Guild Wars 2

In short. It is easy to lang the damage output of a hammer due to better CC skills then it is to land high damage out put from GS as it lacks the C skills the hammer does.

Your 10k dmage isn’t worth much if only 2k of it actually hits anyone.

It’s not a numbers game when you are actually fightingin WvW or PvP. It’s skill based. damage isn’t worth anything if you can’t land a good hit.

Tbh this thread was not about DPS VS support. It was for the fact that if you wanted to be a support guardian, the most effective place for you to be was in the frontline. Shouts have a limited range which means being at the back you are more then likely not affecting your entire team.

Want to be a healer? the mace is the weapon that can produce the highest HPS in our entire arsenal. Combine it with a shield and you have great CC skills as well as being able to grant protection for your front line melee people.

However, Since the Guardians balance and mechanics have changed slightly since the OP was written. The Guardian is actually now a viable healer. I’ve tested this out myself last night using a boon Guardian spec in full clerics (minus the trinkets)

The changes to the staff has made this weapon incredibly powerful in support. It is entirely possible to maintain 20 stacks of might and heal for a very good amount every 16 seconds (it now scales with healing power. my bad on the earlier post saying it didn’t)

The changes to staff now actually makes a stand back and heal Guardian quite viable. However, what you do in the time between the cooldown of your skills is still in question. Maybe you can tag and dodge to heal your team

From my perspective as I main a guardian since launch and now alt as a ranger. Rangers are pretty kitten good. It takes a higher lvl of skill and managing your pet to make it awesome though. You must always be aware of the surroundings and able to use your skills and pet at the right time.

Ranger is definitely not a no brainer class like the warrior. Even harder to play properly then the Guardian.

Rangers have a bad reputation because the learning curve has is quite steep and people have not quite figured out the tactics and strategies to use them effectively.

Versatility is a rangers friend. The ranger can do everything well. without having to change builds. Just limit yourself to being a 1 trick pony.

Seems to me to be a nice healing bunker build that uses retaliation as the main source of damage (honestly 9% crit chance is laughable even with high power)

The down side to this build is if you get CC’ed and spiked. It’s game over.

It does look like a good build though but won’t survive being double teamed.

GS for mobility

Hammer for being godly

If you prefer to bounce between mobs in PvE then the GS is perfect for you. However, if you prefer to gather and face tank 6+ mobs at a time. Hammer is definitely for you.

Hammer is an extreme weapon to be used against multiple enemies. It is outstanding an unmatched in 1 v 6 or more situations. When all damage is reduced by 33%, you can afford to have a slow auto attack then blast finish for retaliation.

It all depends on playstyle. GSword is like lightning. Hammer is like a mountain.

Welcome back to the world of the Gods all ye fellow Guardians

3k+ healing with empower? really? how did that happen seeing as the 1.5k heal on other is not supposed to scale with anything.

Keeping group alive with healing breeze? do they all stand still to allow for maximum healing? which is around 3k per healing breeze which something like over 1000 healing power.

The amount you put into healing is not worth the return. There are better ways to support your team. You can still CC just as well without investing in healing at all.

Like I mentioned in the original post. If you want to stand in the back lines and heal, you are better off being a water Ele, their burst or sustained healing is far superior AND they can switch to ranged offence to support.

A healer Guardian who stands at the back throwing out rubbish amounts of healing is more of a waste then actually affective healing support.

If you want to heal, be a front line healer. Mace and shield. The amount of healing you can do with that is MUCH higher then standing in the back with a staff. Empower and AH is good for healing YOURSELF. The 1.5k healing at the end is just a bonus.

Looks good for guardians I would say

AC is hard? Did I just hear that right? With a good party you can clear all 3 paths in just over an hour. With a PUG you are looking at 1 1/2 hours.

Once you know what to do it is incredibly easy.

Oh WvW is very much alive inbottom tier. We don’t like zerg warfare. Which is probably why most of us stay in bottom tier servers.

Its all about bottom tier for roaming. Even zergs aren’t that much bigger than the 5 man team lol

Damage builds are viable with life steal food. Without it, it worthless.

I do gave to agree with seras. The ranger is pure diversity. It can do every job quite well. Not the best, but quite good.

Challenging to play. Definitely not boring.

Cant play damage build on a Guardian? Pffft L2P.

Absolutely loving the ranger in WvW at the moment. even though I am still lvl 55 I managed to fight 2v1 against a mesmer and an engineer full 80’s and downed one then got killed after a 2 minute fight.

I zerg combat I like to hang round the sides and pick my targets. I try not to send the pet in as it will automatically die so I have it handy to swap to get 2 secs of quickness every 15 seconds. I’ve actually got a decent amount of badges considering the level and damage potential is still very low.

I firmly believe that Rangers do not suck at all. I use both bows and melee. Maybe thats whats wrong with other rangers. All focused on damage and no survival only to be 3 hit by everyone then cry.

mega.7816:

Sorry but if you are a guardian and your team is dying, and you done nothing that can help prevent it, you are doing it wrong. Didn’t know this game is all about dps and not group support. You have a tool far more then what others can do, and I think it is silly to not use it to your ability. Not saying you should put your dps on a back burner, but help the team.

The guardian innately helps the team whilst in combat. This is yhe guardians key mechanic. Support while fighting. Another way to help your team is to kill faster. Give them more might also helps aswell as sucking in all their conditions.

The beauty of the guardian is even if you dont support…. your still supporting.

Playing a support guardian means squat in anything other thsn tpvp for point control. In WvW you are fodder. In dungeons you are holding your team back by not doing enough damage.

The guardian is the most perfect hybrid class because it is so well balanced.

Orbs should be reintroduced into the game but swap the benefits around with the outmanned buff.

I don’t know what genius decided to give people who are outmanned on a map the chance to farm better loot and those who are obviously stronger than the enemy/numbers or otherwise the ability to get even stronger so the orbs couldn’t be taken back.

They got it completely back to front.

Hybrids, all the way. Without damage your about as useful as a wall. Keep the DPS if you know you wont die quickly. Find that happy medium.

You already run a good healing/defence build and balance it with offence gear. Good enough TBH.

Agro works on Toughness. The higher the toughness the more likely you will get agro.

Plenty of times I’ve had mobs pulled from me from toughness Engineers and necro

A guardian is about the tankiest class you can get in this game and it is possible to tank mobs in dungeons or even bosses tbh. You have to find the synergy in the traits that give you nice healing and pick utilities and weapons that give you good protection and healing.

AH/MF for good healing based traits. Hammer for ultimate tank weapon (wirth EM and WotM traited as well) you will start to feel imortal.

It’s really a L2P issue for Guardians as it is with most classes. People who do not know how to play a Guardian or silly enough to think Guard in Guardian = Bunker/defence will not be able to kill anything as they are so focused on survival. These builds just delay death. Not advisable.

Guardians have the potential to do both good damage and good defence AT THE SAME TIME. Just about every other class has to sacrifice one for the other. Find your happy medium. don’t believe the “We are GUARDians” crowed.

As for WvW. If your not killing anything or buffing allies outside a fortified position. Go on a supply run and help build siege machines. There is no excuse in just standing around and doing nothing. There are many jobs that you can do. I’ve been doing WvW pretty much since the game was released and can tell you that people who try to shoot down defenders from a wall do nothing but waste time. Defenders can just choose to die behind the wall and get ressed by their team mates. The best thing to do with sieges is to break down the wall/door as quickly as possible with siege machines. Not be stupid mindless zergling and think kill kill kill. WvW is very tactical. It is another L2P issue.

Guardian is the most versatile class in the game second from Elementalist but doesn’t have the massive attunement juggling that is required for an ele.

Roaming as a solo Guardian is perfectly Ok. You will mostly win 2v1 or 3v1 if you are a skilled player. For sieges you either lead the zerg/party or you help with sieges. Defend siege machines when built or block the enemy going back into their fort/keep with RoW or Sanctuary. Hell you can even use banish on them to knock them into your zerg and die.

You will only be as limited as your imagination. Don’t believe the fools.

Yaki.9563:

100% protection for 1/2 the melee that are standing right next to you. Considering how many buffs with 600 range don’t even hit all party members, the hammer protection only really consistently applies to you.

Lol who doesnt trait fir larger symbols for hammer. If not they shoukd be using a GS.

kidbs.8920:

KensaiZen.3740:

Don’t know what you all complaining about, Hammer is still the best weapon we have. The DPS doesn’t come form Auto Attack, its form MB. It gives mega survivability from the protection given from the symbol. Its a proper AoE weapon. Great for group support. The best CC weapon.

GS is just burst damage.

Even with the nerf it is still by far the most effective weapon we have. If your built for burst then you will obviously pick the GS, for anything else its going to be the Hammer.

Shouldve made it clear i was speaking from a pvo/wvw pov. Most of your auto attacks will miss due to everyone running away from you or dodging. Traited with 2HM and its a 3.5 sec skill. About as fast as 2 auto swings. And its leaping.

In pve you dont even need to use it. Its auto to win. Especially tanking crap loads of mobs.
Actually the sustained dps does come from the auto-attack and the symbol that it generates. MB is the “burst” damage (and blast finisher) for hammer. Also people shouldn’t ignore that you can do 2 MBs during the cooldown of one WW so the damage is pretty even with regards to the big hitters.

KevinEvo.7061:

I’m in full clerics everything. I have 14225 hp, 3202 armor, 1336 healing power, and 50% boon duration. I never die from anything unless I screw up which is my own fault.

With the heal on dodge and swap sigil for endurance alone I can heal myself back up in 2 seconds. I rarely ever have to use my heal. Mace blocking and boons make it so I don’t need any more HP. My regen and Virtue of resolve heals me for hundreds of hp every second if I do get low.

Condition damage is no problem either since every 10 seconds 2 conditions are gone. If I do need one gone I have the Virtue of Resolve trait to get rid of 3 of them.

out of curiosity, how much does your VoR passive heal for and do you have the Absolute resolution traited?

1. Hammer with writ of the merciful traited (20 honour) this will give your partner 100% protection uptime as well as extra healing form the symbol. Also you may want to trait for battle presence (30 honour) as this will also give more healing to him.

1. Mace/+ DPS wise its not too bad. But the healing from the symbol is higher than the Hammers symbol as well as healing being done on the third strike of the mace.

Hammer does better DPS and also does AE damage. My personal choice for any situation.

Don’t know what you all complaining about, Hammer is still the best weapon we have. The DPS doesn’t come form Auto Attack, its form MB. It gives mega survivability from the protection given from the symbol. Its a proper AoE weapon. Great for group support. The best CC weapon.

GS is just burst damage.

Even with the nerf it is still by far the most effective weapon we have. If your built for burst then you will obviously pick the GS, for anything else its going to be the Hammer.

Its not just about traits. You can balance with gear also. Never go full support as that will just gimp yourself. Never go full glass cannon (unless your good at mitigation) as your death will be a hinderance to the group.

Versatility is the key. Find your happy medium. There is no point in being immortal if youcant do enough damage to pressure the enemy. All you do is delay the inevitable.

Sorry posted in the wrong thread lol

ok here is the vid of me face tanking a champion in orr

Well look on the bright side…. at least they didn’t nerf what good traits we did have lol SW builds are so uncommon I doubt that many people will be effected.

It was nice to go back to using them now and again just for fun but now its not even worth it.

War.2493:

I’m at 2.8k attack, 34% crit, 2.9k armor and 14.5k life, using your setup except for lacking a couple berserker trinkets. I went to Southsun Cove to try it out after i went to Orr. Just 1 of those Young Karka’s or whatever they are, face tanking them with a hammer and then with a mace/shield setup. Would always take me down to less then half life.

If your fighting a Karka, use WoR as soon as you initiate combat. This will make them shoot themselves for half their own health. The rest is just cake.

Even though you face tank. You still have to use Guardian mitigation skills. Block with aegis when you see a big hit coming. Blind with VoJ (if traited).

Fighting a karka on southsun cove you will never drop below 90% hp. The only way it will happen is if you just let them use their mega damage tail attack on you.

It’s not that big a deal tbh… not a lot of us actually run spirit weapon builds lol Though it does drastically nerf the hell out of SW builds, it does make battle presence support based Guardians shockingly good (high healing guardians no longer have to get healing utilities when they are healing for 500hp per tick)

Increased support ability, nerfed damage ability. It becomes clearer and clearer that they do wan’t us to only play support lol

Though 10 second might for empower might is fantastic. Especially for hybrid builds that use EM as a good basis for damage boost. A sustained 15-16 stacks of might with mighty blow is a massive burst

They’ve removed the champion ooze king from orr but i’ll see if i can get a video of face tanking the champion at the skill point next to shelters camp.

Last time i did this was with another guardian. Just left it on auto attack to win.

Vitality without toughness is worthless. Choose wisely.

If you think all a guardian can do with a 30 valour and honour build is tank and support then you are not understanding the class.

You can switch from tank/support/dps all within the same 2 traitlines. Guardians are the most versatile of all classes. This is why they seem so OP because thry are good in any situation. As designed. Jack of all trades, master of none. They are second best at everything but does not have to sacrifice a lot to do it.

This is the true face of a Guardian. You are only as limited as you allow yourself to be.

On another note, we are the worst at range… doesnt quite fit with guardian design. Pleasefix. Guardian+long bow please

Hammer is a proper aoe weapon even with its auto attack. To use the hammer properly you need to go down the honour line and use writs to make the symbols more effective. The 3rd hit in hammer chain is actually a ranged attack.

Depending on if you want a bursty weapon or not then you have your options made easy. GS for burst. Hammer for everything else.

Guardians do not siak damage. Guardians mitigate damage through utilities and virtues.

If you want damage soak, roll a warrior. High tough and hp.

Your trying to do something against class mechanics but it is diable but not the best at doing it.

Use a hammer for 100% protection up time. Writ of the merciful. AH . This is alk you realky need to tank. The rest is damage mitigation with blovks from aegis. Blinds and dodging.

Combine everything and you should be able to walk over most bosses.

What not to do is to 100% face tank. You cant face tank every boss.

Using this build, hammer is the main weapon of choice. Its damage output is just as good as going GS but with added survivability and more CC. It really depends how many mobs you are tanking to know whether you use mace/shield or staff.

Mace shield for the more extreme tankers. Plant symbol, pop shield 5, colapse 5. Alot of healing and much needed breathing space. However, it doesnt work as well with the hounds of balthazaar.

Empower may give less healing but it gives 12 stacks of might to you and the hounds (should be more than 1500hp healing with AH and 2 hounds getting might)

I carry 3 sets of armour and all weapons so i swith quite often depending on situation. My play style in PvE is to gather mobs and kill which makes the hammer out perform any weapon.

1h sword for guardians is best used with virtue trait line. Procs aoe burn every 4 hits greatly increasing the dps if the weapon. Forget 3 people in a cone infront, you can aoe burn people every 2 seconds.

1h sword is actually a very good aoe weapon for guardian but not many people will go virtue traitline.

Knowing the enemy always think “How is he still standing?!?!?!….HAXXX”

Just because your a guardian does not mean all you have to do is GUARD. Just go hybrid and be flexible. The only thing that is holding you back from getting badges is yourself.

Completely obvious to me some people here have absolutely no idea how to play a guardian.

Who says a Guardian has to go either bunker no damage or glass cannon quick death? Hybrids are probably the most powerful type of Guardian as the class is pretty much designed for support as you fight.

Jack of all trades. remember?

Those who think Guardian = Bunker no damage is playing the class wrong. Those who spec for DPS but can’t survive is playing the class wrong.

It is a L2P issue. Find me a warrior that can take me down 1V1 and I will even begin to believe that warriors have something to topple a Guardian.

Valour 30 – Retributive armour, Strength in numbers, Altruistic healing
Honour 30 – Writ of exaltation, Empowering might, Writ of the merciful
Virtue 10 – Retaliatory subconcious

Alternative you can use a 0/5/30/30/5 with just as good effect as the AoE blind helps a lot when inside a zerg.

I’ve recently started playing the ranger and love it. The complete ability to be effective at extreme range AND kitten good at melee is fantastic. This is coming for someone who is a hardcore Guardian. Im talking taking on 4-5 mobs in melee and not worrying at all.

Rangers are so OMG in PvE and bring unique skills to the team in dungeons (havent actually done one yet on the ranger but from looking at the skills it looks like Rangers are combo field machines. Perfect for coordinated parties)

The only thing I don’t see a Ranger being good at is WvW or PvP. In this aspect it is very lacking. Rangers should be able to Roam solo and pick off people easily. However, like i mentioned it is a combo field machine and needs others to make it shine. Kind of contradicts what a Ranger is.

atm I’m trying for a survivable hybrid of range and melee. Don’t know how effective it will be but right now it seems stupidly powerful in PvE (only lvl 32 at present so this is with barely any traits)

As for the issue with pets and agro….. can’t you just set the pet to passive? then it wouldn’t attack anything.

Italian alliance? Why not Join the other Italians on the Italian server on FoW!

You will also get your chance to give those Guilds that betrayed you a right kicking as you will be fighting Vabbi and RoS on a regular basis

FoW welcomes those who seek justice

Spirit weapon builds are viable for PvE. I pretty much lvled to 80 using a spirit weapon build as it felt like it was having a personal party

Spirit weapon builds work best with sceptre and torch or sceptre/focus.

Try to alternate between hammer and sword to have 100% uptime on at least 1 spirit weapon. Pop both if you need the DPS or are fighting a group. Also, if you play as Human Guardian, You can summon Hounds of balthazaar for extra 2 attackers for DPS. That’s like a 5 man party! (kind of

I wouldn’t recommend it in PvP or WvW. The AI and attack speed for spirit weapons is very bad. Hammer is viable for control but not for DPS. The shield is fantastic for WvW. Sword and bow is pretty bad.

Brutaly.6257:

KensaiZen.3740:

6x Melandru+Lemon grass poultry soup for a total of -65% condition duration.

As conditions are rounded to the closest second, 90% of conditions do not last more than a second. Also it gives higher toughness than the soldiers set.

Who needs to remove conditions on shout when they just disappear after a second. You boys using Soldier runes are crazy. conditions can be reapplied almost instantly, so basing them on your shouts and cooldowns doesn’t make sense

Well chill, cripple and fear isnt applied per second in wvw and in a shout build with soldiers those are removed. Very few run with pure conditionbased damage builds in wvw, in pve you dont need more then one conditionremover, so the reason to have soldiers, for me at least, is that those are great anti cc.

-65% con duration means a 4 second fear or any other skill is less than 2 seconds. Keepingyou in range for mighty blow or enough to escape. Add to this you can have 2 stun breakers for utility in syg and sy making you almost immune to CC.

Ine pve i run 6 runes of the noble. Already tanky enough without the rune benefits so might aswell farm lol

+1 for sure.

I Miss the good old days

6x Melandru+Lemon grass poultry soup for a total of -65% condition duration.

As conditions are rounded to the closest second, 90% of conditions do not last more than a second. Also it gives higher toughness than the soldiers set.

Who needs to remove conditions on shout when they just disappear after a second. You boys using Soldier runes are crazy. conditions can be reapplied almost instantly, so basing them on your shouts and cooldowns doesn’t make sense

Hammer/GS for lvling. You want the GS for DPS and the Hammer for any tricky situations. Its pretty straight forward. Go Valour then honour as both these lines offer both DPS and Defence.

The only maguc button i find warriors i 1v1 is the magical respawn button. Knockdown/stu hundred blades only work in noobs.