Guild Wars 2

You know, if backstabs are such an issue, you could just spin in circles. I do it when I’m facing bad thieves and it is literally the best thing ever.

Scrap the first build unless you wanna grab traveler runes. Also, the reduced CD only helps RoW, which is nice but not worth it in my opinion. I’d personally grab empowering might over that.

As for your second build, I see sword as a condi guard weapon because the auto is so suitable for it. The scepter is much better for a zerk guard, but to each his own. One problem with playing a melee only build on a class as slow as guard is that you desperately need traveler runes, especially if you’re solo. I can literally come up with no situtation where I would prefer sword over scepter on a zerk build and I’d actually choose mace in some instances. Also, you’ll find that your trait setup is very basic, but I’m sure you’ll find your flavour soon enough.

I don’t know how well you’d enjoy warrior, but I’m fairly certain that warrior is capable of catering to most tastes/playstyles. I main guardian and play an ele and a warr as an alt and I find that both classes are very fun when you set them up right. You try running the meta builds and you’ll find yourself falling asleep very quickly. One of the very cool things about warrior that you can’t really find on any other class is that almost any and every combination works as long as you know how to make it work so if you find yourself getting bored, you can simply whip out the skill calc and craft yourself a whole new playstyle. I’ve seen some warriors go pure range, some go full CC, some go full support, some aiming for the most possible cleave, some aiming for amazing mobility. You’ll find that your only qualm with warrior (the only reason I’m not maining him or my ele) is just the difference in aesthetics.

Nike.2631:

There is a whole room at ArenaNet where they watch the match up results from sPvP in kitten near real time, aggregated across the whole game.

The signs something is out of whack that they’ll take action to correct come from those graphs, not from any “please nerf X” on the forums.

So evidently someone out there does just fine against guards with their thieves.

Pics or room doesn’t exist.

Drennon.7190:

I can see where you’re coming from there. I made the assumption that we were talking two experienced players, on two different zerker classes, that understand how to properly counter the opposing class.

If we’re talking two experienced players, then they shouldn’t be making mistakes to be forgiven for and lets be honest, with all of the mobility, CC, and stealth being the all-encompassing sustain/dps “boon” that it is, thief is far easier to play when you actually know how to play it whereas guard hits a limit thanks the lack of mobility.

Booms.3952:

SlayerSixx.5763:

You don’t disengage and reset the fight at your leisure, you eat 3k autos. Good plan.

step 1 disengage and use los so guardian cant attack
step 2 the guardian is better than a pve dungeon hero and SoW + mightyblow + SC + JI + GH + leeching and you insta die because you couldnt see the burst

You see the SoW and him leaping and you DON’T dodge? ulagginm8?

Drennon.7190:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Everyone should be toned down and should have one trait while everyone wields a greatstick that fires off at 1 range with infinite projectile speed. Some classes are designed to do better vs other classes, thats how stuff works.

@Drennon

The class with the lowest base HP (not mentioning highest armor because lets be honest, you’d need an upwards of 2.8-3k armor for you to notice an actual drop in damage taken) that survives purely off of blocks and small burst heals is an easy class? Thieves stealth and guards block. A thief that burns all of his initiative just to camp stealth eventually runs out and gets rolled. A guard that burns all of his blocks like a madman eventually runs out and gets rolled. I’ll admit, setting up guard DPS isn’t too hard, but guard was always about his active defenses. If a zerk guard doesn’t bait dodges and stun breaks, we’re reduced to auto attacking for another 20-30 seconds (don’t talk about the alternate weapon set, as that is simply a filler until the real burst is back up). Zerk guard is the most forgiving zerk class for a whole 10 seconds if you don’t manage your blocks.

Honestly, deal with it.

I have 1000 hours on guard and about 1200 matches on it. So I think I know where I’m coming from. I’m not saying that guardian is OP or needs toned down, but it is the easiest zerker class there is.. It’s so forgiving.

You say that now that you actually know how to play the game, but a zerk ranger or warrior is farrrr easier to pull off as newbie vs another newbie zerk guard.

Everyone should be toned down and should have one trait while everyone wields a greatstick that fires off at 1 range with infinite projectile speed. Some classes are designed to do better vs other classes, thats how stuff works.

@Drennon

The class with the lowest base HP (not mentioning highest armor because lets be honest, you’d need an upwards of 2.8-3k armor for you to notice an actual drop in damage taken) that survives purely off of blocks and small burst heals is an easy class? Thieves stealth and guards block. A thief that burns all of his initiative just to camp stealth eventually runs out and gets rolled. A guard that burns all of his blocks like a madman eventually runs out and gets rolled. I’ll admit, setting up guard DPS isn’t too hard, but guard was always about his active defenses. If a zerk guard doesn’t bait dodges and stun breaks, we’re reduced to auto attacking for another 20-30 seconds (don’t talk about the alternate weapon set, as that is simply a filler until the real burst is back up). Zerk guard is the most forgiving zerk class for a whole 10 seconds if you don’t manage your blocks.

Honestly, deal with it.

I don’t know man. All the endurance we’re getting + the increase to outgoing heals if you take FoW more than makes up for it in my opinion. I’m honestly torn between radiance and honor as my final trait line at the moment and honor seems like its going to win out unless some numbers change.

I’ll agree, though, that the adept honor traits are bad. There aren’t many ledges you could suffer fall damage from in PvP and forcing it just to proc that trait is really dumb. Not every build uses mace, although the protective reviver trait isn’t too bad, since it has some synergy with dulled senses to make it a tad bit more difficult to interrupt a heal, although I’d tie at least 2-3 stacks of stability to the resser, considering the trait has a 60s CD.

You don’t disengage and reset the fight at your leisure, you eat 3k autos. Good plan.

I think this was a needed improvement. Can people cross the barrier by running through it or are they knocked back ward style? Or do they just run into a wall? As Ezrael stated, gear shield is still much easier to use with a shorter CD, but I think this will be one very nice change in many that will finally get guards thinking about how better to protect their allies instead of trying to compete with shoutbows 1-2-3 party heals, which will force guardians in general to either get better or re-roll.

If you have sword/focus, you can literally run around with 1hp vs a lich and beat him (assuming no condi). If you don’t have sword, it’ll be a bit harder, but like death shroud, lich is verrrrrry easy to counter as guard.

messiah.1908:

SlayerSixx.5763:

How on earth do you lose to mesmers, rangers, and thieves? Also, hammer guards give you trouble? Their slow, extremely telegraphed attacks give you problems? What on earth are you running with?

on my hybrid guard a thief has hard job to taking me but eventualy he can after some time becuase i burn all my utilities and block skills . on average i have high win rate

gs medi gaurd are hard to handle as they got good cleanse rotations
mesmer if they smart will play from range which is the guardian problem (maybe LB will fix it)
ranger power one are easy sometimes depends on thier build and cleanse ability

That’s the thing, though. Any kiting advantage the other classes could’ve excersized over us is now gone when we get the longbow. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ll be picking up my Jesus beam to compliment my meditations. If you can burst hard enough, everything except for a shoutbow won’t survive longer than the first 60 seconds.

Look at it this way. You don’t have to burn JI to be able to reliably land WW. You have the GS leap, GS5, the virtue leap which will damage AND immobilize of traited, longbows passive knock back, longbows ranged ward AND a cripple on your auto. All of these options WITHOUT having to crutch on JI. If you use hammer, the CC options increase 100×. People complain that the other classes are getting substantial buffs and don’t agree that guard is in a good place, but you have to remember that we’ll finally have some actual freedom when it comes to choosing our battles.

Also @ Gabriel
If you played and geared your seeker right, you could facetank a sin and one shot him, kinda like how it is here :P.

Saiyan.1704:

SlayerSixx.5763:

How on earth do you lose to mesmers, rangers, and thieves? Also, hammer guards give you trouble? Their slow, extremely telegraphed attacks give you problems? What on earth are you running with?

21614 is refering to traditional medi.
I hardly lose to hamguards with absolute resolution but if they elite my krait and actually manage AR + contemplation then I could be toast.

You never fought a good mesmer, thief, ranger 1v1. I can message you the names of people who you’ll likely never beat consistently if you’d like. The majority are in Fear.

I thought I could down any cele ele until I actually found a couple who I couldn’t beat. The same probably applies to you and these classes.

back on topic:
Burn guards will be more aggressive in their bursts but even more suceptable to getting countered.

Sure. A learning experience is always welcome.

How on earth do you lose to mesmers, rangers, and thieves? Also, hammer guards give you trouble? Their slow, extremely telegraphed attacks give you problems? What on earth are you running with?

Funny thing is, I’ve seen you duel some people before. You downed anyone who wasn’t a cele Ele without so much as breaking a sweat. In fact, I remember you facing a theif and downing him after landing a total of THREE autos. Such skill.

Saiyan.1704:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Nike.2631:

Having only one way to build is the complete opposite of skill for a game designer though.

There’s plenty of ways they could diversify play styles without making them incredibly passive. Giving AI builds the ability to ACTUALLY micro manage their summons, different DPS mechanics like them building on their shatters (they did a nice job with chrono IMO), make support less boon sharing and more control based (kinda what they did with DH, although traps are a little iffy). There are PLENTY of ways. With HoT coming out, they’ve done a lot of good kitten with the elites and trait reworks, but they need to streamline their game so that they don’t run into issues later on.

I completely agree that there should be less passive play in the game but you would have to completely change the core mechanics of every class. It’s just not going to happen.

All Cele builds play 2x more passively than Condi classes. They have high amounts of regen, peels, damage negation utilities, CC, raw damage and conditions for irony. If any one of these aspects were removed they wouldn’t be meta. Yet pure condition specs are called “passive builds”.
That label isn’t exactly politically correct.

Guardians are Hybrids for a reason. We only have 1 condition that’s easily cleansed off. Half the time we have to engage and land 5 attacks to proc said condition. If we’re not dealing damage then we’re going to block and blind you till we eventually can. That right there is why Guardian, by nature, is a passive aggressive class.

Yet, HoT is making guardians more aggressive. At least in the condi/hybrid aspect of it. Compared to Zerk meta, condi guards will have the higher risks for sure. Not that we don’t already.
I don’t play condi because it’s easy. In fact, i’m often challenged more due to the amount of counters the build has in high level play.

Cele builds are the easiest to play at the highest levels, that’s kinda why they’re meta.

A very big overhaul IS coming, so hopefully we can push past this cheese.

Guardians are not hybrid because they’re bad at applying conditions. That’s dumb.

Guardians are the exact opposite of passive agressive. You can say we’re defensive, but passive agressive=\= defensive.

I would go as far as to liken condi builds to pre nerf turrets. They only work in lower levels of play and are merely an annoyance vs the better players, but its a play style that, quite frankly, shouldn’t exist. Like it needs to go ASAP.

messiah.1908:

SlayerSixx.5763:

A condi user generally sets themselves up to simply sustain through their utilities while their conditions deal the damage for them. I can guarantee you that if anet removed condition damage from the cele amulet, the cele meta would die then and there. You’re probably going to ask if the same applies to power, but it just doesn’t. Why it doesn’t is apparent in the vast difference in the amount of things that can counter direct damage bursts vs condition damage bursts.

its hard for me to agree with that.
i agree that everything you wrote on how to direct dmg fails also applies to condi dmg but also against condi dmg you got cleanse utilities and skills.
if your assumption is correct why you dont see ppl running with rabid, carrion amulet which give full condi, toughness or vitality and power. you just dont (maybe condi necro) so ppl dont need the condi as thye used zerker instead thus they look for power and not condi. thus cele meta isnt there for the condi rather for power and sustain ability

what i hope fore is when the new patch will be out with more direct dmg abilities and conditions dmg abilities ppl will have to try them out versus the current meta and if an overall win for the condi or power or hybrid will win then we will see shift from the current meta.

also in pvp dont forget if you 1v1 with condi dmg the enemy team has easier chance to make it 1v2 as your condi take times to kill enable the enemy to help when needed.

The reason why zerker is more prominent is because it has more reward for the better you get. People can say what they will about GW2 being an easy game, but you can still tell the difference between a good player and a bad player. Again, unless you’re S/D thief, most people can cleanse 3-5 condis per 30-40 seconds, so saying that the amount of cleanse vs the amount of conditions that can be applied is balanced, you’re crazy. To make matters worse, the only real way to counter condis is through cleanse and you’re stuck facing 99% of condi builds that can apply them on their auto (most of which happen to be ranged).

About cele, that’s the thing though. The defensive stats aren’t anything a zerker can’t shrug off. If carrion gave at least some precision and kept its original stats, kitten would be very different. Power is basically useless without at least some precision. The fact that a cele has as much ferocity as a zerker only sweetens the deal. When the cele build ISNT hitting you, their condis are chipping away at you. That’s why they stat doom/geo. They can circle around you and kite/liberally apply their heals while their condis throw in some offensive pressure WHILE THEY ARENT EVEN HITTING YOU.

And let’s be honest, 5-6 stacks of bleed and/or torment will down a person really quickly.

Nike.2631:

Having only one way to build is the complete opposite of skill for a game designer though.

There’s plenty of ways they could diversify play styles without making them incredibly passive. Giving AI builds the ability to ACTUALLY micro manage their summons, different DPS mechanics like them building on their shatters (they did a nice job with chrono IMO), make support less boon sharing and more control based (kinda what they did with DH, although traps are a little iffy). There are PLENTY of ways. With HoT coming out, they’ve done a lot of good kitten with the elites and trait reworks, but they need to streamline their game so that they don’t run into issues later on.

They should make it so stealth is invuln. You shouldn’t be able to hit that which you can’t see, amirite? Zergdive with a 100 stealthed theives and rek everyone with chain backstab after chain backstab.

Sadrien.3470:

Saiyan.1704:

Bash.7291:

So… lets see, for all the weapon sets (despite the title of the thread being melee)

VoJ: now does more burning damage, aoe, based on staying close,
VoR, leap, gap closer.
VoC: destroys projectiles, great for when getting kited,

Traits:

Piercing light, bleed for traps, which can obviously used well in melee builds, despite weapon,

Zealots Aggression, free 10% damage to crippled enemies, count cripple from any source

Soaring Devestation: an attack AND IMMOB on VoR.

Defenders dogma: instant VoJ passive on block, good for focus and mace

Bulwark: increase to VoC, bigger range and duration, helps more with dealing with kiting,

Dulled Senses: cripple on knockback, hammer/shield both have knockbacks, and also the honor trait protective reviver. wondering if this works for wards as well, though i believe those are only knockdowns, if so, would like seeing the trait buffed to any actual stuns, knockdowns and knockbacks

Pure of sight: extra damage at range, includes scepter and staff, torch throw, if they ever fix it sword #3….

Hunters fort: free prot on virtue activation, works for any weapon.

Big game hunter: vuln when attacking Voj’ed enemies, GREAT for multi hit weapons such as GS, scepter, sword, and torch, but also allows for free vuln regardless.

So based on the OP saying that the trait line is focused around traps and LB, there is ONE trap trait (which honestly i wish had some more substance to it), and a total of TWO Longbow specific traits in the DH line, Hunter’s determination, and heavy light, which were not included in the list above. EVERY other trait than those 3 can be used with other weapons, or actually help a set of weapons (Pure of sight for ranged, and big game hunter for mutli-hit attacks for more specific examples.)

Honestly, after being gone from the game for a while, and going through the forums about these changes, I really feel like so much of the guardian community doesnt even LOOK at what we have and what we are getting together in a bigger picture. Everyone except a select few look at the specialization and see nothing but Longbow and traps, and doesn’t even seem to look and see what could be done using different combinations.

+1

+10000000000000 * 300000000 / 1

+100!

So I just typed up an awesome response, but computer bugged out on me so I’ll just drop a summary of what I said.

Healing power is useless. You know this. I know this. Everyone knows this.

Celestial provides a small boost to toughness and vitality. This is good and well, but these stats mean nothing vs a zerker.

What’s left? The damage stats. Direct damage (that usually comes in bursts) can be dodged, blinded, blocked, reflected, invulned through, the dpser can be knocked down, knocked back, stunned, dazed, rooted, LOSed, stealthed away from, and teleported away from. Of course, one would now say that all of these things apply to a condi user as well, since the conditions arent automatically applied (although it is in some cases, but that isn’t that big of an issue), but you have to understand that a lot of a condi users damage comes from straight auto attacks. A condi user generally sets themselves up to simply sustain through their utilities while their conditions deal the damage for them. I can guarantee you that if anet removed condition damage from the cele amulet, the cele meta would die then and there. You’re probably going to ask if the same applies to power, but it just doesn’t. Why it doesn’t is apparent in the vast difference in the amount of things that can counter direct damage bursts vs condition damage bursts.

Again, don’t misunderstand, I’m not calling them OP, but I am saying they promote easy and passive play which translates to being generally bad. No one enjoys watching two fools auto attack each other to death with the winner being determined by who had RNG on their side. It promotes bad play because of how this game works. Its primary focus is active defense and offense. Condition builds are the exact opposite of that and are crutches for lazy/bad players. Why they released celestial is beyond me (perhaps in an effort to make fights take longer making there to be more fight to watch cuz ESPAWRTS).

I get that GW2 is aiming to be more casual, but they really need to start cutting the fat from their game and force players to think instead of play styles like these being viable so that the game can finally grow.

Why should they make condition damage on par with direct? This is the reason why PvP is where its at right now. If conditions were purely for supportive purposes (immob, vuln, poison’s healing reduction, etc) I guarantee you the celestial meta would’ve never left the launch pad. Personally, I think you guys should just stop trying to play passively and, instead, try to get the condi nerfs to come around. Condi isn’t unbeatable, but its hella annoying and it practically ruins fights when you have to time attacks and position yourself and the condi based user just auto attacks, with the occasional dodge/stealth/sustain skill while you’re whittled away.

Eurantien.4632:

Ross Biddle.2367:

18 matches ever on Ranger, 11th win, its a super simple easymode class to play. You hit the skill ceiling about the third match you play and its all profit from there. Once you’re 18 matches deep and a super pro like me you’ll fully carry your team.

https://youtu.be/pOizCMxVXOU

I do it for the daily but my soul still withers after playing it : D
OP? In need of balance? Eh, I don’t know.

Skill ceiling? You swapped your pet once in the entire match.

Proof of how easy ranger is maybe…..?

Some were nice, but vuln on regen instead of prot x.x? They must really not want reaper to have a hard time xD.

In my opinion, you either go all the way into radiance for RHS, or put a single point for the blind. Also, the vigor > virtue boons.

You want people to adjust to your get out of combat free card, but you neglect the fact that you have three very potent CC tools (one of which you have constant access to) to stop the channel BEFORE you stealth? Let me guess, you must also let people pop their heal and drop banners unimpeded. Mhm, it is interesting how many baddies this game has.

Come on lol, all of you people asking for a stealth buff have no case. Let this thread die.

A masterpiece. In all seriousness though, you could just run shoutbow and have a DPS follow you. Easiest way to rally a pug is to go in first.

Clones and dodging are OP? I’ll agree that moa is annoying and fatal in some cases, but its an elite. Also, there are other elites that are just as rage inducing, if not more (see rampage, RaO, lich vs a non guard/thief, entangle). Honestly OP, how long have you been pvping for?

Well technically, SA traited theives will be immune to power and condi damage in stealth and deal ridiculous amounts of damage coming out of stealth thanks to DA traits, so I guess the OP just needs to wait.

Well you’re talking about team coordination, which is exactly what anet is aiming for iirc. The same could be said about a reaper and a dragonhunter timing their kitten so that any thieves that may try to stealth gank the reaper get whiffed and essentially oneshotted thanks to the insta 25 vuln. I will say though that conditions will need a whole lot of fixing lest they absolutely dominate power builds.

You shouldn’t be able to target a person with a channel skill before the stealth, but stealthing at will to avoid every ranged attack is OK? Interesting. It isn’t like the thief meta build doesn’t have a million CCS.

OK, sure LB power ranger is really easy to play and packs one hell of a punch, but it really isn’t that hard to outplay. You dodge roll once to negate over half of their lb2, stay outside of their barrage and give them a sweet ole hug to cut their auto’s damage in half. Save your condi cleanse for entangle and you’re practically a shoe in for the win. Practically every class and almost every build has a way to ruin ranger. The only people I can agree with are the necro mains. Rest of you people should sit down and shut up.

Yea, I don’t know why people are under the impression that you HAVE to run five traps. This isn’t medi, try mixing and matching kitten lol.

This is confusing. You either get a power creep and cry or cry about the update being a sidegrade. Some even go as far as to call it underpowered because it doesn’t fit their bunker guard that does 0 damage to begin with and is usually tied down to staff/x.

Ive played all of the guard builds and can already come up with some really cool builds that mix the core and DH together. How they’ll fair depends on what the coming elites look like, but I’m fairly confident in DH whooping some serious kitten vs reaper/chron

Essentially a third on crit effect that is also aoe. Adds a really nice chunk of damage and since your attack speed is complete kitten , you benefit from more damage in a single instance than over time (ever land a crit mighty blow + air + fire + GH?). Both options are RNG, but on crit effects usually proc so often that you can basically expect it whenever its off CD. Also, don’t forget that chill is strong AF.

I see guard as a magic swordsman and that’s what I’m playing him as. When LB comes out, I’m dropping scepter and going to get cozy with my WW trap + ranged ward + JI + WW so I can spin while you’re getting spun on. Hell, speccing into spirit weapons for the lols and having 5 spirit swords out to deal 5k DPS without touching you (inc turret guard). Use the elite trap in tandem with hammer and bow for perhaps the deadliest lockdown ever (approx 15 seconds of warding) with dulled senses stacking nearly 30s+ of cripple easy. Having a friendly reaper on your team and you drop your vuln trap and watch him hit 10ks. I love guard as it is now and I’m going to flip my kitten when it comes out with all the ridiculous combos.

General rule of thumb vs celelelelelelelelele is to force water. If you can force water before they can get some might stacked, even better. I’m fairly certain a fear+a lb or two should pressure them enough. If you can chill them after they leave water, even better. Apologies in advance if this is the dumbest advice ever since I’m really bad at necro.

Toxsa.2701:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Toxsa.2701:

Saiyan.1704:

Artaz.3819:

Just a little correction:

Vargamonth.2047:

So is the adept 10% damage multiplier against crippled foes. We can definitely always benefit from it in PvE, where the condition could be applied by other players, but the trait only makes sense as a bow/trap related trait since those are our only reliable cripple sources.

Superior Sigil of Incapacitation

LB autoattack will also cripple both targets if it bounces (more than one target is hit).

I still need to see real time/real opponent reaction to projectile speed of arrows to target before any real commentary can be made.

I’m sure it’ll be no different than a Warrior’s arrow projectiles on his bow. It’s very much dodgeable at 600 range but unlike a warriors specific, high cd skills, no one is going to trouble themselves with dodging an autoattack cripple compared to other skills.

Our “kill shot” arrow will be obvious, especially at 1200 range. But not in a game breaking way, it’ll still be useful.

You’re pretty wrong. Anet already mentioned that all arrows will have Read the Wind projectile speed as baseline, meaning all of them have their arrow speed increased by 100% on default.

I thought that was for rangers AKA the guys who lost read the wind…

Well, how do they increase the velocity of LB only to ranger? If it’s a QoL change for Longbow in general, then all LB should get the benefit. Unless they kind of hard-code Read-the-Wind in ranger’s profession.

Kinda how the warrior hammer and guardian hammer autos function the same, but one is wayyyyyyyy slower.

Greek.4396:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I bet you everyone could say the same about wanting the same amount of blocks. Personally, I’m fine not having the perma speed on guard, and doubly fine that we’re finally getting a 1200 range weapon that actually works at 1200 range. Finally, a way to camp from afar and only port in when the moment is right.

Siting Back 1200 Range pew pewing. Dont break your one key now.

I’ll try not to babes ;D.

Sylent.3165:

I see a reaper coming at me with his greatsword, I drop my 2 skill and auto attacks, he gets close and I push him back with my auto attack and cripple him just enough time to get my 2 skill in again. He cone in for the kill I drop my 5 skill on him, my 4 skill, and another 2 while dodging back. He’s getting close my auto attack knocks him back again, I use my 3 skill and get the blind. Drop another 2 skill on him.

People aren’t giving dh any credit, going to be very powerful I think.

You. I like you.

By the way, DH haters, he didn’t even bring up the vanilla medi burst combo into play. Can you all feel the amazing DPS at all ranges?

Metabattle.com for all of your build needs.

Thing about medi guard is that we’ve got many ways to dominate other zerk classes with ease. My advice would be to draw out their focus shield. Once their focus shield is down, as soon as you go in for a daze>shatter combo, they’ll usually stunbreak with CoP and then either dodge roll out or block with virtues and then invuln through your next series of DPS. Our only actual weakness is our inability to disengage or stop people from disengaging. If you can survive the initial burst and escape, come back in about fifteen seconds and then kite because JI has a 36 second CD(traited).

As for avoiding our burst, I usually open with scepter and pew pew for a bit before whipping out the great sword. The mark of a good guard is that they usually start off with their non GS set and then swap into GS when the time is right. If you’re having trouble with people who open with their GS, there really isn’t much I could say. Maybe try distorting through their whirl and just locking them down while kiting?

Templar.3418:

^

It being a way better ranger than an actual ranger in pve or pvp is pretty much a problem in itself.

Well, you gotta remember that they’re changing rangers as well. All of these specializations are supposed to be different from the core class.

Adding a total 2k healing plus fury plus aoe burst plus a condition cleanse. I know for a fact I won’t run CoP anymore because both of these options just look amazing, even though I’m leaning towards smiters more.

It isn’t unfair that ward/engi/ele have move speed and sustain. What’s unfair is the kitten ed celestial amulet only catering to them. This jack of all trades business needs to go.

Black Box.9312:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Black Box.9312:

SlayerSixx.5763:

A slow, hard hitting class like reaper is basically a god send for us guards who know how to actually block.

I dunno what stream you were watching yesterday, but Guardians are going to get kitten on by a good Reaper. As if our cooldowns weren’t long enough on their own, perma chill and a shout that makes attacks unblockable are going to wreak havoc on a medi guard that already has trouble disengaging without 66% less movement speed.

Eeeexxxceeeppt we aren’t forced to melee them and actually have ways of pinning them down while kiting and also have some decent condi removal?

They’ll have pulls. Also if you look at current traits alongside the new Reaper traits you’ll find that it’s probably NOT going to be so easy to pin them down.

Hey, I finally have to take necros seriously when I fight them instead of just face rolling them for a free kill. Finally a fun fight.

Black Box.9312:

SlayerSixx.5763:

A slow, hard hitting class like reaper is basically a god send for us guards who know how to actually block.

I dunno what stream you were watching yesterday, but Guardians are going to get kitten on by a good Reaper. As if our cooldowns weren’t long enough on their own, perma chill and a shout that makes attacks unblockable are going to wreak havoc on a medi guard that already has trouble disengaging without 66% less movement speed.

Eeeexxxceeeppt we aren’t forced to melee them and actually have ways of pinning them down while kiting and also have some decent condi removal?

Fashion Mage.3712:

SlayerSixx.5763:

People crying about wanting to support even more than they’re already capable of confuse me. What do you want? Perma invuln for all of your team mates? Perma 25 stacks of might? Or how about random teleports? What about perma wards. Honestly. Guard has ENOUGH support options and when they finally tone cele down even more, I believe even bunker guards will make a reappearance competitively. We’ve sacrificed enough personal DPS in the name of support. You can STILL play your support guard if you want and rock the base changes really nicely. Also, iirc, the devs plan to stash away the tomes and add an elite shout and an elite signet with really powerful effects for all of your supporting needs.

People wanting to specialize further into support from a profession that is meant to primarily offer support confuses you?
Do you think that the only guardians that exist are meditation guardians or something? Just because they’re the meta doesn’t mean that’s true, but ANet might think so since this spec is basically here just to cater to the flaws of meditation guardians, so that they can be perfectly rounded. The opposite of specialization, ironically.

We’ve “sacrificed enough DPS for support”, yet -if I recall correctly- we have one of the best levels of DPS in PvE, and it’s not like meditation guardians don’t do a lot of damage.

ANet considering removing tomes bothers me, and it should bother anyone interested in the idea of supporting from the backline as a guardian.

What I want to know is what else you could honestly ask for in terms of support? You have access to every boon in the game in moderate quantities, you have some rather nifty ways of directly mitigating damage (sanctuary, wall of reflection, shield skills, mace skills). Of course, in terms of party heals, we’ve been out done by the cele meta, but that might change when the cele nerf and trait rework drop. What else could anet honestly give you guys? We might get an super OP elite signet that would practically make you a godlike healer.

We’ve sacrificed all of the soft CC and viable sources of swiftness just because we can " support". That’s what I mean. As it currently stands, we have no cripples across any weapon set, no sources of chill (save for GH), our only “reliable” source of swiftness requires a crappy overall weapon (aptly named the boon stick) that requires us to stand inside for a few seconds to fully utilize.

I’m happy a DPS oriented specialization is coming out. Now, to make things fair and balanced, they should make the base guard focus on supporting, although I’m not sure how they’d do that.