Guild Wars 2

@Blutkrieg
The links to GW2Builder rarely work, you should try and use Guildhead, they are much more reliable.

I really like Condition Damage builds. Its quite easy to gear for, and the Burn condition is quite easy to stack up duration, so even when you are knocked back, or controled in some way, you are still damaging the mob. The damage is very substantial if you trait correctly for it, and can work with several types of builds including Spirit Weapons if that is your thing.

Please do not give Guardians a ranged option outside of the Scepter. We are a very strong class that most people just need to learn how to play properly, or play the class they really want to play.

Forgot to mention in my last post about the trait Selfless Daring. This will add a ~700 point heal to you, and nearby allies each time you dodge roll, and with the trait Vigorous Precision which gives you the Vigor boon each time you crit, you can dodge roll quite often, even with a low crit chance.

Ghaz has a great build there, I may take 5 points out of Radiance and put them into Virtues. This will give you some extra boons to throw around for extra healing from Altruistic Healing.

Another very defensive build I have been playing around with is the Monk’s Focus build. Stack up Meditations, and specialize in symbols through the Honor line.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#MVcczV0MmrnTmMavGm0VxxVzabcak

I have a Mace and Focus in that link, but you can quite easily use a Greatsword if that is your thing. You will loose the extra Regeneration boon if you do this though. The important thing to remember is that whatever weapon you use, it will need to have a short cooldown symbol. With enough Healing gear you will get about 700 health/sec and heal for about 2.5k per Meditation. With the 20% reduction to meditation skill cooldowns you are looking at about 6 Meditations per minutes, that is about 15,000 health per minute from Meditations, and about 27,000 health per minute from your Symbol, Regeneration, and Virtue of Resolve for a grand total of 42,000 healing per minute. This assumes you can maintain your Symbol and Regeneration healing at 50% upkeep which is very possible. You can also increase the healing if you take Renewed Focus, pop Virtue of Resolve for the instant heal, then pop your elite to refresh the cooldown of the Virtue.

Fredlicious.7523:

I want to end by stopping trying to sell my build and simply giving a minor critique on yours. If you want to run a solo Shout build, I would think you would be better served by dropping the 10 points in Radiance (without the Sword/Greatsword and without Renewed Justice, you aren’t going to apply that many blinds, and Vulnerability only adds 1% damage per stack) and putting them into Virtues (you’ll gain 1% damage for each boon you have, likely amounting to more damage than the aforementioned Vulnerability, as well as 10% increased boon duration and a likely more useful major trait).

Great post by Fred! I just wanted to give a thumbs up to some very good and solid information. There are a lot of posts around here from people that are talking out of their behinds. Even though he approximated some of his numbers the points are vaild, you can take this information to the bank.

Did not read all the responces .. don’t care too.

I think the bottom line here is that MMO companies these days are under a lot of pressure to “Do the right thing.” What the right thing is, is dependent upon the individual. While you may hate the changes being made, I believe there are hundreds of thousands of people that do not visit these forums that feel otherwise. This rings true for most game changes to most games out there. The minority yells the loudest while the rest of us learn to live with the changes. It may not be a perfect world, but I challenge you to find one that is.

If you are attempting to focus on “tanking” and you like the Mace, then I would highly suggest you go 20 points into the Honor line and pick up Wirt of the Merciful.

Level 40 Build Link:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McccMM9MmavGmmavGm0V0GVMa

Do your best to stack Healing/Vitality/Toughness in that order. Cleric’s armor is a great crafted set you can pick up from the Trading Post at level 71. Until then you can just get the best Healing/Vitality/Toughness gear you can find.

Keep in mind this will leave you with very little offense, but you will be able to take quite a beating.

By level 60 you should focus your traits lines towards the trait Altruistic Healing. With a proper amount of +Healing gear this should heal you for about 100-150 per boon effect on you and allies. As an example the skill “Hold the Line!” will put 2 boons on you and your group. That is a total of 10 boons ever 28 seconds (with the 20% Shout duration trait). This will heal you for about 1500 health.

Level 65 Altruistic Healing Build Link:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McccMM9MmavGmmavGm9MxG0VsqMa

Inspired Virtue is also a key trait in a Altruistic Healing build. This combined with the elite skill Renewed Focus will give you a pretty nice bump in healing and give your group some extra Might/Regen/Protection/Aegis boons as well!

The other option is to go for a Meditation build. This will heal you for quite a lot more than the Altruistic Healing build, and your group will not receive nearly as many boons. The key trait in a Meditation build is Monk’s Focus, which is located 30 points into the Valor line. Each Meditation cast will heal you for about 2000 health.

Level 65 Meditation Build Link:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McccMM9MmavGmmavGm9MxGVzaboa

There was a developer post about this. It seems that the graphics are related to the size of the character casting it. The actual effected radius is the same. The only fix that needs to be changed is the graphical effect. Either big or small, they both effect the exact same area.

Draknar.5748:

Blocking damage is the only way you can successfully stand against strong foes.

Don’t forget about Blind. You can easily add in several blinds to help between Aegis cooldowns.

Sword skill #2 (Flashing Blade) adds a blind every 10 seconds, also you can put 5 points into the Radiance line to blind all nearby enemies everytime you activate Virtue of Justice, which is another reason to take Renewed Focus as your elite skill.

Great find!

I have been running a solo PvE condition damage build for a few days and never noticed it. I do focus mostly on the re-application of the Burn Condition, and of course condition damage rather than the actual duration, which is likely why I never noticed there was an issue.

They should alter the condition damage from “ticks” to something more fluid. Prehaps set it up to produce the damage every 10th of a second, this way even fractional increases to damage duration would be benefical.

Zsymon.8457:

My complaint with these two abilities is mostly the complete uselessness of activating them. The heal on Virtue of Resolve is so incredibly tiny, that I don’t think anyone will ever activate this virtue, especially if you traited for Battle Presence, which makes the small regen of this virtue an aoe. Not only is the heal so incredibly tiny that it’s useless even on a short cooldown, but it causes you to lose regen for one whole minute.

I have run through quite a few Guardian builds since release, and all of them include putting 5 points into Virtues for the trait Inspired Virtue. I find the additional boons make up for any lost passive time on these traits quite well, and in a pinch they can really save your behind.

Zsymon.8457:

My complaint with Virtue of Courage is similar, the cooldown is 90 seconds, what value is there in a single block with a 90 second recharge? Some crossfire arrow takes the block and what use was that?

I ran an offensive condition damage build that included Spirit Weapons at one point which used Blinds, and Aegis as my only form of defense. It works surprizingly well. I could take on a Veteran level mob and never take a single point of damage utilizing blinds and aegis on cooldown, and using Renewed Focus once. The extra blocks from Virtue of Courage played a very large role in this.

Zsymon.8457:

1. The heal for Resolve needs to be increased dramatically, along with a shorter cooldown.

2. The cooldown for Courage needs to be dramatically shortened as well.

I agree that a shorter cooldown on Virtues would be beneficial to the Guardian class, but I fear it may be considered overpowered to those of us that run a purely defensive build. Prehaps they could add a trait deep into one of the more offensive lines that could reduce the cooldown on Virtues by like 20% or something.

Zsymon.8457:

In general though, I don’t understand how these virtues in any way offset the guardian’s lowest-possible health pool status. The moment you spec any other build than purely defensive, at which you will never be able to defeat any lone opponent, you die at the force of a sneeze.

As stated above, you can run a purely offensive build, and still focus on Blinds and a few extra Aegis boons and still get through some rather tough fights without taking more than a few scratches. The Guardian was built to be able to defend him/herself through skills, while a Warrior is more built towards just taking the hits and surviving by sheer numbers.

Zsymon.8457:

Even if you trait to give additional boons to activated virtues, these insanely long cooldowns just don’t make it worth it.

I find this untrue. The boons you can get from activating the Virtues can help immensly if you find yourself near death at the end of a fight. Also don’t forget that you also give those boons to your entire group when you activate your Virtues, which not only helps everyone, but can also heal you for quite a lot. This can also be used to give you a significant self-heal if you trait into Altruistic Healing. (3 boons x 5 people =15 boons, which is something like a 1500 point base heal)

Zsymon.8457:

What is the idea behind giving a soldier profession such a low health pool, especially since guardians have no ranged options?

No ranged options + lowest health pool + insane melee damage = bad idea.

Were defensive guardians too hard to kill with a warrior-type health pool? Why is that overpowered if they can’t kill anyone either then?

A guardian must place all possible stat points into vitality just to reach the warrior’s base health pool, while the warrior can place all those points in toughness or offensive stats.

The Warrior vs. Guardian health pool is a rather hot topic at the moment. Many (including yourself) feel that the Guardian health pool is far too low. I (and many others) feel that the defenses you can get even when you are running an offensive build can make up for the lack of health. As I stated above I ran a Spirit Weapon + Condition Damage build which did quite a lot of damage, but was also able to maintain a solid defense through the use of Blinds and Aegis.

Yes it does convert all conditions suffered into their corresponding boon.

Here is a link to the GW2 Wiki site that shows what boons are granted from what conditions.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

Rainydays.5368:

okay, so Aegis lasts for what… 9 hours I think? You can’t have a buff like that stack. Just keep hitting the virtue on cooldown. 90 sec.. you have 9 hours to stack a ridiculous amount and go solo a Dragon. Something like that happened in WoW vanilla a long time ago. I can’t remember what the skill was, but Pallies had a way to keep stacking a damage multiplyer type of buff. And there were (maybe still are) videos of pallies killing Lord Kazzak (big bad world boss) in 1 hit of an auto attack.

It was called Reckoning. Everytime the Paladin received a critical hit he would return with an additional hit on his auto-attack. There was however a bug that would cause the paladin to save up the extra hits if he/she did not have auto-attack turned on. There was a YouTube video of a paladin that had a dual weilding rogue with a very high crit chance attack him for a very long time and built up hundreds of additional attacks. The paladin in question then went into a raid dungeon and one shotted the final boss. It was quite funny, but was very quickly nerfed after that.

Not that it matters here .. just thought I would share.

Kidel.2057:

In dungeons the guardian can only be a supporter. Any warrior with a guardian buffing him/her is better then any guardian at tanking.

Double hp and personal buffs. Guadian buffs are aoe.

While I agree that this strategy could work quite well, saying that the Guardian can only be a supporter in dungeons is just ignorant. With either Monk’s Focus, or Alturistic Healing the Guardian has a significant advantage in melee combat to soak up damage. Don’t get me wrong, anyone who just stands there and takes a beating should, and will die, but with the right tools the damage you take between dodge rolling and aegis/blind effects will be mostly negated with the right setup. It does not matter that we have significantly less HP than Warriors because of this.

I played with a Warrior quite a bit while I was leveling up. He was mostly melee focused at the time. I would trait support and we would both control(tank) while our group did their best to stay out of harms way. Later on he switched his main to a ranger and I switched my traits to a Monk’s Focus build. I ran a Mace/Focus build that focused on Blinds and Aegis with the Monk’s Focus trait and loaded up 3 meditation skills. (0/5/30/30/5). I could nearly maintain Regeneration, and with my Passive Virtue of Resolve, and Writ of the Merciful I was healing about 700/sec to myself and my group. Add in the 2k heals each time I used a meditation, and healing for about 1200 each time I dodge rolled (which was augmented by the trait Vigorous Percision).

Anyhow this is just one of many different Guardian defensive builds that could be used as a mob control spec. There is no reason to spread misinformation about the class just because you may not enjoy it.

Ynna.8769:

@Kindread: That’s rubbish, in my opinion. Guardian’s weren’t designed to be melee-only. If we were we would have seen vastly different skills on Scepter and Staff and the devs wouldn’t have come out somewhere in Beta saying that Guardian’s were indeed rather useless at range (and then gave a rather meaningless range buff).
And Guardians have an easier time doing support or control, but that doesn’t mean they should be pigeon-holed into that role. The design-intent of GW2 was that each profession could do anything.

So what you are saying is that you want every class to be the exact same, except with a different cosmetic skin? Personally, I enjoy being an individual, and I think most people do as well! Guardians are a Support/Control class that has an option to put out some DPS. As far as being “pigeon-holed” into any type of role, the developers have stated that Melee classes do far superior damage to that of ranged classes. This is an intentional design because of all the defensive traits/skills required to survive in melee range that the numbers even out in the process. I have also yet to discover a class that could not fill the role of support, control, or DPS to some extent, though none of them are the best at all 3. Most classes just seem to excel at 1, do very good at another, and fall slightly behind at the 3rd … I call that good balance, and a good way to create individuality between the various classes.

Guardians will never see the use of Bows, Rifles, or Pistols. The class was centered around being a melee type that has many defensive utilities to keep itself alive. If you do not enjoy playing a support/control class, please just move on and stop asking for this junk.

I truely hope that Anet does not streamline all the classes. I enjoy being unique as a Guardian. I have to find other methods of staying alive, and dealing damage. If I wanted to run around with 23k health and critting for 13k then I would have rolled a Warrior.

As far as only have 1 condition, it just so happens to be pretty much the most potent condition in the game … so no complaints there.

I have not yet been one shotted in PvP, in fact it takes quite a lot to take down my defensive Guardian. As for DPS I focus on Crit and Condition Damage and can put out some nice consistant numbers. I have always enjoyed sustainted DPS over burst DPS.

Again, please please please do not make each class a clone of the other … just because Warriors wear plate and can use a Greatsword does not mean that Guardians should be able to preform the EXACT same way they do … Think outside of the box a bit and you will learn how to make it work for you.

Burning is one of the most common conditions in the game to be inflicted with. If you know you are going into an area that will use this condition against you often, then you would be wise to adjust your traits accordingly.

I consider this an advanced trait. Mainly becuase you need to already know the content you are going into before you use it. I do however agree that the wording in the tooltip for Zealot’s Flame does make it sound like it would grant the effect from the trait Inner Fire … but alas, it does not.

I like the guardians support and survival but worry about what area they get forced into specializing when it comes to more structured play. I also am at times a bit dissapointed with the more minimal damage output.

I like the rangers theme, acrobatics and versatility. I do however question what the real point is of the profession and with that lack of identity I have perceived where do they fit into more structured play? I also have some issues with pets and pet mechanics.

I play a Guardian, and my friend plays a Ranger. We group up quite often and know each others playstyles quite well. We compliment each other in many different ways including Boons, Conditions, ranged damage, and melee damage.

One thing I noted about your post was that you believe rangers to be more acrobatic than Guardian. This is false. While soloing, yes maybe … but in a group the Guardian must be significantly more mobile than the Ranger. Melee is a dangerous place to be in this game unless you are on your toes.

As far as overall damage is concerned. We have tried a few different builds together, when we matched up as a 2 man DPS team it seemed I was out damaging him by quite a lot when I stacked condition damage and played a Burn spec. Also as far as being pigeonholed into a specific role as a Guardian, this is just not true, and if you are with a group that expects you to “tank” just because you are a Guardian, then you are better off without them. This game has so many options on how to control mobs, unless you WANT to tank, you don’t have too. In fact Necromancers have more mob control than Guardians do!

Shillen.1723:

Do you miss waiting 2 hours shouting “looking for tank” also? How people forget the bad parts…

Nope, I always played the tank

You may want to consider using a Mace/Focus. While the shield has a nice knockback, and if traited, gives you some extra toughness, the Focus will allow you to AoE blind, AoE Regen, and give you a shield that will deflect 3 attacks.

Also do not forget the Sword, it has a Blind attack on a 10 second cooldown, which when combined with multiple Aegis boons can give you a lot of defensive power.

I personally go with a Vitality/Toughness/Condition Damage build, but I can see using Healing instead to great purpose.

I played around with the Greatsword for a little while, then I found the Sword/Torch combo.

You get a teleport, Zealot’s Defense (a 600 range sword attack that does very substantial damage), and Cleansing Flame (a cone AoE attack that also does amazing damage. There is also Zealot’s Flame which puts the Burn condition on enemies around you, and you can throw it for more spiky damage.

All in all, the Sword/Torch combo just feels like it does more damage, and with the teleport, I do not miss the Greatswords Leap of Faith ability.

I use my Virtues nearly every fight, so I usually pop Renewed Focus practically on cooldown.

I like Tome of Courage, but feels it hinders my playstyle a bit. I suppose if I spent more time with it, it may become smoother, but I have become accustomed to using Renewed Focus and it works quite well with my build.

I do wish you could use Renewed Focus on the move, but being immune to all damage while you are casting it is quite nice.

I already tank for groups as a Guardian.

What is a tank? It is a person who stops the mobs from attacking other people, and is able to soak/absorb the damage that the mob is putting out.

With Walls, and Barriers you can prohibit mob movement quite effectively. With the Aegis Boon, and Blind Condition you can absorb quite a lot of damage. Focusing on specific skills such as Aegis and Blind in your traits, and gearing up for Toughness and Vitality you are in effect, a tank.

Weapon swap to a Hammer, or a Staff will give you the ability to prohibit mob movement. You can think of this as a type of “taunt” because if the mob cannot get to its target, it will turn and attack you instead.

Healers in general are still around too, they just take on different forms. Any class that can remove conditions, toss out the Regeneration Boon, and Blind Condition will significantly negate a large amount of damage done to the “tank” or anyone else for that matter.

When zerging an instance with a PUG of people that all want to just spam their abilities, you will graveyard zerg over and over. But if you have 1 or 2 people that understand how mob control works things go SO much smoother.

I use a Staff on weapon swap in PvE all the time. I only really use Empower and Line of Warding. The 12 stacks of Might you give to your group and yourself is amazing, and on a short 20 second cooldown, it becomes even better! I also use the Line of Warding to help break up pulls and block mobs in hallways/doors. As for the Staff auto-attack and the Orb of Light .. I would prefer to switch back to my main weapon.

It’s all about how comfortable you are playing a given class. My friend plays a Warrior and feels the same way about his class. His wifes plays a Necromancer and can just steamroll through content. I play a Guardian and completly agree with you, when you pair up your skills correctly, and use your defenses at the right time you are practically unkillable.

If you are going for the Burn condition for your primary damage source, then I would highly suggest you take A Fire Inside. This will cause all damage done by your Spirit weapons to inflict the Burn Condition. With the trait Eternal Spirit, which make it so you can use the Command skill from your Spirit Weapons without destroying them, you can do some serious AoE, and Single target damage by spamming them as they come up.

Here is a sample build focused around Condition Damage, and Spirit Weapons. It also has a focus on Blind, and Aegis for better mob control and defense.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mccoz9MMMmMwmmmMwmGG0aaoaoRzV

Notice I took the Heroic Skill: Renewed Focus. This is for better Virtue management, as you will/should be using your Virtues quite often to make use of the additional Aegis from Virtue of Courage. I also took the trait: Inspired Virtue, which will grant your group a Boon depending on which Virtue you used.

Justice: Might
Resolve: Regeneration
Courage: Protection

This build requires a great deal of Condition Damage, but also quite a lot of Vitality, and Toughness as you will be taking some hits between Blind and Aegis cooldowns. You have a total of 4 different Aegis boons available per 60 seconds, and 12 Blind effects per minutes, 6 of which are AoE. If you time your Aegis and Blinds right you should rarely take damage unless it is not effected by Aegis and Blind (such as ground AoEs).

Also note the trait: Wraithful Spirit, which grants you the Retaliation boon whenevery Aegis ends. This Retaliation boon lasts for 6 seconds, and if you are being attacked frequently enough you can keep this boon up on you up to 30% of the time (4×5=20 seconds every 60 seconds).

Keep in mind also that everytime you afflict your target with Blind it will also put Vulnerability on them, which decreases their defense and stacks in intensity. Pair up with a Warrior that is also spamming Vulnerability on the same mob and you can quickly reduce their defenses to practically nothing.

I took the Sword for the Flashing Blade skill (1 blind / 10 seconds) and its ability to attack from ranged, and teleport to mobs. I took the Focus for the offhand for the AoE blind every 25 seconds, for the AoE Regeneration boon, and the great shield effect (blocks 3 attacks every 45 seconds and explodes when it expires).

The Bow of Truth is optional, but I like the Condition removal, and with the trait: Eternal Spirit you can toss out a bit of healing with it. I interchange this with the Shield of the Avenger for the great AoE Weakness condition.

Reihert.1509:

Dont you dare to tell me that wow has pretty gear.
It is just reskinned content with different collorrs in it.

Anyways, pvp in gw2 is more about skills and looks tham’gear.

Have not really played WoW PvP since vanilla, and back in the day they had unique armor skins. Not all were “pretty” but at least they were not recolored skins from PvE content.

Didnt read all the responces because I am lazy and at work.

Dont tab target, you can lock onto mobs by looking at them and using a skill. There are times you will have to clear your target and take another one, but most of the time the auto-targetting works quite well.

Also skills in GW2 all have a very specific area of effect. What this means is that even if you have some dude 50 yards away targetted, when you hit auto-attack or another skill (with the exception of a few such as a Charge) you will hit whatever is directly in front of you.

Garrix.7036:

Titles, ranks, pretty gear, PvP legendaries, kitten. If you open your character screen and go down to PvP (the screen that let’s you go to heart of the mists), there’s a bar that shows your current PvP rank.

This and more.

The current system of WvW we have in GW2 will give your server specific benefits depending on how well you are doing. It does not seem as vital to keep up the battle as in DAoC (where you actually had shift work with your fellow realm mates to make sure there were no midnight raids on your keeps by an opposing realm). I do hope that they someday increase the magnitude of importance to WvW.

GW2 has similar PvP rewards to that which WoW had (never played LoL so I cannot speak for it) You get unique looking gear with PvP specific stats, and other things that Garrix mentioned. I suspect NCSoft to add to this system in the near future .. maybe sometime around christmas we’ll see a nice PvE and PvP content patch.

Same here.

Got the e-mail at 6:30am this morning (9/10/2012), about 2 hours shy of 6 days.

Gotta come down with a sudden and violent cold now so I can leave work and go play!!

Sky.7610:

I just got hacked today, how long do I have to wait? o.O

Do I get all my stuff back?

Sky,

I wouldnt hold your breath, there are people reporting they have been waiting for 12 days .. I myself have been in the queue for 6 days.

Depending on the type of hack that happened to you, you may or may not have all your items/characters intact. If you were banned for selling in game gold/items then chances are your gear, bank, and money were all salvaged and sent to a gold farmers account. The good news is that it does not look like they are actually deleting the characters, just stripping them and hoping that you build up your toon again without taking security measures so they can take all your stuff again in a few weeks … get some good virus protection, change you e-mail address and create a unique password for GW2.

512-225-6359

There ya go Kuros, good luck!

From what I can gather from watching the forums here is that, Yes, they are working this weekend, though they may have a smaller weekend staff, I do not know.

Just an FYI tho, it’s been stated many times that they frown on people making more than 1 ticket for a single issue. There are instruction in the support section of this site to close tickets. Chances are they will get to you faster if you follow their instructions.

I do not mean to be negative, but this wait is getting a bit ridiculous. NCSoft requested specific information from me to process the support ticket I put in 6 days ago. Besides an automated response from someone named “Lance” which did no good, I have not heard anything. I understand there are several thousand tickets to be processed, but a simple verification check is really all that is needed. There is no reason at all that I should not be able to just give them the name I registered to the account, my GW2 Serial #, my character name, account name, and e-mail address and then have my account unlocked.

6 day ban for a keylogger that hacked my account, this should not happen.

Playing the Skyrim expansion at the moment to pass the time.

Sorry about the delay in replies .. my account was hacked and banned .. awaiting customer service to respond now

Psiborg: Yes the setup I have is more offensive based than many I have seen, but it is offset with the ability to spam blind, and aegis fairly quickly. You can also AoE blind 4 times a minute when you need to deal with groups. I gain sustainability from rapid burn damage, the ability to use my virtues much more often, and to a great effect, and from additional Blind/Aegis effects. You do really need to stack a lot of conditional damage gear to make it truly effective, but can not neglect your tough/vit. Afterall, we are a melee class and do occasionally take damage.

Qelris: I agree with you that the Symbol of Faith skill from the Mace weapon is very nice to have. There are several times in dungeons, or world events that people get down to <10% health. With their heal on cooldown there is no other option but to back up and be useless for a while until they can either heal again, or regen slowly. Dropping regen symbols around on the melee will help in the long run, specially when people are grouped up. Its a great skill, but Psiborg is right, there is no way it will heal enough to offset the damage you will take if you just stand there.
Hope fully I will have my account back soon so I can attempt to make a video. I am not level 80 yet either, but I have all the necessary traits and gear to make it effective.
The range on Blinding Flash is 900, which is generally far enough to stand outside of the AoEs and still hit your target. It was not meant to be a long distance ranged attack, but to give the player just enough room to avoid hits/spells while still being an effective group member. I do agree with you that the Swords auto-attack is kitteny, but the other skills (for me anyhow) far outweigh it. Zealot’s Defense is an amazing skill, likely one of the best sword skills. This allows you to block all attacks for 3 seconds while you channel this skill. It does some pretty amazing damage, and is castable at 600 range, again, not too far, but generally far enough to be outside of an AoE, or power attack from a boss, and still hit them. I like the Torch for the additional burn damage, and the group condition remover, but I can totally see switching it out for a shield, the knockback is great, and with the right traits, you can add quite a bit to your survivability.

Ralcore: I love the staff, primarly for the Line of Warding skill, but also for the Empower skill. The Might boon you and your group get from the Empower skill stacks like 12 times, lasts for about 8 seconds(i think), heals for a good chunk, has a 600 range, and increases damage by a LOT, its quite insane. I have been trying to master the art of weapon switching between my Sword and Torch, to the Staff for those 2 skills, but it takes some practice to get really good at it. I will get there tho! As far as the Greatsword goes, I spent some time with that weapon as well, I really enjoyed the gap closing abilities, and the massive AoE damage that it can put out. It also has an AoE Blind on a 20 second cooldown, which IMO is one of its most impressive traits. Being able to put out very sustainable damage, and help with party support with an additional blind effect is just amazing. In the end though I still decided to stick with the Sword for the ranged attacks, and the torch for the Burn conditions and the group condition remover.

Wish me luck with the customer support .. the support forums are not pretty

I was accused for buying/selling in game items/gold, which is a false accusation.
I received an e-mail from “Lance” which did no good, because my e-mail and password are still good, though I did change my password recently to enhance security.

Subject: Hacked Account
Ticket Reference#: 120905-000964
Date Created: 09/04/2012

I grabbed one once while I was looting after a big world event, I was so involved with what was going on around me (it was after combat) that I did not realize I had even grabbed it! Then some warrior comes running up to me yelling at me saying I stole it, and to give it back. LOL was prettykittenfunny

Masterpyro.4310:

You can use programmable buttons on your keyboard to bind skills together or whatever, the only stipulation is that you have to be behind the keyboard pushing the buttons. You can’t let it sit over night or whatever autoattacking a mob spawn.

This.

Qelris.6901:

I meant the active burning on you, not when you throw it. How far are things hit if you don’t throw it?

Its a very small range, I have not tested it extensively yet, but it seems to only hit things I am directly next too.

Qelris.6901:

Is the bubble a second effect to the command or is it casted by itself?

The bubble is the primary effect. It seems to fire off every 15 seconds give or take a few, and the bubble lasts about 4-6 seconds

I have a programmable keyboard, the Logitech G11. I used the programmable keys in SWTOR, and WOW constantly, and when I started playing GW2 I setup a few macro keys, but quickly realized that the skills in this game require far to much attention to be left to a macro. You really should not limit your playing ability by utilizing a macro, it will only develop bad playing habits, better to get use to the keys as they are, before you know it, it will be second nature to reach across the keyboard and hit those far away 7 to 10 keys.

Zealot’s Flame is a 1200 range skill, so it can be thrown quite far. Honestly I usually end up throwing it, even when in melee range for the burst damage, but when 2-3 mobs are around me it seems better to leave it up for it’s duration for the additional AoE burn damage.

Cleansing Flame does NOT remove conditions on yourself. When in a group I usually strafe around the mob I am facing and try to get 1-2 group members inside the flame. You can also run into the midst of your group, cast Cleansing Flame and spin around very quickly to hit everyone. This skill will only remove 1 condition from each ally.

Sword of Justice deals somewhat decent damage when traited, but the big bonus is its command ability. It deals burst damage in an AoE around it’s location. Combine this with the trait A Fire Inside, which puts the Burn condition on everything that the spirit weapons hit, and you just boosted your damage significantly … assuming you are running a condition damage build (which I do). The shield is mostly for inflecting AoE Weakness (50% reduced damage on non-crit) it’s other effect is to put a bubble up which stops projectiles from entering, somewhat handy, but situational.

I have not timed the attacks of the Sword of Justice .. a good idea which I will have to do .. but it seems to swing fairly often, slightly slower than your auto attack it seems. The command ability is active every 15 seconds.

I have never made a video before, I will try to find out what I need and get something on Youtube this weekend if I have time. I think the problem here is that you really need to get the feel of when to cast what yourself, it would be hard to show you because it is more feel than a set rotation. When you Aegis is down, you can pop a blind, or another Aegis. You can also pop a Protection boon, or even Shelter if you are out of other options. Maybe I will do a commentary of sorts and try to explain as the video is going.

Qelris.6901:

I’ve been struggling with my build. Still trying to figure out what I want before I do my first AC Exploration. I’ve read about it a bit, a guide, and then couple of whinings here and there. I’ve seen a video of the beginning(also assuming it just get worst as you progress) and now I just don’t know what I want anymore..

I have also been looking around YouTube for any Guardian videos, there are very few that actually show how to utilize defensive skills, which is KEY to survival in melee range. You have to juggle specific skills such as Aegis, and Blind if you want to play a melee support role in groups.

Qelris.6901:

For my weapon, my main issue is getting rid of Symbol of Faith(I don’t want to lose the regen from it), I want to keep that, but meleeing with a mace seems not possible.. I also want to keep my shield for Shield of Absorption. I’ve been looking at sword skills ever since I’ve first seen this topic. I’m totally lost about what I want..

I had the same issue when I dropped the Mace for a Sword. Symbol of Faith is a great tool for self, AND group regen. Also the Protector’s Strike is just awesome when in a group of melee players. The bottom line for me is that the Blind effect from the Flashing Blade skill from Sword is just too good to pass up. Also being able to attack from a decent range is vital for survival when you need to back up for a heal, or when you can’t get to the boss and need to keep burning it down. The Mace, unfortunately, has no ranged attacks. I tried a Shield for a short while, but soon realized that the protection it provides (unless traited) is primary against ranged attacks, which is still nice, but not great. Also the heal effect from detonating the Shield of Absorption is still broken.

Qelris.6901:

What I have atm..
Mace/Shield, Shelter, Wall of Reflection, Purging Flames, Sanctuary and Tome of Courage. Everything has Toughness/Vitality on my gears.
I have both 20% CD reduction/20% duration and ground targetting for Consecration(20 virtues) and larger symbol(10 Honor). (I’m only 40)
I haven’t done anything with this build yet, other than thinking more, I stayed up late last night trying to figure about a build, ended up with the above. Also wasted most of my time today sitting there checking skills, forum and being unsure. I also have a Staff, for the swiftness to move around, since this game has no mounts, but then it takes away my scepter for ranged attacks, and I’m not a fan of staff attacks..

Using a Shield with the skill Wall of Reflection may be overkill for ranged defense, unless you are PvPing a lot against ranged attackers. In PvE you just do not need that much. Purging Flames is nice for additional Burn damage, specially if you stack condition damage gear, but is quickly overcast if you use a Torch offhand from the skill Zealot’s Flame, which not only burns targets in an AoE around you, but you can also throw the flames a good distance for some nice ranged damage. I have not tried Sanctuary yet, but from the looks of it, it does not heal for much and is primarily a tool used for CC to keep mobs away from you or others for a few seconds. Unfortunately it only lasts for a few seconds and is on a VERY long 120 second cooldown. I can not argue with Tome of Courage, its a great support heroic skill, I just prefer Renewed Focus for the few seconds of complete immunity, and the fact that it resets the cooldowns on ALL your virtues. This has come in very handy for me when I need to rapidly pop Aegis, and with 5 points into the Virtues trait line you can get the boons Might, Protection, and Regeneration for a few seconds, then pop Renewed Focus, and pop them again for a pretty decent duration.
.

I’m fine dodging heavy hits atleast, unless it’s an instant attack, which are hards to predicts.. My build is what I’m having trouble what atm..

This is my build, though please keep in mind, even though it works for me, it may not be best for everyone .. great thing about GW2 is that it seems there are many different types of builds that are viable.

My Build:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mccoc9MzMxmamMxmamGxa0aoaoRqVV

Ticket Number: 120905-000964

I finally got a response on my ticket, but it was only an automated suggestion to reset my password and increase security ….

Still waiting, almost 85 hours later

ozymandias.5317:

To those saying you die easily as melee, it really comes down to knowing your class and learning to play. This is by no means meant in the typical condescending manner in which it is used, but genuinely. GW2 is designed around being familiar with the tools at your disposal and knowing when to use them. It is impossible to ‘outgear’ anything in this game, so even as a mighty lvl 80, you can still get schooled by a lvl 10 mob.

Think the Legend of Hogger, but in a Guild Wars setting.

I agree 100% with this statement. As a Guardian it took me several days of trying out different builds and gear to find out how to stay alive in melee range. This is especially true in dungeons where even the trash mobs can kill you quite quickly!

Melee do more damage than ranged classes, this has been stated by developers. To offset this difference melee classes are required to take quite a lot more defencive skills. Even with all those defencive cooldowns you still need to know when to back out of melee and wait for your cooldowns to move back in. This is where weapon switching to a ranged weapon is vitally important.

Knowing when to weave in your shields, heals, block, and boons is also key. You need to pay attention to when a boon expires so you know when to pop your next ability. I generally use a Sword and Torch as a Guardian. The sword has several ranged options with 600-900 range, which is enough to get out of melee range and still do damage.

I too played WoW for quite a while. I played a Resto Shaman, and a Protection Paladin. I made a Guardian and honestly I don’t think I could bring myself to play any other class.

Check out the thread I just made on my defensive/Support Guardian build:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/My-Melee-Guardian-Build/first#post27416

Off-topic a bit …

I did this as well, I loved going through each newbie area. The drops are scaled to your level, and the bonus XP you get for 100% map clearing the towns and level 1-15 newbie areas is amazing!

Psiborg.2983:

But can you still provide the needed sustainability with that weapon combo? Do you gear up entirely in vit/toughness then to compensate?

And I agree with you on the sword part, I love it a lot and have been trying to find a use for it somehow while maintaining my usual role as a control/support in the group, I like the blink+blind on it a lot.

I have quite a lot of vit+toughness, but I have not entirely focused on it. For sustaining a “tank” type role I focus more on Blind, Weakness, and Aegis and just weave them. It takes some practice and I died a lot in the process of learning (I still am learning) but if done correctly you can maintain an extremly solid defence for 90% of extended fights. You just have to get use to when you pop your Virtue of Courage for the Protection boon, and the group wide Aegis. When you finally run out of Blind, or Aegis effects you can still fall back on your Shelter skill, which lets you block all attacks for 2 seconds and heals you at the end. Even weaving in Retreat is great for an additional Aegis, and Swiftness for when you need to strafe around the boss quickly and are between Aegis cooldowns.

As far as additional support/control in a group, I have been trying to use a Staff on weapon switch for the Line of Warding skill. I have yet to master it yet, but there have been many times I have been able to trap mobs behind it while we deal with the first 1 or 2 that are on our side of the line. a VERY handy skill.

Again, on the Sword topic, Blind/Blink are the primary reasons why I use the sword, but the other, as I believe I mentioned already, is that 75% of sword attacks can be used from range, and there are just far too many times that a boss mob will move to an area you can not get too, or casts an AoE spell that will kill you outright if you stay in it. Just back up, toss a few ranged attacks, then move back in. This is another reason why I like the Torch, as Cleansing Flame has a pretty decent range as well!

I am not sure about this … but you may need to spend a but more time with each class than you have.

The necromancer for one is an amazingly powerful class! My good friend plays one with me quite often and she is rocking! She built a more support/defensive Necro focusing on condition removal (becomes a big deal once you start entering dungeons and WvW) and life taps to keep herself alive. She does decent damage and is such a powerful group member that many times if she has to leave the group for some reason, we just can not continue. Mob control, Condition Removal, and Damage … it is just an amazing class! She does not use pets very often, so I can not really comment on them.

Another good friend of mine plays a warrior. We pair extremly well together (I play a Guardian) We’ll bounce aggro back and forth on boss mobs depending on our defensive cooldowns. Using a Hammer he can keep a Mob CC’d very well. He usually has a weapon switch with a rifle for those times that he has to back out. Warriors are very big damage dealing classes with a little bit of utility, I would almost describe them as glass cannons when their defensive cooldowns are down.

The only other class I play with often is an Elementalist, which my wife plays. This class has some amazing utility, and takes a while to master. There are many spell combos to discover which require you to switch between the elemental stances. The healing effects from her water spells have saved the day more than once too. Decent damage, but nothing really to write home about. She uses dual daggers primarly, but in dungeons usually switches to a staff for added range.