Guild Wars 2

In this game support is the new heals (for lack of a better description). If you like being the healing class, then pick any profession and build support heavy. As a guardian I can throw out heals, and shields, and boons…all kinds of things that really help my allies. At the same time, I still get to beat on the bad guys. This game intentionally removed dedicated healers (and tanks and dps) because it’s too limiting and 1-note. Now, every profession you roll can deal damage, “off-tank” a bit, and support your allies. Each profession does certain things better, but all of them have those capabilities. This way you’ll never be excluded from a group because they “need a healz.”

I’d rather see a movie made about GW Prophecies. That story is complete and was wonderful. GW2’s story is still ongoing and any liberties taken with the movie (and knowing Hollywood there’d be a lot) would skew the canon.

at level 22 i find most white items vend for more than you could sell the salvaged materials for. ie – vend for 10c, salvage and get 1 copper ore which sells for like 3c

Definitely not. Your ability to play fractals with various professions will vary. Also, having a level 20 fractal character with some ascended gear is very different from your all exotic character.

attended/looted

I like no mounts because in games like WoW with mounts nobody ever stopped to help out. Never jumped off their drake and said, “hey, wanna party up?” Having to run in GW2 makes it more likely for players to stop and help another player or join an event, rather than just running/flying from node to node.

Hostility.4961:

Most of you are responding to me with the positive sides of the guardian lol like i am not aware of them. Understand that i know all about those and they are not neccessary to bring up at all and this thread is not about that. There are plenty of threads about our good side. This one is about a lack of a mechanic in the class that pushed me to shelve it.

So you only want posts from people who agree with you? Sorry bud, you started a conversation in an open forum.

Your point is that Guardians can’t escape and retreat.
Our point is that’s not what the Guardian was designed for.

If you want a retreating profession, reroll. You have to play a profession to its strengths. It’s like complaining in the thief forum that they don’t have tanking skills. Really, you have to play to the strengths and not be upset when a profession can’t do everything better than the rest. Guardians have escape skills, just not the best. Learn to use em better, or stand strong and face your enemy.

Traited right, 1h sword crits way more often than GS (which will proc vigor, which will proc AH), can spread aoe burning every 4th attack (which is super fast compared to GS).
Plus, sword has built in defense with a blind & projectile absorb. Couple that with focus and you’re nigh-unkillable.

Longbow. But not as a pure damage weapon like ranger & warrior use it. Something like…

1. fire an arrow
2. fire 2 burning arrows
3. smack your target with your bow and cripple them for 8 secs
4. fire an enchanted arrow at an ally, granting them 3 secs of regeneration
5. fire an arrow that explodes on impact, creating an aoe ‘symbol of war’ granting stability, might, and fury to allies inside the symbol. lasts 6 secs

Obviously, tweak the values & CDs to avoid making it OP. But this would give us a viable long range weapon, lets us kite, and still maintains that support feel that all of our weapons have.

I think our Shouts are just too good to replace with a bar full of signets. Certain warrior and thief signets are incredible, so I understand it for them, but my I’ll never leave my shouts at home.

It’s a sweet looking weapon. Can non-sylvari acquire it? Looks like a human is weilding it on the wiki page.

Torch for offense, Focus for defense.

If you’re switching to Scepter as an escape weapon, you’ll probably want Focus for added defense.

If you’re using Scepter to intentionally deal damage at range, well then Torch is obviously better.

Oh yea, this thread again. Guardians aren’t designed to be escape artists, they’re designed to soak up & mitigate damage. Having said that, we have sword teleport, Retreat!, Save Yourself!, GS leap, hammer dome, staff wall….a bunch of stuff to improve our speed and hamper the baddy’s.

Asura have the better racial skills, a more interesting story, more expressive characters. But their tiny weapons and armor make it difficult to want to acquire gear for a character that I can’t see it on. Mini swords and squashed armor vs a human who proudly shows off all that is acquired. But again, lame story imo.

I used the bug cuz I didn’t know it was a bug. In GW we could drop multiple iterations of the same trap, why not in GW2? Oh well…..

Stark.1350:

Because I want them sitting here, all day, talking with us about what it is they’re doing instead of actually doing it. They have a huge update coming out in 11 days for Wintersday – I IMAGINE they’re working on that.

And frankly, I’ve seen more dev posts on these forums than I have for WoW, EQ2 or any other MMO I’ve played.

Bad logic. They have forum moderators whose sole jobs are to ….moderate the forums. But apparently, that means ‘babysit’ the forums since all we really see are thread closes, thread merges, & title corrections. It’s like the people in charge of the forums have no real clue what’s going on back at Anet HQ. Haven’t seen a moderator give us any posts of substance, just “question answered. thread closed.”

karma.8763:

mcwurth.2081:

Swagger.1459:

any news, progress reports or eta on when gw2 will be available for a console release?

hopefully never…

Theres no reason a mmo shouldnt be ported over to a console, dont need to be an elitest about it. If anything it would help save this game.

And would the console players be on their own servers? Because as it is, Xbox has its own network and PS3 has its own network that online gaming has to go through. Xbox COD players can’t play with PS3 COD players. Console versions would fracture the playerbase.

I prefer playing with others. Yes, it might be faster doing hearts solo, but it’s more fun imo with other people. Chatting, telling war stories, etc. Plus, DEs are better with someone(s). My biggest problem is that I’ll spend an hour or 2 questing with someone, chatting, adding to friends….and then they’re like never on again or don’t respond to a pm 5 days later. So much for friends.

I find it convenient sometimes, annoying at others. It resets at 7 or 8pm for me (EST depending on daylight savings). There have been times I’ve gotten most of my daily done after work but I get interrupted for 2 hours. Come back, reset, drat. Other times I canbang em both out in 1 night. That’s nice.

Warriors (when they ‘tank’) are designed to soak up damage with high health & armor.
Guardians (when they ‘tank’) are designed to heal through, block, & protect from damage.
Warrior seems pretty boring imo. Tanking seems almost passive.
Guardian is more proactive and seems more fun. Plus, you aid your allies with defensive tactics.

Is the Avatar of Melandru useful at all in a support build? Or do the tomes outshine it?

Staff is fine imo. Scepter chain would be nice. Since the projectiles are so slow, adding something to the 3rd attack could make up for that. Something like ‘sends out 3 orbs’ or ‘cripples target’ or ‘gives player protection.’

Hickeroar.9734:

I freaking love torch as support. The condition removal on the #5 skill is invaluable

I was under the impression that it did not remove conditions from yourself, just allies.

Don’t think of a shield as a flat piece of armor boosting. It’s all about the skills it brings. If you’re getting enough toughness & vit from your gear or traits, and your utilities give you enough survivability (as they do for me), use torch offhand as a purely offensive weapon. Guardians are very support oriented, so a lot of our skills won’t be straight damage dealers, but rather give boons or something.

As for traiting: read through all of the traits and make your decisions based on them, not the stats you get from the lines. At lower levels you’ll want to build around your weaknesses and playstyle. You have to get out of the heal/tank/dps mindset. You need to think ‘deal damage & maintain survivability.’ Look for traits that synergize well with each other or the utility skills or weapons you like to use.

If you find yourself lacking in a department, adapt your build. Feeling squishy? Equip a focus. Feeling bored? Try a new weapon, traits, utilities. The idea is to have flexability.

A lot has been said above, and it’s all true imo. To sum up:

Torch is purely offensive
Focus & Shield are more defensive/support
Torch’s damage is burning, so a burning/condition build, go for it.
Using sword/torch & feeling squishy? Swap to focus or shield OH or trade ur sword in for a mace if you truly love that torch.

I’ve been leveling using sword/torch since level 2 and I love it. However, Now that I’m about to hit 40, I’m noticing the need for more support skills, so I’ve switched to sword/focus and kept my torch on stand by for the easier killing grounds.

Ya know, you can make your own homemade napalm for very cheap. Recipe is on the internet.

But I’m not sure about a delivery method. You’d have to get that laser from Tron to digitize your homemade napalm, and then have your character run into Orr for delivery. I suggest a naked run, since this run will certainly result in your demise, and lets not add a repair bill on top of a waypoint fee (which will be a considerable distance after the complete destruction of Orr).

Although, if it destroys Orr your character will probably not be ressurectable. Use an alt.

Yes.

Before purchase, I was under the impression that GW2 would be like its predecesor, having no vertical progression. It made having multiple characters (which is a must for me) possible, since you didn’t have to break your back trying to keep them all geared and relevant. So I’m a little disappointed that Ascended Gear is the obvious beginning to a gear progression, no matter how slow.

Having said that…

Since I already have 3 ‘main’ characters that I split time between and still haven’t hit 80, the Ascended Gear hasn’t become an issue for me yet. My gameplay experience hasn’t altered.

But, I’m now worried because I haven’t hit 80 and haven’t started on Exotics, let alone Ascended or Legendary. By the time I hit 80, how far behind will I be? Will I still be able to enjoy content with other players? Will gear progression make certain dungeons undesireable to even play?

Time will tell. I don’t pay a subscription and I won’t be spending any real money on this game, so I’ll continue playing, enjoying my leveling adventure through Tyria.

And you’re sure nobody used a rally skill on him?

Sword is great for proccing Virtue of Justice due to fast attack speed and #3 skill.
Mace makes you much more survivable, but deals less damage than 1h sword.
Torch is only useful if you’re building around the burning it throws out. And the #5 skill on torch is quite lackluster.
If you are going straight damage (not condition) then lose the torch and pick up a focus or shield. That will boost your survivability and then you can use the sword for more damage instead of the mace.
As for GS, I can’t speak too intelligently on it since I don’t use it.

I hate these threads. People are so driven by what items they get out of something that they forget that it’s a game & supposed to be fun to play. If you don’t like PvP, or WvW, or exploration, or dungeons…then I’m thinking an MMORPG isn’t for you. They just added fractals and already you’re sick of them? Everyone whines about “not enough endgame” but how many dungeons do you need before it’s “enough?” There are plenty of things to do: go for 100% map completion, join a guild, make some in-game friends, try PvP, shoot for an achievement, level crafting, play the TP market, roll an alt or 2, etc.

Look up the word “unique” in a dictionary and I guarantee it says nothing about “only 1 being equipped at a time.” A truly unique item would mean that only 1 appears in all of Tyria. To assume a player would read the word “unique” and immediately jump to the notion that “I can only have one of these” is absurd.

Most seasoned gamers know what unique means for gear, but not everyone. And as it’s the only unique item in the game that I know of, we had no in-game basis of knowledge.

Also, I hate when people reference wikis because that implies that I should /wiki every single item before I buy it or /wiki a quest if I don’t understand it. A game should stand alone, not rely on a website posted by players (not developers). Plus, that unique item page has only been there for like 2 days, well after the shells became available.

Swapping weapons is generally done based on your situation. So, if you’re in melee with your 1h sword and things get dicey, leap back (#2), swap to shortbow, leap back (#3). You’ve just quickly escaped, put a lot of distance between yourself & the mobs.

Conversely, if you’re at range with your shortbow and get swarmed, you can swap to your sword, which has better aoe & evasion than your shortbow.

I love the general idea of my Ranger. I love having spirits for party buffs, a strong pet that deals damage and can tank for me, 2 bows for ranged awesomeness, the ability to dodge/evade like a jackrabbit. Sadly, most of these things are not well implemented.

I love my porcine pets when melee in PvE. They’re right on top of me so picking up the item is easy. But it is clunky, and at range has to be used before battle and in PvP I can see it being completely un-usable. Especially if the enemy can pick up the foraged items too. I’d love if the foraged item replaced the F2 skill on my bar. My teammates probably won’t try using them anyway.

Love my Guardian. Took me too long to roll one, but I’m glad I shelved my Ranger & Necro. This is so much fun, rolling in, setting everything on fire, shouting protection down to all my allies, and beating wholesale kitten I like that each weapon has its place and purpose: mace tanking, hammer control, GS aoe, etc. Lets me use a variety of weapons to keep things fresh and I’m still effective in any situation.

Any craft except Tailor, Leatherworking, Huntsman, or Artificer will benefit Guardians well. I went with Cooking because it’s cheap to get to 400 & gave me 16 quick levels.
Remember, you can actually have all of the crafting disciplines, just 2 active at a time. A small fee will let you swap your active crafts with no loss of progress.

Bugs aside…

Scepter needs to be reworked to be more effective at range.

I’ve used mine maybe twice, and only when the swarm of enemies was just too thick for me to survive being in the middle. I think that’s really the only time we would use it, so it needs to be designed for that purpose.

Give Scepter a ranged crippling combo field, faster orbs, orb chain, larger Smite…or something

I don’t know if any other class is as much “fun” as Engineer, having all those kits and turrets and elixirs…just seems like a blast (no pun intended). Fun is subjective.

Warrior lets you smash faces without worrying about dying much.
Ele is a finger-dancing ride, not hearty, but has a lot of styles.
Mesmer is the most unique imho, and might fill your need of a fun class.
Guardian is one of the most all around balanced classes, with most/all utility skills being useful (ie – more variety).

I tend to start by dying every piece 1 main color. Then I throw in other shades and colors bit by bit for accent.

I believe what they’ve done now is automatically soulbind an item that’s transmuted. I get this warning now when I use my heritage skins. So if you try to transmute an Order item to a white item, it will still soulbind. And you can’t pull soulbound items from the bank if it’s bound to another character.

Guardian: Longbow (need longrange wep)
Ranger: offhand Sword (potential synergy w/ mh sword & axe)
Necro: Greatsword (minion control, utility)
Ele: Hammer (power spikes)
Mesmer: Horn (call clones)
Thief: Mace (slower, harder hitter or defensive)
Eng: Hammer (just feels right, melee option)
Warrior: None (has enough as is)

I’m just afraid that since I’m not running Fractals yet, by the time I do nobody will want to run lvl 1 since they’re all at 10 or 20…

1. GW had incredible build diversity because it had so many skill options! That was my favorite part.
- Sadly, this is the most glaring difference between GW & GW2. Very limited skill & build choices.

2. Repeatable End Game dungeons were strategic and didn’t get boring.
- Haven’t taken part in any GW2 dungeons yet. But I keep hearing they’re not strategic but more smash fests.

3. Dual professions gave our skill options so much variety. Not just number of skills, but play style.
- Nope, not in GW2. But I’m not too disappointed. I knew this wasn’t going to be an option.

4. Beautiful world.
- GW2 exceded my expectations here. The world is gorgeous! Tyria has such a great feel, the music adds to it, and the vistas force you to take a look around. Something I really strive to do when running around. Don’t just look at your feet, look around!

5. Henchmen let you play without having to spend half an hour everytime you needed to PUG for a quest.
- Hench were nice because GW was designed to be played in a group. You couldn’t wander the Crystal Desert alone & live for long. But GW2 is designed to be played both solo & in groups, which I like better. I don’t miss the hench in GW2.

KensaiZen.3740:

Try infinite might build+4 major runes of the pack. Guaranteed to give you silly amounts of might

This will then free up the need to spec for dmg so you can be a super tanker guardian that does good damage lol

What’s the infinite might build? Sounds fun.

Wow, that’s really useful. Thanks Morpurgo.

Honestly, I find every Guardian weapon useful in various settings. Mace + shield or focus are incredible for tanking damage. Staff is nice for “ranged” group support. Scepter is our only ranged weapon so if melee isn’t an option it can be useful (though admittedly my least fav of our weps). Hammer has defence & some nice control and for PvE you don’t have to worry about the #5 skill being dodged thru. My favorite weapon is 1h sword: nice damage, defense, movement combination. If you really want GS to be your go-to main set, try out all of the other options as needed.

I’ve noticed this too. When attacking objects, I always swap to my 2nd wep set.

I’m leveling with Sword and it’s dealing some great damage. As Tarsius mentioned, the Radiance trait line will add some serious damage for 1h sword, as well as the blind/vulnerability synergy. For the tankiness you want, try Focus off hand. Gives you another blind (for more vulnerability) as well as good defense. I don’t gear for +cond dmg but you’ll easily be able to keep your burns rolling on your target due to sword’s fast attack speed and #3’s rapid attack. Also, the sword #3 attack doubles as a projectile defense. I think it’s a great combo.

Elfia.5348:

I just started my adventure with GW2 and made human ranger female.

You just started. The armor choices for low levels are all crap. I’ve played light, med, & heavy….all crap until you get into the 40’s. Of course the best stuff is at 80. I recommend you pick up Leatherworking to craft some armors. They generally have better armor skins than the loot drops. I’ve never leveled LW or Armor, but I know tailoring does.

thisolderhead.5127:

Software design is hard, it would be nice if everything ever engineered had everything working perfectly as intended when it hit production – but if software was automotives you might discover half way through your drive that under some undisclosed conditions, when driving downhill in a northward direction (some people are also reporting eastward) your breaks may only respond to your foot around 1/3 the time.

Which would make me think that they should probably have more than 2 people working on fixes huh? I mean, if it’s hard….