle is the warrior’s only viable single target weapon, and yet people who use it aren’t gonna be likely to be on the frontline. When we talk about frontline warriors we’re talking about guys with hammers, greatswords, axes, etc.

Earthshaker train is the most common (and deadly effective) zerg breaker I’ve seen so far.

Theif don’t even come into the equation as they will be dead at 1 kill or even before.

For guardians it depends how big the zerg is. 2 guards can break 7-8 people un supported 1 guard and 1 support can do 3-5. A group of 5 with a line breaker guard can break 10-15 easily.

Both warrior and guards have their uses. Though different uses.

Star Ace.5207:

KensaiZen.3740:

Clerics gear is viable with a might stacking boon guard. The damage reduction is compensated for by the 18-20 stacks of might you and all your team will have. Also it will keep people alive for longer.

However, you don’t need to go extreme and gear EVERYTHING for healing. That will just make you a kitten Even with 20 stacks of might.

Although nowadays I mostly use a mix of Knight’s and Cleric’s, for some players, a mix of Magi and Cleric’s or Full Cleric’s makes very much sense, and works for them. They can go 1,700+ Healing Power and still get to be effective, but it takes the right kind of player to be open-minded to the idea (I am sure you wouldn’t do it yourself, and that’s fine, but they are entitled to their choice-I surely wouldn’t mind having them in my party.)

Sure they can do it if they want to. There’s nothing to stop them doing it. I just don’t feel there is a need to go over 1k healing as most of the time you will be over healing your group.

If you play with guild teams or experienced pugs. 90% of the time you won’t even need to heal. Active support through boons does not require healing power unless regent is your target boon.

High Lvl fractals will be the only exception.

Guardian line breakers are far better anti zerg then warriors. Retaliation and WoR will melt a zerg. Even if you die, your team will finish off the zerg and res you. Ikittenerg vs zerg a single guardian can make all the difference.

Funnily enough warriors are like scalpals. You can choose soft targets to kill quickly and move onto another. This weakens the enemy team by reducing numbers but leave the rest of the group unscathed.

The guardian is like a hammer that will smash into a zerg and make it scatter. You may not get a kill all the times, but the entire zerg will be down to half HP and wasted all their cooldowns.

Ok your invincible. Good luck lol

Yes it triggers AH each time it activates. For best application, use it with a staff

Clerics gear is viable with a might stacking boon guard. The damage reduction is compensated for by the 18-20 stacks of might you and all your team will have. Also it will keep people alive for longer.

However, you don’t need to go extreme and gear EVERYTHING for healing. That will just make you a kitten Even with 20 stacks of might.

L2p. Get used to fighting Mesmer’s and learn their tricks. Its pretty straight froward win everytime after.

Know your enemy.

I have played as a Guardian since release. I think I know a little a bout how the class works. Just a little

Against experienced players who ca time their CC skills you will have quite a bit of trouble as your damage (I use beserker rigs ad accessories so I know the damage range we are talking about) The spirit weapons are no where near good enough to be used against well seasoned pvpers. The shields flaw is that it is static forcig the guardian to use a ranged weapon….the sceptre. If you are using a sceptre from a static locationn, you have already lost the ranged war. Anyone ad their grandmothers can side step the orbs. Whilst they are doing this they ca take out the shield within 3-5 seconds giving you a utility slot on cooldown that hast done much. Hammer is the same thing. Slap on some stability and laugh at its mediocre damage hitting once every 3 seconds. Ideally it should be used against opponents that do not move much as it will most likely land its hits easier. Or, they just kill the hammer very quickly which leaves you with a utility slot on cooldown.

The last utility I hope would be stand your ground as this will help against CC skills and on a decent cooldown.

now onto conditions. you have absolutely no condition removal skills. losing a condition every 10 seconds may sound like a good idea but not being able to choose which condition is removed can be very crucial. Any high condition based build would love to fight you as your 20k HP would still get chewed through as AH will not heal you enough seeing as AH only heals for something like 79 per boon per ally. This will only be worth while if you have both spirits out and giving them might per crit. Though when they are on cooldown or destroyed, AH doesn’t add up.

Rangers, Mesmers, and especially necro’s will love you so will condition warriors.

If you enjoy the way the build works for you then by all means keep using it. But there are quite glaring flaws to issues with no counters in the build.

GS CC is unreliable. Its 5 skill is easily dodged by any decent players. Sceptre is decent but only has a 2 second entangle which can be broken out of. Melee people armed with 2h weapons do ale damage and this will hit your hammer constantly as they hit you.

Only thing I see that can be dangerous in this build is the hammer tbh. You have a slot for 1 possible stun breaker. The weakness of the build is being CC by your opponent.

An opponent with stability would be your worst opponent.

You would be hard pressed fighting against other tanks. Once they kill your hammer its game over.

Full clerics gear with boon duration runes +beserker accessories with ruby jewels. Shout based boon build.

Staff as primary. Mace /shield secondary. AH based for survivability.

This set up not only provides unequaled defencive support but is also able to maintain 18-20 stacks of might for the entire party indefinitely.

I don’t think there is a weakness to this build so far. It works with 0/0/30/30/10. The lack of speed is compensated by your party doing higher dmg. You also can heal for 1.9k with empower every 16seconds aswell as dodge heal for just over 800hp. Popping virtues and shouts and then renewed focus top pop resolve again will give your over 30seconds of regen as well as a lot of other boons.

This build is attack via support as a reverse to other builds support via attack. Once your skills on CD you can go to town with the mace or aoeing for more might with staff 1(EM+superior sigil of strength)

I don’t think it can get any more solid then this. Ive taken a party through fractals 10 withno one having AR and it was still easy enough.

Dokt.5729:

Healing is viable. The kind you see Kensei, the ones that stand in the back with a staff are not healers. A supporting heal guardian uses both weapons and rotates between heals on given up time. Starting with a staff to stack might and apply necessary touch up heals then swapping to shield/mace to apply protection and regen. Then swapping back to staff to reapply the might and other necssary boons. Most of the time these boons can last till the next application. If the symbol placements are good and dodges expended properly you can sustain a group 90%+ for a long time without using any real emergency skills. Also these people you’re healing have a heal themselves usually saved for emergencies therefore you can retain big on spot heals. Dunno i’ve pugged and played with guildmates and the result is usually the same, twice as nice if another guardian is present or elementalist. And they don’t even have to be support either..

Sadly, those that I saw weren’t actually support guards. I also play a boon/heal guard so I am aware of the play style.

When you see someone standing over 900 range away trying to heal the group with staff 2 3 4. Its an auto face palm.

Salacious.7358:

i was born a god

Pfffft then Guardian would have been your main lol

Ever since they improved the staff I haven’t been able to stop playing with it. Its just too kitten good thanks A net for giving us well balanced weapons. Well except sceptre.

Guardian virtues aren’t the make or break of Guardians lol it is just a really good subset of skills (depending on spec it could be primary).

If your a power player and wan’t to crack heads with high damage. Go warrior.

If your a power player who wants to crack heads using versatility. Go Guardian.

Though if you want to be a God.. go Guardian

Ok point of the OP. Guardians are not healers.

Healers stand back and heal.

“There is NO issue about that-using healing gear is player preference, and doesn’t mean the player will “only heal.”

There is no issue with people using healing gear or spec for support and playing support. Funnily enough I have come accross players who just hang back and use symbols and empower when in dungeons and even in WvW.

Those who wan’t to play this way can play this way. They will just be considered rubbish and after a few dungeons, will never find a decent party and will have to PUG with people who don’t know them.

Dungeons are group based. It is not about selfish play style
WvW is group based. It is not about selfish play style (if you play selfish in WvW your one of the reasons why your server does crap)
SPvP and TPvP group based. Your definitely not finding a good party who will take you in TPvP. SPvP, good luck with that and being a dedicated healer.
PvE… yeah sure go knock yourself out and be a dedicated healer.

I am not telling people to play the way I do. I am saying don’t be an idiot and gimp yourself and your team by choosing to be a dedicated back line healer when your class isn’t actually built to do it.

Sure there are a myriad ways to enjoy GW2. And some of these ways will likely make you end up playing by yourself. That’s a lot of fun in an MMO.

Healing support build with a staff? So what do you do when all your skills are on cool down? Consecrations have massive cooldowns. Empower has 16 seconds. Symbol heals for crap. How effective the build is is entirely dependent on perspective. A healing support shout build would be far more effective as the cool downs and boons are more beneficial to the team. Add in mace and shield as secondary set and you can maintain high healing output easily.

Anyone can play any way they want. However running around with no utilities and no armour using a lvl 1 weapon can be done too but it doesn’t mean to should be done.

Healing is not a guardians forte. Notice how we don’t have any healing combo fields? There is a reason for it.

If you want to be a dedicated healer. Role a ele. Better spike heals. Healing combine fields. Actually good at range.

And notice I say healer, not “support” some people need to learn the difference.

krismark.2617:

KensaiZen.3740:

So by this definition a warrior in full beserker gear who is pure dps is also a healer because he can kill the mobs faster to alleviate his team from potential damage a mob may cause.

Well done you with your dictionary

Nope, that would fill a damage role.

Well done you with your reading comprehension

To alleviate your team mates from further damage by bringing more Dps to kill mobs quicker.

Well done you.

Use a hammer

JI+Hammer5. Then hammer 2. if you have good DPS the ranger will be dead very quickly

So by this definition a warrior in full beserker gear who is pure dps is also a healer because he can kill the mobs faster to alleviate his team from potential damage a mob may cause.

Well done you with your dictionary