Guild Wars 2

As something a bit off topic… I’d like to mention that for a small amount of karma, you can buy WvW karma vendor blues that come with shoulders, gloves and helmets for the level 2. You can then get the look you’ve always wanted…

1. Maybe not peak time/not a lot of teams at the moment; that is how you get matched up against top teams, e.g. Deku God/Backpack/K Pz (either decent/completely lopsided)… though at the time I was sitting around 400 in Team with top 100 people in party… Try Solo queue. Around 3-5 minute pops.

2. I’m sure you’re concluding from a small sample size. When you’ve played a few hundred games, you’ve seen it all (maybe my horizons can still be broadened). Think I’ve seen things like Rifle/Longbow Warriors, 3 Strength Rune Staff Spirit Guards, Double Power Necro + Killshot Warrior, 5 Eles, 4 Thieves…

3. Blaming other people means you don’t have to recognise your own faults. It’s a convenient ego-saving strategy and you should pay no heed.

Don’t listen to them. If they are a team they can work around you and adjust to your strategy. When my party of 3 plays Team queue, we don’t dog the other two about their performance in the game. If we get shiet on, we don’t say anything. Clearly knowing why we lost is more important to us than finding scapegoats.

If you are P/D, you can decap far/kill the bunker/force them to 2v1 you quite easily. Tell people what you want and do what you are good at.

You don’t want unbalanced matches – but hotjoin -is- severely unbalanced. You said Anet promises but deliver the opposite – and you then say they do give a kitten. That was why I was asking – I wasn’t sure what your intended meanings were.

I understand your desire to remove the reward cap – but I am of the opinion that it will never happen with the direction Anet is taking. Thus, I have tried to convince you that going with what they had in mind would be more fun – and rewarding – in the long run. However, I can’t change opinion in an argument without convincing, scientific evidence that proves me right, and I’ve been foolish in riling you up. If I’ve upset you, I apologise. You did give me your time in replies after all.

Maybe you have more positivity than I do. I guess one can dream; and one can then succeed.

dank.3680:

Make it slower to progress in hotjoins.

Anything, just remove this ridiculous lock so I can progress and earn the things I want (its still slow anyways) while playing the way I want.

BTW- You can ALREADY get WAY HIGHER rewards through MORE CASUAL play such as boss farming which just got way easier.. So much for that argument.

Oh btw when you are soloQ, you know solo. There are 4 other people who help determine that win/loss.. If you are with 4 people who wont work with you, you aren’t going to win.

Discerning what you want is amusing.

Then you are forcing non-fun on yourself by choosing to go with a game mode that doesn’t reward you as much. What is it you want? Do you want to PvP for the rewards or just PvP for fun? Or do you PvP for progress? So you want both and you’d even slow down progress on the track just so you can feel like you’re earning progress throughout the day?

I’d like to remind you that before this patch, the more you PvP you only get to PvP in prettier clothes. Did you find hotjoin amazing then? Or did the rewards make hotjoin amazing?

I guess you just want increased rewards for minimal effort invested. Fair enough… but I doubt that’s what Anet wants for their tiny PvP community. They made Solo queue and Team queue more rewarding for a reason. PvP is competitive by nature and if they want it to thrive or at least not die out, they will encourage people to dive into the deep end. Some new players are willing to learn and attend informal tutorial workshops and they read up on how to play conquest. They take the flak that the condescending veterans throw at them and keep going. More effort, more rewards. They are putting out that effort.

You seem to be nitpicking the definition that Anet provided for the reward capping. The reality remains that no matter who you are, Anet gives no flying kittens about what you want. People have suggested fixes, trait rework, skill revamps, map removals… and Anet always come up with their own ideas.

Some aspects of solo queue would play out the same as hotjoin – if you have players that won’t work with you, you won’t win either. What does hotjoin offer that Solo queue doesn’t? The ability to leave game and switch sides when the game’s not in your favour? You seem awfully adamant on staying away from other aspects of PvP. Higher up in Solo queue, people try and play to win and your concerns of leaving and afk’ing should be alleviated. Too much hotjoin can be bad for morale. Work your way up the ladder and the action gets better.

TL;DR You want more stuff for less. We’ve all been there. Stand in line. Deal with it.

If the lock is removed the only thing this will do is encourage more people to afk autorun into wall after capping a point and wait for endgame reward.
You have any good suggestions to prevent this from happening?
Rewarded by playing the parts of the game they enjoy huh. You -are- rewarded. Just not to the extent that you want to.
Think it’s a bit different in an MMO. You can mod and cheat in single player offline games, but in an MMO achievements should come with effort. With effort → achievement → comparison with peers → superiority → enjoyment as your primary concern. Can’t skip straight to enjoyment for free. If I can just get the best stuff in game by casual play, then everyone will have everything and no one will be playing this.

You can say what you want and call names and defend your claim. But I don’t think your demands will go anywhere. Have fun.

“soloq material”. Oooooh. popcorn
Don’t talk down to people. One day, that newbie you sneered at could make MLG.

This was before the Consecrated Ground bugfix.
500-499 Khylo
At around 485-486 we had 1 neut 1 point each. We stomped everyone on mid point but a bomb bunker Engi refused to die at mid and we just lost treb. My Sanctuary came off CD and I cast it such that he would be caught between the bubble and one of the ledges on the Clocktower point. He was bounced off point, we got the decap just in time at 499, and we had someone down at home where we have the point, but we stalled those 4 seconds and made a comeback.
Was the first game a friend played with us after he joined our little PvP guild and he said it was the “BEST GAME EVER”.

So give us some specifics and what you think should be done to balance this class you think is strong.
We’d love some constructive feedback that seem reasonable and won’t be vulnerable to extreme amounts of flak ranging from “warrior is fine” to “warrior needs to get nerfed on everything” to personal attacks.

Ran a much less effective build I cobbled together myself.
It had Krait runes and Sigil of Doom along with Deep Cuts, and I focused on roaming sides because I didn’t have the teamfight utility I wanted.
Thank you Zone for posting this build; I’ve seen you with it before and it’s undeniably effective. Not a lot of people run it though…

They made solo and team queue inaccessible for a few reasons, among them:

1.Trash leaderboards + queue system that screw with newcomers
2. Veteran players with condescending attitude (“thats why you guys should go back to PvE you suck”) that screw with newcomers
3. Removal of hotjoin 8v8 which made ragequitting a larger problem and screw with newcomers
4. Skyhammer that screw with all of us
5. Rated queues: afk/casuals with attitude (“shutup i got more pts than u you can’t say anything lolol” or “i got legendary im better than u so”) that screws with tryhards
6. Single disappointing and boring gamemode (well, there’s courtyard now…)

With the above factors it made hotjoin less fun and pushed newcomers and casuals towards a game mode that comes with a very discouraging atmosphere (the rated queues). The fault could be on both sides. This is because the small GW2 PvP population:

1. Does not form guilds like Academy of the Mists that encourage newcomers and provide guidance
2. Is not willing to learn about conquest
3. Is not willing to do research about standard builds, playstyles and keybinding (you can be “hardcore casual” about the game by learning more)
4. Is elitist and snobbish and talks down to newcomers but only say l2p and don’t teach
5. Can’t take any criticism and rage back before thinking through
6. See rewards as the ultimate goal of PvP

In the end, PvP is about self-improvement. If fundamentally you find competition (queues are a joke anyway) off-putting, and only go for the rewards, it may be better to form a team for the dungeons (since the rewards are better). If you can’t change the system, the only thing left is yourself. There are reasons you win or lose, and you have to understand them to improve. See PvP as the goal, and the wins and rewards are icing on the cake. Learn from your mistakes, get better, find friends to play with. Remember that the people who PvP’d for the past 1.5 years had nothing but rank points, 18 and 20 slot bags and skins only usable in PvP to go on, and yet we still hold on to the game mode.

Fact: I completed 3 Arah dungeon tracks with 255 Solo queue and Team queue games. 150 wins, 105 losses, over a week of playing. In that period, I ran team queues with friends, against top teams and getting trashed, against good teams and get close matches, against bad teams and running crazy zerker comps, get trash-talked by people in solo queue, doubted myself, made loads of mistakes that could have cost us the game… and yet I’m still playing and queuing because I love being on vent and messing around in PvP. There will be wins and losses, but in the end every game gets my pulse racing (at least until you know it’s GG either way…).

Reward locking is the result of long-running problems with how GW2 handles PvP. I say fix everything else and this won’t even be on your minds. It’s just sad when then only thing people feel concerned about and satisfactory about is getting rewards and they are no longer getting a thrill from playing the game mechanics.

I’m really not the best out there. Highest 325 Solo, 383 Team with wins 55% and 52% respectively so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Offensive Guard is a roamer and you can’t really defend points.
You have nearly no team utility and the only way you can carry is by winning teamfights and get upperhand in 1v1s (until people rotate in to help you, or you come in to a 1v1, force 1v2 and win quickly). SYG! is okay but you are a zerker and might get cleaved badly when trying to stomp. You can save VoJ and VoC for stomp if you really really need it, but let tanky builds with stability do their job.
My experience is that people tend to be better roamers than bunkers and maybe if you ran a 0 1 6 6 1 AH bunker or 0 0 2 6 6 Virtues bunker you would offer more to the team and carry them better (resses, buffs, CC). Always spam team chat how many are on your point. “2 mid, 3 mid, im low, down on mid but thief low (mark target)” these should be typed early so that people can begin running to you while you try and survive.

In solo queue (which i assume will be the main thing you do) you need to watch map and decide where you should go (usually a teamfight). For example opening fight on mid, a 4v4. Look at their health, check the red and blue arrows for downed people, check the health bars to predict if the fight is going well or not. If someone seems to be dropping and you see a cluster of enemies, start heading there.
If you see 1 or 2 enemy red arrows (downed) the fight is ok, just see if you can spot incoming and tell your team. If there are 3 to 4 blue arrows and you see red healthbars on your team, that’s a wipe and you have to look at what the enemy plans to do and decide on a course of action. You can quickly kill enemies coming to close, or decide that there are too many and you can leave your teammates to wipe there and use that time to decap something.
Though if at start your team goes mid and immediately wipes, just take it easy that game, it’s 90% not going to go well (unless they suddenly start to play sides and make plays etc).

Target squishes and use your GS CC to stop stomps and resses. You can get to a point quickly by using the GS leap, sword blink, and JI.
You are running Trip Med 2 1 6 1 4 with mightstack and zerkers. Trip Med has 1 playstyle in tourney, and that is setting up a big all-or-nothing burst on a low-health condi or zerker class and cleave the downed body to let your team secure the stomp. 1v1 it is decent, and you could bring down things like shatter mesmers and thieves.

bhagwad.4281:

The betrayal is this:

We sweated and worked for our skins in PvP where we could distinguish ourselves within PvP itself. Now PvE’ers have their legendaries in PvP and that pride is lost

The betrayal is this:

We get a pittance of champ chests as a “reward” for zooming to r80 where PvE players can just go on a champ train for 2 hrs and get the same amount of champ chests.

The betrayal is this:

High ranked players put in a huge amount of time getting their r55+ ranks and they earned the prestige it bought them along with finishers. Now everyone above r55 is the same and all that hard work is wasted.

In short, the betrayal lies in the loss of prestige that dediacated PvP players have earned over the past 1.5 years. We deserve better than having our hard work eradicated.

I do feel that we got the short end of the stick. I felt happy working my way up the ranks slowly before the rank gain changes. Every 10 ranks was an achievement and my friends and I all loved the new skins we could craft and use. The progression was slow but I felt the pace was okay. Rank (for most people) is an indication of dedication and experience. Now that the rank gain is accelerated and we got the transmutation thing going on, I feel that I don’t deserve the rank I’m at now. I felt like a complete fool for being so happy before.

This patch is aimed at bringing the PvEers into PvP. There is nothing being done for the PvPers who have played the game for just as long. Acutally yeah, the devaluation of PvP-obtained items such as weapon skins.

@Thorn
I am as worked up as you are. However, I am trying to keep my calm and point out that nothing has really changed gameplay wise. I fiddled around in the wardrobe and 4 minutes later I look and perform exactly the same as before the patch.
The charges are a way of making money off PvP. People grow impatient with not being able to get charges and pay for batches of them. Though if they want to do that it’s better to make more skins available. Like Fiery Gladius and the Sniper Rifle.
@ Nyid
Having more unique PvP skins will definitely add to quality of life. Having ranks beyond 80 to show the effort would be great too. But we all know how changes can be disappointing. But we get used to change and work around it to get the enjoyment
@FuzzyRamen
I had done nothing PvE wise, just enough to unlock all weapon skills; my property did not extend beyond my PvP armor sets. There is a lot of pain, yes, but I’m also practical in the sense that I know the changes won’t be reverted.

The only thing that happened to PvP worthy of mention is that there’s an actual cost in changing skins. It means that you need the bag space to hold “PvP sets” if you wish to have multiple skins available all the time. You would likely spend the gems for more charges, more bag space, or both. If you don’t want to do that, you are forced to PvP for it, either for ranks -> charges, or gold -> gems -> charges… Well, I guess you could say there is something to work towards now, but the complication is really unneeded for this stage of the game when the playerbase isn’t really increasing.

Anet, your “solution” for more people coming to PvP may seem logical to you, but the thing is, people can already get most of what they want in PvE, and if you don’t do PvP, you most likely won’t suddenly want to do so just because you look a bit cooler. You don’t want to come in and get utterly destroyed in hotjoins where people stack teams. You have to realise that people don’t want to lose, and that is what is keeping people from doing it. A few lousy skins won’t fix that. Along with the removal of 8v8 public hotjoins, people have even less incentive to get their feet wet. Give PvP players something they want. More titles, more unique gear, things that will make PvE players jealous, and make people feel unique and accomplished.

The amulet thing is so silly. If you can have sigils for weapons in the PvP Build window, how hard is it to add a small box to the bottom of the amulet slot for jewels? Why don’t you remove sigils too? Better yet, remove all those pesky traits and runes that confound all the newly flooding in PvEers why don’t you? Handling rings and accessories and amulets and backpacks and more rune and sigil choices and food in PvE is not confounding to new players, nooooo, but having a jewel for the amulet to make it “my build” is just an unnecessary complication that has been the driving factor behind non-participation in PvP?

That just completely made sense.

Go to wardrobe and you can use the skins you previously unlocked in PvP to put onto PvE equipment. The equipment can be starter level 14 greens and it will be fine.
Clicking on the armor piece in wardrobe will bring you a list of unlocked skins. All the stuff in locker and on your person will be there.

Simply use a charge to change equipment look. You get a stone for each rank you have (after conversion, so r46→patch→r54 I get 54 charges.).

Yeah it means you have to keep playing and ranking up to change the looks.

I’m ok with the change it just means I’ll have to keep a set of PvP gear in my bag when I joyride in Pve.

The gear section for PvP should allow for faster changes (no longer needed to put on 6 runes, and sigils separately).

It’s all good. Embrace the change…

magicmanh.1597:

My “standard trickery thief’s steal skill” does not do all those things. If I wanted to dump my entire trait line (and more, trickery does not give damage, that would be mug) into one skill with a 22.5 second cooldown, I would be one dumb thief, and I would have no counters to any opponents move. I think a requirement for all thief OP threads is a video demonstrating its full effectiveness in said field (here sPVP) and if your video isn’t you going against a motionless rank 1 player, than I (and I’m sure other players) will pay attention as to how no other class seems to have the ability to hit the thief.

You can “cover” your steal to make sure it lands.
Vid or it didn’t happen? http://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis
Watch that before you comment further.

We deserve it. We need to get the Shaft…

Ranks don’t mean jack. I’m in the 40’s (before the rank point gain increase) and feel like there’s still so much to learn (i.e. still a scrub). Maybe I’m just a scrub regardless.

Though on average r20+ should know the class at least decently well and understand how maps work. You can be an r1 WvW player with the best duelling skill there is, beating everything eventually 1v1, but stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time when a teamfight needs you, and you’d be less useful than a r20 that fights less well but does so on contested points.

To reiterate what someone said to me:
Hotjoins don’t really help you learn the true map mechanics.
There’s no limit on Rank for tPvP… skill is secondary to positioning. Rotation is nearly everything in tPvP. You don’t want 1v1s. You want high mobility and 1v2 or 1v3 situations to get them off node or kill them quickly. This is much more effective with communication in /t.

Often times we lose because someone, poorly specced for (PVT GS Guards…) keeps going far and losing to things like Spirit Rangers, then someone tries to go help (bad idea), meaning that the enemy ranger is 2v1ing. Meanwhile, on midpoint we go into a prolonged 2v3 and wipe (assuming decent skilled players). Then we lose our home point when we wait for respawn.

What you want to do in every map is to try and get 2 points and hold them with bunkers while roamers help defend. Ideally that happens but we have Thieves, Mesmers and Engis focussing on decap so you have to think on the fly.

An extra person to stomp or CC really changes the outcome of the game. It’s the difference between getting the stomp off and someone ress’d to full with CDs reset.

The only way to learn tPvP is to play a lot of tPvP. Remember, position and rotation is everything (something I’m still trying to learn).

If you can handle it, and you’re happy with it, that’s the build you want.
Keep playing and testing and stressing it and see if it holds up; the basis of making any new builds or practicing established ones.

Aw-right! Time to see what you’ve got for us.

Mmm! A P/P setup. Reminds me of when it was the thing to run P/P Enhanced Performance/Might Runes Quazi-HGH.

Energy Sigil and Adventure Runes… haha dodge for days.

I’ll def. give P/P a try again.

30/30/0/0/10… This is… so manly…
Who the kitten needs Protection? The Pull-out method is all you need!…

I’m sorry… just banter you see…

You don’t seem to have toolkit nor Elixir S in that build. Wrong link?

There’s a new vendor that offers bags, accessible via Glory and gold. Otherwise there’s the old Glory rank vendors.
It’s cheaper through the glory rank vendors, and I’ve heard that people can get to 30-40 decently fast. You can still reach it before April 15 if you do loads of hotjoins and bump your rank up.

If you don’t have a lot of Glory, it’s impossible at this point to get more, sadly.

You have no range with that. You can do some 5k hammer crits with it but mobility is exclusively toward-enemy ports.
Your best combo is a JI + Ring of Warding chain with Focus 5 precast and Mighty Blow. This keeps enemy CC’d and nearly guarantees big hits. However you’ll be pretty easy to kite once in hammer (probably use chain, then waste a dodge to catch up). And a blink/stab/blind would negate a lot of damage.
Just have a think about that and see if you still want to run it.

If you run the default 20/20/0/0/30 GS/Sword + Focus spec its better not to get hit. Don’t fight on a point with a Longbow Condi Warrior (need some range to dodge Pin Down), or an Engi. Zap with GS, go in, burst, get out.

Bottom line is really, don’t get hit at all xD stay in high/hard to reach places until you need to melee for whatever reason.

Heal early and protect with pull/daze/distort to keep poison off. If you do have poison on but you’re in a relatively safe spot, heal early (like ~13-14k hp early) and roll to get more clones for healing.

Use resets. No condi on ~6 seconds to reset health (out of combat).

Use Blurred Frenzy/CC/Distort to get into a portal and reset (might wanna save that for teammate, but solo que less so, doesn’t even matter because no one trusts your portals :/).

Walk in opposite direction after stealth to juke and not get hit…

You can run PU condi with torch CD trait, but you still need to dodge and evade around condi’s with 20/20/30/0/0. If you go deep into inspiration you’re kinda half tanky and half condi which is a bit awkward, because you can get killed by everything (in sPvP). PU is good vs thieves because you have a lot of on-demand stealth to play with, and you’re less likely to get backstabbed when you can sometimes just outstealth him.

Shatter Mesmer takes way too much concentration to play well. I think I’m going to play Banner Warrior and afk for coffee breaks and only sit down to press dodge and F1 randomly.

Lol I fell for it too. kitten you!

If you can definitely kill things with Trip Med (it’s very good against Thieves/other glass cannons) then you can carry matches with it. You have to play like a Thief and not miss your Focus 5. Can be hard though, because smart players find a way to dodge/block/CC/kill your Focus 5.

If you run in team queue but don’t want to play bunker you go with Symbol DPS. Your role and positioning is a bit like a Zerker off-point Staff Ele. You go in with GS to make a mess of stomps and resses.

It does work. What you linked is Symbol DPS.
Best used on point and with your team.

First one is pure damage 10/30/30/0/0 and it’s okay if your team babysits you. Conditions will eat you up though.
Your third one is the classic 10/5/30/5/20 Trip Med. That one works. None of the PVT specs will put out enough damage or are tanky enough to be considered.
Selfless Daring only really goes with Clerics.

For more crits, use 5 Eagle 1 Divinity. Ogre Runes are okay.

Read these threads for good info (though you might have gone through them).
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Silven-s-PvP-Guardian-Build-Guide/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-World-Vs-World-The-Guardian-and-You/first

Are you a Bunker Guardian trying to cap a point with an off-point Zerker Mesmer beaming you with the GS? Don’t try unless you have incoming help. Just decap and leave. Come back with help or assist another point.

Their multi-hit nature means that it’s very difficult to blind or aegis any major attacks, and you’ll be forced to eat Mind Wrack, sooner or later.

Anet implemented this change not for the top players but for the people R39 and above. It’s going to make the casuals (like me…) and low ranks happy but completely defeat the purpose of grinding further for some people (like those R55+).

Some play PvP for fun and some for the rank and titles. You can’t really satisfy everyone with each change, but what would you choose:

Satisfy the top 10% of existing PvP players and lose even more PvP playerbase (EU > NA in population).
Satisfy the 90% besides the top rankers and potentially get more existing PvEers to come into PvP and recruit new GW2 players based on attractive PvP prospects.

If you were Anet and wanted more people to play the game, losing some R55+ players is the lesser of 2 evils.

More PvP rewards and “paths” coming up to assist a PvE playstyle for those who have done a lot of PvP and would like to start into PvE comfortably.

I was going to say something about how Bunker Guards will be affected, but I know that nobody, player or Dev gives a flying demonic laser death kitten about what my opinions are.

Let’s just say that some of the builds now require the jewel change to be optimal.

I’ll just say, OE nailed it for the gamers according to his experience as of now with the things he can play with. I don’t place a high amount of confidence in the pace nor quality of change of traits and utilities being able to compensate for narrower stat choices, judging from the past year. If the Devs think they can do better, the playerbase will be the judge opon release. Nothing you say now will appease anyone.

However it’s a game and I’m not popping a vein over it. It’s completely futile trying to change people’s opinions, because there’s a big barrier called pride. When have you complained and insulted and got the change you wanted? It’s their game and they do what they think is best for the game and the gamers, however the change fares. You opinions only matter up to an extent, far below your expectations.

Understand that we are nothing.

You guys can argue or not argue, it doesn’t matter to me. The only certain thing in life is change, so make your point, embrace what is to come, or be left behind.

ArchonWing.9480:

Cleric is not good with AH at all, as AH doesn’t increase much with healing power.

Healing power does have a significant effect on dodge heals and mace so if you want to consider specializing in that area, you may try investing in clerics, otherwise you’re better off with taking the power from soldier.

Basically this.
Bunker/Healway -> Clerics, allows more sustain through dodge rolls, virtues, and weapon sets.
AH -> Soldiers/Knights + Valk, because AH scales poorly with healing power and the extra Vit allows you to combat Conditions better. (I have no interest in playing AH, though there are builds that allow you to self sustain.)

This needs a sticky.

Symbol builds, you pretty much nailed the trait setup for optimal performance.
When you run shouts, consecration and a staff, you should always be aiming to support in a teamfight.

About Bunkers:
Bunkers will die 1v1 yes, but then you’re not to blame. Normally you can stall long enough until your teammates come. Just make sure you type in team chat “1 mid” “2 mid” “im down” “2 to close” “they trebbing mid” ASAP to inform your teammates of what is going on around you. Your goal is to stall until help arrives then assist combat.

You will be useful to the team as a Bunker because you can safely res with your knockbacks, probably tank the AoE cleave for a short time, immobilise enemies for your team, and immediately stomp downed enemies with stability. You can also prevent death by using healing skills to prop up teammates until their CDs are up. By using all of your skills, hopefully you’ll be a big nuisance to the other team. Blind, aegis, knockbacks, launches, walls, reflects… lots of skills to switch and use.

Summary:
Run Bunker when you have a team on TS3 and you have established set roles with bunkers and roamers. Even though team compositions have changed, there is always room for a support Bunker Guardian, and this phenomenon has a reason. Require good communication and responsive listeners. I usually run Bunker in solo queue (or solo in team queue) because no one does and I can offer res and stomp services.
Run Symbol DPS in hotjoin/random tourney to carry your team with a mix of damage and support. Need good teammates for maximal effect.
Run Trip Med when you have a decent group, lack a thief and just want to have fun. Also able to hard carry if skilled.

Guardian is a very group combat oriented class. You’re not meant to 1v1 (except Trip Med). With what you wanted in mind, I hope you enjoy Symbol DPS in PvP.

Staff is ideal in a sustained Symbol DPS build. You would have larger, longer lasting and healing Symbols. They offer very steady damage (1.2k a tick with zerker) and support as long as you play on points with your team. Empower is great when you can get off the full cast, but watch out as smart players will exploit that, either by bursting you down or stealing the mights. Staff + Mace/Whatever is pretty good for this setup. Altruistic Healing keeps you up but you can be quite weak to conditions, like poison.

Don’t use staff in a Trip Med build. Trip Med as of now is still very much burst oriented.

Sword is a Burst weapon as you can ZD for a fair amount and at some range. However it is nearly impossible to land the full channel on someone smart. You often use it to block iDuelist or somebody with a troll Killshot build. It is also burst because with Fire or Air Sigil your 3rd Auto hit can go upwards of 4k, even better with the sword trait 10% buff. It also pairs very well with Focus 5 as you can port in to deliver the AoE without wasting JI port so you can have options.

Scepter goes very well with Trip Med because it hits decently hard and the Immob allows you to combo, either with your own skill set or with a teammate, e.g. your thief is going for the backstab and you immob the enemy so that it will definitely land; Immob -> ZD on sword/Prot Strike on mace + VoJ + JI + Smite Condition for fast burst when someone is out of condi removals and dying.

Guardian mobility is low but make use of LoS when you are trying to buy time. You won’t get away usually but you can survive a long time by delaying until CDs come back up. Sword port (skill 2) is very good for chasing or running away from AoE.

I recommend playing lots of Bunker to stretch your defensive reflexes, then playing Trip Med when comfortable. Trip Med can be very unforgiving at times.

This is a build my friend has made 10 months prior. It still works and is the “safest” Trip Med option with Absolute Resolution. You may know it as 10/5/30/5/20. It could help you learn more about Trip Med as a valid playstyle. Don’t be afraid to die loads and don’t be afraid to try out the skills. Do so without reserve. That way, you’re sure to master it in less time than hesitating about when to use what.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vUAQRAsf7dlsApcodDxaI8DVhkpoARQbBVFiHcBXPgoIqhA-TwAg0CnIqRhjDHDOScs4MIYRw2ipFA
You can still kill people with it very well, but if you want better burst and steadier crits, stick with Mace burst/Roamer. All the builds here are the good ones.

Hello,

(TL;DR at bottom)
Some opinions, take with a grain of salt.
Jax has explained a concept of rock-paper-scissors. Bunker > Burst > Sustain > Bunker. Thought it would be good to give him credit for succinct teaching material.

Trip Med Guardian is all burst and no sustain. It doesn’t kill tanky setups like MM or Bunk Guard easily.

All Guard needs to really do is pay attention to your Focus 5 timing and dodge/block/blind your combo. If he gets hit by only half of your burst it is very unlikely you can kill him in the next minute. If left entirely alone, you can kill the Bunk Guard, but it would take way too long. Assuming experienced Guard. You’d have a better chance with sustained DPS specs, such as Symbols. Or bring a Necro, Engi. Those soften Guards up as you force him to burn shouts on condi clear.

Similarly, MM Necro can be difficult because if you fail to kill his minions initially, the sustained damage and CC will overwhelm you, and otherwise his death shroud will make you waste your time. Your Sword and Scepter setup offers very minimal AoE to counter his spec. You have to be careful of his poison as well as the constant, chipping hits and cripples. It’s not a pleasant fight, and it’s generally a bad idea to be on the point with an MM. AoE is your cure. Something like a Decap Engi with bombs. Or run Zerker Symbols. That’s pretty effective. To completely overkill a MM Necro, try Power Necro with Lich Form. That always does the trick.

You also say Sw/F + Sc/F? Normally you would bring an additional secondary like Torch. If by “balanced” you mean soldiers amulet, please don’t. Without zerker’s you can’t kill squishies, and you have no pressure.

Zerker Trip Med with 0/30/30/5/5 or 10/5/30/5/20 excel at killing thieves. The blinds and aegis and invulns and blocks mean that if played correctly you can stop all his burst and counter with punishing Sword autos and burning. Against sustain enemies with high toughness, it’s better not to engage 1v1. Think like a thief (ironically).

Mace is an AoE weapon, Prot Strike in burst specs, the Symbol for sustained DPS. Sword has mobility and a killer Auto when specced for 10% damage. I suggest you try killing Bunk Guard, as mentioned above, with a Condi spec/class. Bunkers can die, they are not immortal, but vs a Bunker who knows what to dodge, a burst spec like Trip Med will waste a lot of time on an enemy owned point.

TL;DR Kill Bunkers, MM with Condi’s or Symbols DPS. Trip Med Guard is burst. Bunk Guard made for negating burst damage (don’t forget Protection boon) so throwing more burst damage at it doesn’t really help.

Silven’s PvP Build thread was up there in the stickies, and I think this one deserves it too.
Typing out all those traits must be painstaking.
It’s a pretty good overall Guardian spec thread really, it’s all the variations people have tried and made good use of in the year that GW2 has been out.
I was pretty sure a friend of mine made the 10/5/30/5/20 himself, at the start of game, when there were Trap Rangers and P/D Thieves. Though it is entirely possible the resourceful players could have come up with the build separately.
I cringed when you mentioned Healway because whenever I come across and read “0/0/10/30/30” there’s a calm voice in my head saying “Bunker”. It’s the Bunker build. A Bunker. Bunker Bunker Bunker… cough That aside, I do appreciate Chris spreading the build around as it’s pretty much the definitive Guardian support. Still strong.

Distracting comments aside, I like this WvW Guide. With any spare time, perhaps you could highlight playstyles, such as main skills in weaponsets, with regards to specific builds? (e.g. using Sword 2 with Focus 5). Or maybe a short sentence for each weapon skill. This would vastly accelerate player experience and handling of the class. Could be an unreasonable thing though, since I’m not the one writing these guides and I am in no position to request anything. It’s pretty comprehensive already.

Though if you mention common combos, you’d also mention when’s the best time to use them and against what classes, then you’d be into discussing dodging and counter pressure, then you’d be discussing the essence of PvP as a whole… This thread would span the word count of a research paper.

I’d like to mention some general tips regarding Guardianship.
1. Remove burn stacking ASAP.
2. Remove condi stacking right after their best combo.
3. Don’t heal into poison.
4. Don’t walk into CC walls (e.g. Line of Warding) when using Shelter.
5. Eliminate extraneous combat information and focus on the useful. Break habits like admiring your damage numbers or watching your character wave a sword. Check enemy position, check your position. Check Stab and blind when trying to CC. Check CDs when trying to go deep. Check group status and team health. Be on top of impending stomps. Be on top of resses.

Utilities:
Shelter: Block during a high damage ability for maximal effect. If stunned and know you might get a large damage combo, SYG! -> Shelter to ensure it. Think of it as a dodge with good healing. You can even use it to block projectiles when stomping. Note that this ability can be interrupted if you walk into a Ring of Warding or Line of Warding/Fear wall! Of course, you can also use this to your advantage.
SYG!: Help a stomp, help a res, stop a knockback, stop a launch.
Hold the Line: Use this first as a Condi clearer. Use this when anticipating spike damage.
Sanctuary: 1&1/4s cast time. Use to prevent a stomp and get an almost sure res (not if a Guardian is stomping). Before the fix to the incredible 1/4s cast time it allowed some clutch plays. (e.g. won a 500-499 match because we neutralised mid when Sanc bounced an Engi off point…)
Save Yourselves!: You can use this during Renewed Focus and it clears condis but doesn’t transfer to you (immune in those 2 seconds). Run this if you are running triple shout for dealing with heavy condi.
JI/DI: The 2 meditation ports, some like them, some don’t. You can JI stomp thieves.
Wall of Reflection: You can deal with Engi nades this way.

General playstyle:
Versus other Guardians, be aggressive, bait dodges, force stability, then knock them out of the point. Use all your aegis/blind/block/Energy sigil dodge/CC to stave off the CCs he will throw at you.
Always notify your team of incoming to mid/your point. As a Guardian bunker, if you are left alone 1v1 too long, you will die. Give out short messages like “2 mid, 3 mid, im down” and stall for as long as possible.
If you can’t get mid, you have to watch the situation and help out some other node as mroe of a CC/res support until you can claim back your throne room.

Edit:
Virtues:
VoJ can help out your Necromancer/Engi. You can mini-burst with Sword 2. With 5 in Radiance it is a short range AoE blind. Stomp/stop a Banish/stop a CC. Useful.
VoC can be used to stomp, block a CC etc. Traited Indomitable Courage gives you stability (team stab!) for plays.
VoR is a nice 3 Condi clear and 2k heal when traited and slotted with Clerics respectively. It also does it for the team and can be crucial if you see that Necro/Engi do his Condi rotation and stacked massive burns and bleeds on your team.

Sorry for piping in Jax. Correct me if you feel there’s anything I missed/wasn’t right on.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hey dude. I’m rather new to guardian but I’ve been running your “God of Kyho” build as I love the Hammer / Sword-Shield set.

.. But I’m sucking.

I don’t seem to do much damage OR able to defend a node very long, and I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing wrong. Any tips or strategies with that particular build?

Hello, I’m not jacking Jax’s thread or anything, but I’ll give some general tips with that build:
“God of Kyhlo” is a variant of the 0/0/10/30/30 Cleric/Barb bunker build that gives you 1 more blind (on VoJ) and the Hammer CD reduction.
It is designed with duelling another Guardian on mid in Kyhlo in mind. Your extra blind allows you to avoid a Banish or Shield knockback, and the CD on Hammer ensures that you will be able to Banish 5 seconds (that’s a lot in PvP) sooner than the other one that runs a not-so-specialised spec. Play right, and no other Guard can stand on the node with you for long. However, this build is not built for damage. It is built for survival and your goal is to neutralise a node or defend a node owned by your team long enough for other people to come help you out. Then, you switch to a support role in the teamfight, be it a 2v2 or a 3v3.

Sword/Shield:
The Sword 2 port allows you to get back up onto point if you get banished/knocked back from the platform so that he can’t get the neutralise while you run up the side. Shield knockback can be negated by not having your back to the edges and take note of his weapon switches. Banish range is too high for that. Note though, that if the Guard stands on the edge of the platform close to you, you will only port in front of him and below him. You can use that to your advantage. You can also use Sword 2 as an emergency blind if you are fast enough (also for friend stomping).
The Sword 3 channel does around 2k damage I believe in the Cleric/Barb amulet setup. You can help your teammates with that final bit of damage but don’t get carried away. You can use this to block some Engi nades, their Poison Dart Volley, or a Killshot from a Warrior gun/troll build. Basically most projectiles in front of you. You can also use this to block Downed state projectile interrupts if your friend is stomping.

Shield 4 can be used preemptively if you see a Thief/Warrior incoming and give you some protection during the burst. Note that it grants prot to friends in front of you.
Shield 5 is a 4 second channel if you allow it to cast, and a small heal if you double click 5. It has an instant knockback good for chaining with Sceptre immob, Hammer ring, etc. You can interrupt Earthshaker or any close range melee channels or casts. Watch stability, blind, and aegis. You can help a stomp by blocking the projectile interrupt.

Hammer:
The control weapon. Beside the auto, everything is useful on the Hammer.
Hammer 2: Blast finish and 1.4k damage IIRC in tanky amulet. In a teamfight you can cast this on CD and watch what you blast into. Ranger water field, Engi fire fields, almost all of them give some sort of benefit.
Hammer 3: Immob. You can immob someone coming up the platform while he is below. You can use this after a Banish/Shield knockback but count his teleports and don’t waste it on a dodge (you can sheathe weapon [hotkey] or press esc to cancel cast). You can gib someone if you see your Thief/Ele/Warrior coming along and you set up an immob chaining into theirs.
Hammer 4: It has a 1 second cast time. Be careful and don’t waste it. Interrupt it with a dodge/esc/sheathe if you know you can’t land it (stab/blind/aegis/dodged too far away). You can also bait dodges and CDs if you cast cancel deliberately, but not if you are an Asura because they most likely can’t see the animation. You can chain Hammer 4 into 5 by ringing the side of the Kyhlo mid platform he’s coming from to almost always force his stability. Time the ring right and you’ll have him walk into it just as it appears. You can aim Hammer 4 so that he will be knocked down the stairsand have to walk allll the way back, but takes some practise and reaction timing.
Hammer 5: 3/4s cast control ability. You can ring yourself in, or use it like line of warding on choke points (like Kyhlo mid). As above, time it so that the enemy will walk right into it for a sure way to knock them down. You can then chain Hammer 4 or any Immob to keep them out of the point even longer.

Phaeton, his point was to use the ice bow as an example of people looking for things to nerf/nitpick for the sake of nitpicking, which is detrimental to the game.

I can certainly agree that the adjustments are looking at the wrong things. There used to be a good expert community in the PvP teams and experienced players suggesting slight tweaks, as you have said.

However you must know that people tend to blame things seemingly outside of their control for personal mistakes, or explain away the successes of other people based on unfairness leveraged against them. This will happen over and over in a tragic neverending tale across all games competitive.

You claim to want a civilised discussion, but it seemed to me you only wanted to push your opinion and try to get it accepted.

What Caed said really…

Thieves are fine PvP wise, there are a lot more hard hitting specs and cause more annoyance. You can have Power Control Engis, Shatter Mesmers, HamBow (gonna be nerfed) etc…

With D/P there is a setup time with BP/HS and you can try to predict their position. Nobody told you to give up and stand there for a backstab. Try rotating your camera or out-ranging the thief/make a predicted dodge by counting the seconds he’s in stealth. Just know the class you are up against.

The suggestions of L2P are because there are indeed things you can do to avoid Backstab. 9k Backstabs only happen if you are built fully glassy or up-levelled.
Especially as a Zerker Guardian, you can buy a lot of time with blocks, blinds and CC, and every hit with your weapon is brutal on the Thief. Trip Med Guards are a very strong counter.

Next patch there will be a decline in permastealth D/P, and we may see more 10/30/0/0/30 running around.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Im not happy them surviving in such a no skill way. Automated response is particularly frustrating. Imagine in battlefield 4 if you could take a trait which said “Cannot be killed by tanks”. I woulda thought all the tank commanders would be pretty kitten ed. A least berzerker stance runs out and then I can kill warriors (if I am lucky), automated response is just always there annoying everyone. I am fine people surviving on countering things. But not if this “countering” just involves selecting a trait prior to the game.

“No Skill” is a very subjective thing and I urge you to not put it in discussion; it is merely opinion, yours and mine, and shouldn’t be put in a convincing argument.

Automated Response kicks in at 25% and counters Conditions in that range. You would be sitting at around 4k-6k health and although Conditions will not be able to affect them, there are 2 ways to counter.

1. Count out their heal and Condi spike at around 40% so that conditions tick inside the trait. 4k to 6k is nothing if you get decent stacks of bleeding/burning along with a Terror spike.
2. Have a player with a class/build bringing decent power spike to get rid of the 4-6k health.

Without a build running Settler/Shaman/Cleric excessively the Vitality and Healing Power won’t be enough to sustain such a build because of that low threshold. The Engi brings no damage threat to the table and solely provides AoE healing sustain.

It is true that having a “hard counter” to condition builds will be unsatisfying to the condi player, but imagine the other way round, the Engi would be annoyed too, if every time he sees a Necro he’s toast. I would like to remind you that besides Healing Turret giving a maximum of 2 Condi Removed/15 Seconds, Engi has no active means of removing significant amounts of Conditions, and require significant investment into Vitality to compensate.

In my experience as an Engineer running tourneys in Bomb/Nade, Necro is one of the last classes I want to see invading/defending a point, and I have to abuse LoS and control to survive, and even then disengagement is the better choice.

Please look at Chaith’s post, I believe it to be a well thought-out explanation. Please also read the modification I made of your post.

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, Healing turret gives Spike healing for a short CD by equipping utilities and weapons sets with a large amount of Blast Finshers, which have to be actively used.
2, The cast time on healing turret is the same as Ranger Healing Spring. Thief Withdraw is instant.
3, Multiple engis can blast into each others water fields and Eles/Rangers can set up water fields for a 20+ group to blast into as well, and with consistently longer fields
4, Engis have to spec into a passive trait that procs at 25% hp and does not remove applied condi’s, and moreover becomes very vulnerable to any spike damage
5, Engis has so many knock backs, blinds and blocks as they lack ports, invulns and good stunbreaks. It is a class feature.
6, Bunker engi is spammy. But you have to know what to use when, and usually it’s more about spamming blast finishers in the 2 second Healing Turret field. At least a bunker guardian you can actually hit and kill eventually, because Bunker Guards with Shouts are more group support than sustain. Engis can sustain better in a low-condi environment, but do not have the utility in a team fight due to the lack of a skill called “Stand Your Ground!” and various team condi wipe options.

You are not happy about a player building for survival actually surviving based on countering the things that can make him dead?

I play on a small 11" laptop and this has been a major annoyance, not to mention threat to survival at times.
I guess I’ll work on perfecting my camera skills.

One incoming condi every 15 is a bit like Guardian Purity, I wouldn’t call it OP, in a real fight you -may- see the whiffing of clutch fears just like with a Bunk Guard. Unlike a Bunk Guard, Engi in general have very little Condi removal ability and this may slightly alleviate the problem.

IP has been a centrepiece in Engi DPS, now even Enhance Performance P/P builds will be knocked out of favour and what will be left is the meta Bomb/Nade. While that is the most viable setup for now, the only thing moving IP will achieve is reduced build diversity and strength.

I don’t know what they’d do with the Adept traits in Explosives now, but I don’t remember anything else out of the remaining 5, probably only Forceful Explosives.

Vargamonth.2047:

In this game, balanced/defensive specs usually win against burst ones (as long as you actually deal damage, don’t expect to kill people on a full healway build). The real issue is that we are SO melee oriented and our mobility/CC is SO crappy, that we are pretty much forced into high offense (like meditation burst) to be a threat, which makes us suffer against sustained enemies.

This. Either give +movespeed% or access to mobility-limiting conditions to allow us to have better melee uptime. Adjust damage accordingly. Right now Trip Med requires you to land everything to be successful, and the Focus 5/Torch throw is so obvious to see coming.

@Vanessa/Dane: not sure the 25% idea has ever been considered, if Guards get it anywhere, the Mesmers will start to yell and we don’t want that. And if they put it 30 into Zeal I’m not sure it’s the best idea, you’ll end up mega-glass 30/5/30/5/0 with Trip Med and feel like a 30/30/0/0/10 Lava Tomb S/D Ele…
30 points into Zeal is so not justified.

Warrior Shouts and Guardian Shouts both serve as group support utilities.
Inherently, Warrior Shouts are offensive boons/conditions based; Guardians are defensive boons/condi pull.
Warrior shouts traited AoE heal, Guardian shouts traited wipe conditions.

Guardian Meditation should be compared to the Warrior Physical utility line. They offer offensive gap closers and opportunities to do damage.

Guard meditation traits come with Fury (used to be reduction of cast time) because Guardian burst is very compact and intolerant of mistakes; you have to make everything crit/combine skills rapidly to 100-0 something quickly due to how you gear (Full zerker is very fragile) with Trip Med setups. The Grandmaster offers high self-heal at low healing power coefficients (1.9k around) because the Guardian has inherent low health. Meditation augments offensive weapons with ports and extra damage. The utilities in the Meditation line also have condition removal in mind because of the susceptibility to conditions. You can also tell that Meditations are offensive by looking at the Valour trait line; it has critical damage %.

Warrior Physicals are all CC and 2 of them are single target (Kick can cleave!). Although there has been rarely people who run full physical (for fun mostly), most know about Bull’s Charge and Bolas, both of which help with melee gap closing/landing key abilities to gain an upper hand in 1v1.

Hi, I was snooping through some duels and a Guardian was using this. It was a while ago. I’d like your opinion.

Bullet Punch’s spec
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNArdRlUgSDHHyNEfIFhNjAiwqCxDXw1DIGxGC-TsAg0CnI4RxjjHDPSes8MsYZxkAA

Some people I’ve seen run a variant of the 10/5/30/5/20 GS/Sword Focus Trip Med spec; what do you think of the above 2 specs, and zerker med specs running GS in general?

Interesting stuff here.
That’s a lot of effort put into the suggestions, and they seem reasonable.
Guardian mobility/stickability… not sure where that will head (or if it will even go in any direction). Feels fine as is in conquest.

It’s either you or some other unfortunate person…
Play tourneys as said above.
AFKers are still a problem but 80% of the time it’s fine.
Not including views on team composition…

Symbol of Swiftness is an uncalled-for nerf. It should stay how it was in my opinion…
Powerful Blades + Trip Med Offensive with Sword will be delicious.
Turn Glacial Heart into something worthy already. With the staff symbol thing going Guardian is going to take top place for lack of mobility.
Glacial Heart: on crit chill for 4 seconds every 10 seconds…… drool
Oh, and put the trait somewhere 10/30/30/0/0 builds can reach please…