I’m saying that you should space your virtues out before popping RF. In case you didnt know, virtues are very powerful additions to your defense, so popping RF without first having used them only to burst them all because you didn’t know when and how to, is in fact, bad.
If you’re counter dpsing, you should be able to at least force one of them onto the defense while still maintaining your defenses.
I’m not targeting you because I have a problem with YOU in particular. I’m putting you on the spot because you decided to elaborate on the bullkitten people are crying about.
Regardless of play style, proper virtue management is ridiculously valuable and saying that you cant spam your virtues while in RF is the reason why these amazing changes are bad is what’s wrong with the player base.
You want to keep your ultra support build, that, by the way, is still getting buffed, then by all means go ahead. Calling these changes bad because they don’t fit YOUR play style is ridiculous.
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.
Can’t speak for the other classes, but pretty much every build I play with guard just facerolls mesmer. Dodge mirror blade and illusionary leap and you’re usually good to go, since mind wrack is so kitten obvious to avoid.
Nah, slick shoes were meant to be used as an escape mechanism and the oil was meant to deter people from following them. Of course, using it offensively wasn’t a tough stretch. In my opinion, nerf the oil dropping duration in half but give them their speed in case they want to escape.
Personally, I only read up on the dragon hunter additions because guard IS my main. Since I haven’t read up on the chron (can we call them that from now on xD?) And I’m mediocre at best with normal mesmer, I wont go ahead and compare, but I will say that dragon hunter is finally going to bring guardian around full circle. At first, I was a little frustrated by the addition of bow (since I don’t like bows at all) but I eventually came around. We’re finally getting a 1200 range weapon that works at 1200 range, so we aren’t forced to flash into melee range to do battle anymore. Smashing illusions, minions, turrets, clusters of people and mobs without having to put yourself in any kind of serious danger is exactly what guard needed.
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.
Are you playing the game on a toaster :o?
Personally, I’m surprised they waited this long to put this into consideration. I’m 100% behind this idea, since I’m considering taking the virtues line after the trait rework anyways. While they’re at it, they should roll permeating wrath and absolute justice into one GM trait.
Well, since they’re trying to push away from “holy” or "religious " type things here, my money is on lightbringer or something of the sorts.
I main a medi guard and as much as I hate having people belittle my build, its the truth. I don’t know any other spec that can face tank a lich. Sure, our actual heal skill doesn’t heal as much as almost every other heal skill in the game, but meditation heals and the block shelter provides makes life so much easier. I’ve never had people go out of combat to heal and then come back and drop me because that means I leave combat as well. If you don’t fire off all of your damage mitigation skills, you really shouldn’t be bested in a 1v1 by anyone, except for those extremely slippery s/d thrives and immortal cele eles. I’m sure we can all agree that we’re strong, but OP? Come now. The damage mitigation is simply guards thing, like death shroud and shatters are to necros and mesmers.
You say WW, I keep thinking about the faceroll burn damage we could apply with smite and the sword auto combined with those virtue traits.
And sword auto #3 o.o? Zealots defense, like every flurry in the game, roots you and then comes with a bonus. My only gripe is that every other flurry has a build up that CCs the target before the flurry goes down. Cool thing though is that we’ll get an immob on VoJ so landing the flurry won’t be too difficult.
Hammer requires a certain finesse. In my opinion, MB is far superior to WW vs competent enemies because landing your entire burst in a single hit as opposed to many smaller hits leaves you with more freedom to move around and less stress. I believe the incredible wind up times on hammer are a godsend when you want to bait dodges. There’s a small skill cancel guide on youtube that will literally turn your adventures with the slowest weapon in the game into some of the best times ever in PvP. If you master this tiny trick with the hammer, losing fights should be nearly impossible unless you’re outnumbered.
You forgot to mention that all those hits also procs VoJ, which adds almost as much, if not more, burn damage. Making it cleanse conditions for the caster as well would pretty much completely nullify condition builds vs medi guards(not that I could give less of a crap about that cheese). I vote to keep the damage, but cut the duration of the skill in half.
For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.
Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.
The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.
Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).
As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.
Its not so much that they can spam them, but engineers, elementalists & rangers generally have just the right combination of CC, burst & conditions that they can counter med guards if played right.
If you need proof try watching the higher end match ups on you tube.
After playing a guardian since launch & watching many of the high end match ups I think I’m not alone when I say I would gladly trade a little bit of my burst for ready access to cripple/slows.
I’ll agree with engineers being able to CC for days, but you should be able to block a majority of his really telegraphed attacks (except for the rifle knock back and crate, but one CCs the engi too and the other is an elite). I’m currently trying to think of ways a ranger would kite you where you wouldn’t be able to keep up at all, but I’m drawing blanks. Mind you, I’m thinking of the current power lb/gs ranger with the typical traits, so other combinations could certainly be more effective in terms of kiting. As for ele, D/D is practically melee range. Them running from you means less pressure and more time for you to recover. How could that honestly be a bad thing?
VS Ranger
Easy fight. Not much to say here other than save your contemplation for entangle and if they don’t have entangle, you’re pretty much the winner already. If they’re condi, stay frosty and time your burst, since they’re probably rabid and have alot of toughness. If they have axe, don’t try fighting them in melee range, since the auto really hurts if you stay too close for too long.
VS Thief
Easy fight if they’re running meta, just don’t get sloppy with your blocks. If they’re S/D, you REALLY have to stay sharp. Instead of perma stealth, they have perma dodge and will literally dance around you for days and days. The trick to downing them is to lock them down right after they burn withdraw. Normal dodges can’t get them out of an immob, and then their only escape is either to shadowstep away from you or to steal. If you forced them to steal in order to save themselves, the fight is practically yours. Keep your rotations fresh. Most S/D know the cookie cutter JI > BB or JI > MB/RoW and know how to dodge it so play like they play and wait a bit before unloading all of your DPS.
VS Engineer
Easy fight, don’t get sloppy with blocks.
VS Warrior
Here’s a fun fight. Assuming they’re running something that isn’t faceroll shoutbow, you REALLY have to time your blocks and save your stunbreakers. They don’t apply many conditions, so using contemplation to break their stun (assuming they’re axe+shield/gs), forcing VoC’s aegis or the blind on VoJ to avoid the eviscerate, dodge rolling through their whirl is fine, and actually mandatory, imo. Cool thing about fighting most warriors is that they bring healing signet along meaning that once you’ve gotten them down to low hp, you’re practically the winner. Pace out your blocks so you don’t blow them all at once, but don’t wait up, since they’ll shred you if you’re not careful.
IF they’re running shoutbow, stay out of the fire field and pew pew with scepter. If you don’t have scepter, may as well make use of the constant burning you’ll be taking and time your smite condition with your burst and pray they die before backup comes around.
VS Mesmer
Stay sharp and avoid the shatters. If you can avoid the shatters with your multitude of skills, you win. If you really wanna pull off some MLG business, you can wait until they’re RIGHT in range for VoJ’s blind and use that instead. Most mesmers run illusionary persona, so if you don’t see a third clone and the mesmer has gone stealth, wait to see when the clones are about to huddle around you and pop your block/blind/invuln because the mesmer is about to shatter. Also, if you can force the blink and the distort without burning JI, you’re a shoe in for the win.
VS Necro
Easy fight. Wait for the condi bombs to contemplate through and force them into DS. Once they’re in DS, life blast is literally the easiest thing to avoid. Same deal if they pop lich, except you get rekt if you make a mistake.
VS Elementalist
The only fight I truly dread. With the D/D cele meta, they’re immortal. They don’t need to block. They only need to dodge to force the water heals.
Things to avoid: RtL > Updraft (common opening). Fire grab (does some nice damage if they catch you while you’re on fire, so if you wanna pull some clutch MLG business, you can either blind with VoJ or pop smite to heal, do some nice damage back, and cut their fire grab’s damage by half). Their earth grab thing that immobilizes you. No D/D ele seriously uses churning earth in a head to head fight, but some will. When they do, they usually pop lightning flash on top of you so it lands, so stay privy to it and dodge/block/blind. I recommend you force your DPS onto them WITHOUT popping JI so that they’re forced into water for the heals. Once you’ve gotten them out of water, you have a 10 second window to force your DPS down their throats. They’ll usually default to air for the shocking aura or earth for the decreased damage just to stall, so you have to be ultra aggressive. If you can bait the dodges by canceling through BB/MB/RoW, you’re pretty much set to wreck them.
When they’re fresh air, bait the obsidian flesh and arcane armor and then they’re practically dead very soon after. Stay sharp though, since they can down you as fast (if not faster) as you can them.
If they’re staff, they’re probably cele. Interrupt the meteor by forcing DPS or dropping some CC and you’re practically fine. Staff cele isn’t that big of a deal to face in 1v1 anyways, especially for a medi guard.
VS Guardian
As with any class, facing someone using the same class/build as you are literally boils down to who’s simply better at it. Save your SoW for when they setup their burst combo and ALWAYS be the last guy to shelter/RF. You want to force them onto the defensive because a medi guard without their blocks/heals is practically as squishy as an ele.
Feel free to PM me in game if you have any further questions.
For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.
Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.
The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.
Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).
As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.
For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.
As the title indicates, I want to propose a rework for this trait. As it is now, its practically useless. The rally on kill for VoJ is really nice (even in PvP) since you could basically spam it for amazing results.
Here’s what will usually happen when you rally:
-You’ve been bannered/SR and are in the middle of a fight, a single block rarely will help you stay alive if your attacker has pressured you hard enough.
-You’ve just won a downed battle and are OOC, a block is useless here.
It needs a change in my opinion.
Here’s what I recommend:
VoC cooldown reduction if you successfully block an attack with its active.
A heal if you successully block an attack with the active.
Some damage if you successfully block an attack with its active.
^All or one, but please don’t choose none.
I like the magic swordsman playstyle. Of course, my current build is all blunt weapons, but if the update remains as awesome as it is or gets better, I’m most likely going to go back to my lovely swords.
So like, I read dulfy’s notes on the changes and I nearly cried when I saw how awesome guard was going to turn out. I’m seriously considering picking up sword/x when the update drops, but I have just one little issue with it and that is…….
Sword skill #3, aka zealots defence. Now, on paper, it does nice damage AND gives us the ability to smash projectiles, but the fact it roots you kinda irks me. I understand that there are other flurry skills that other classes can do with sword, but each of them has some way of rooting the target so they could land their burst, but ZD is so easy to dodge, you’re usually better off auto attacking and it sometimes leaves you open to some really dangerous business so my suggestion is this:
Either make the first hit immobilize the target for a second or two or make it so we could move with it, but slowly.
Well, we’re getting a master trait that applies immob for 3.5s when we F1.
Ohohohohoho, so we are. Fantastic. This update keeps sounding better and better. Hope this thing drops before I start uni.
Instead of blowing air at you, the Guardian will shout at you until you feel better.
This made me laugh so much for some reason. “Don’t you dare die on me! Heal kitten it! heal!” I hope they add some sort of corny dialogue to it. i’d use it just for that.
Gerdian: “AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!” heals everyone
Thief: “I feel better thanks m8.”
War: “what the f-”
You win one forum point. Use it wisely.
@OP
Well, shouts are like oral “buffing” or you just vomiting out magical energy, so I see no issue with this. Litany needs a buff though.
This is off topic, but I also hoping we could get a tweak for scepters where their max range is reduced, but the projectile speed is increased by a good bit.
So like, I read dulfy’s notes on the changes and I nearly cried when I saw how awesome guard was going to turn out. I’m seriously considering picking up sword/x when the update drops, but I have just one little issue with it and that is…….
Sword skill #3, aka zealots defence. Now, on paper, it does nice damage AND gives us the ability to smash projectiles, but the fact it roots you kinda irks me. I understand that there are other flurry skills that other classes can do with sword, but each of them has some way of rooting the target so they could land their burst, but ZD is so easy to dodge, you’re usually better off auto attacking and it sometimes leaves you open to some really dangerous business so my suggestion is this:
Either make the first hit immobilize the target for a second or two or make it so we could move with it, but slowly.
No one is blaming you for using the only viable build in higher levels of play, but its clearly too much. You want people to call you good for playing your nearly immortal character? What’s your argument right now? I faced an ele using the meta build but had a zerker amulet instead and was good at their rotations. Those fights were unreal. If you can pull that off, hats off to you. People usually associate d/d with cele and cele is the real offender in my opinion. If they removed either the power or the condition damage from it, it would suddenly become a much fairer amulet. As it stands, cele builds make up for their lack of power with the condition damage they can push out and since the meta elementalist build can make use of the amulet to its fullest, people cry about eles because, as you stated, not many people know what they’re facing.
I’m the guy who made a whole thread about nerfing celestial, even made a poll asking people what they’d prefer between cele or more nerfs on the profession..the answer was obvious for the majority: nerf the amulet.
The profession doesn’t really need the amulet to be 100% viable, that’s what I believe, yes many would fail on the ele without using this amulet…but
Those who are able to use ele regardless of the amulet still see their worth not recognized by the masses, still labeled as OP..even if you win by using a zerk amulet, these type of thread will still appear.
So it’s fine to nerf celestial..but things won’t change and people will be back to ask for more nerfs after the amulet of this I’m sure
People would still cry if celestial was nerfed and most D/Ds went back to zerk? Probably. Would they actually get nerfed just because of a specific trait setup? I highly doubt it. If you whoop people’s kitten on zerk using the 00266 build and they still complain, move on. People get salty sometimes and that’s a fact.
you could always look up TDM’s legendary guardian 3.0 build. Its on youtube with a full explanation and all that good stuff.
Guardians having similar hp to a warrior’s would be completely game breaking. Guardians have so much healing (both the bunker and the dps roles) and they have the one thing no other class in the game has even a fraction of and it is the damage mitigation. Not only can you build yourself for alot of protection, you can outright block so much damage, blind so many times, and you even have an invulnerability to boot. Personally, I went down the honor line for the vitality bonus and with all the extra healing it provides, 1v1s are absolute cake.
No one is blaming you for using the only viable build in higher levels of play, but its clearly too much. You want people to call you good for playing your nearly immortal character? What’s your argument right now? I faced an ele using the meta build but had a zerker amulet instead and was good at their rotations. Those fights were unreal. If you can pull that off, hats off to you. People usually associate d/d with cele and cele is the real offender in my opinion. If they removed either the power or the condition damage from it, it would suddenly become a much fairer amulet. As it stands, cele builds make up for their lack of power with the condition damage they can push out and since the meta elementalist build can make use of the amulet to its fullest, people cry about eles because, as you stated, not many people know what they’re facing.
(edited by SlayerSixx.5763)
^this guy knows whats up.
Everyone here crying about why this isn’t fair are just sad that their crutches are going down the toilet and that their w/l is going to go down the toilet until they learn to actually play a class that takes effort.
Although, I can respect the idea of having the turrets scale off of the engineers stats. I don’t want a soldier/sentinel amulet engine being able to line up a 5k burst in a single second while knocking me to hell and back and tanking almost as hard a shoutbow.
(edited by SlayerSixx.5763)
/sign
Make this kitten happen ANET.
No one is denying that a meditation guardian is strong, but a cele d/d is op because of how absurdly versatile they are. Also, you mentioned outplaying the guard. Trust me, if you actually outplayed him, you wouldn’t have made that comment.
could someone comment this video for me?
Why is he using healing signet over Shelter?
Why is he using Tome of Courage over Renewed Focus?
Why is he not doding?
And what is the purpose of using ‘Retreat!’ in an sPvP match?I am only familiar with bunker or Meditation Guardians and do not recognize the build of playstyle :/
1. Cuz he hasn’t faced targets who interrupt kitten like that easily.
2. Because he isn’t a smart man
3. See above.
4. See above.
Yea, those are solid, although I’d aim for a little more power (like around 2.1-2.2k) since we have so many ways to avoid damage, raw defensive stats shouldn’t really be a priority (although I don’t recommend skimping on health).
None of that build makes sense. You have high symbol uptime, but the only way you’d be able to drop a symbol is through hammer’s incredibly slow auto. You chose shimmering defense over the boon strip (sword auto procs voj every time meaning a boon strip every 3-4 sword auto rotations). You don’t really need bane signet and signet of resolve is far too easy to interrupt. Tome of wrath is cool, but you’ll get wrecked in a 1v1. SW/S is cool, but I’m against sword in general tbh. In short, those traits/utilities need to be scrapped and replaced.
Holy kitten, thats a really good idea. Drop it in the actual suggestions area and I’m sure the entire guard population will sign.
Ok so, here goes.
- If you’re trying to run a DPS guardian, you shouldn’t even be thinking about spirit weapons.
- If monk’s focus and all of the blocks/blinds that the average medi guardian build has isn’t enough for you to take one player down, you’re beyond helping.
- If the damage isn’t enough to down anyone who isn’t a warrior nearly instantly, you are beyond helping.
Go learn to play the class before you start asking for buffs.
I, personally, have dropped focus in favour of shield a looooooong time ago and have found it to be incredibly worth while. Coupling it with mace gives you the best defensive setup available to the guard with a ton of healing and damage mitigation. The damage isn’t that bad to boot.
Also, shield of absorption DOES provide a light field.
Easy answer?
Don’t chase them. If they’re running from you, its because they nearly died and know they can’t fight you. Don’t let it phase you and move on.
Better answer?
Never. Ever. Use. Sword. Ever. This is because it is so kitten easy to kite. The scepter, on the other hand, is very reliable up until 6-700 range which when strafing our shots becomes very possible. Also, never open with JI or even with your GS. I’d recommend you always start with your scepter/focus. Drop smite without chains and dps for a bit and then move closer. Once you’ve gotten close enough, drop chains and swap to GS and pop WW. If they haven’t cleansed the immob/leaped away, keep auto attacking. They’ll eventually try to use a gap opener, which is when you use JI + BB + SoW + WW. If you time your blocks and blinds properly, you can more or less walk out of this fight without even having to use renewed focus.
It is possible, if you change your build around. I can confidently 1v1 a d/d cele ele on point until the end of time with neither of us coming out as the winner, although I would always be pressuring the living crap out of them. If you can avoid some of their key skills (rtl+updraft, burning speed, fire grab) then you’ll be fine for the most part.
Imo, a good way to balance merciful intervention would be to allow the guard to teleport to the target location regardless of whether or not there are people there. As we are right now, imagine the following scenario: You’re in a fight, you just got CCed, and you know a huge coordinated burst by the engi, ele, and a power necro, or LB ranger, or med guard is coming up. How do you avoid this? You can use a stun break, and use shelter, stun break and use renewed focus, stun break and dodge. Yes, all of those work, yet they all involve the guardian forcing your best skills into cd. But imagine if you could essentially blink out of the situation. People would actually have to work for that burst, rather than taking for granted that they can just burst down a med guard because med guards don’t have stab. I don’t think such a change would be over powered, because you still wouldn’t have any condi clear or stun break on this skill, but it would become a lot more fun, and people would actually start to use it.
JI and traveler runes already make guard very mobile. Giving them a free-cast teleport with the same range as a traited blink would essentially break the guardian. All the other classes have these teleport options because we have plenty of damage mitigation options. Allowing us to having mobility on par with a mesmer, for instance, would essentially ruin mesmers entirely and have us slated for some terrible nerfing.
I must say though, I do like the OP’s suggestion. It gives offense oriented guardians a supportive option that also greatly rewards the guardian (when traited for, of course).
1)I clarified my point, get off it. You’d be a fool to decline starting a fight with 12 stacks of might and 20+ seconds of swiftness at literally no cost to you.
2)Tome of wrath is fun. I never claimed it was better than renewed focus, so again, get off this point. PvE is nothing but jumping through hoops anyways.
3)6 points in zeal? What’re you honestly going to get with 6 points in zeal that would justify spending all those points? I’ll agree with 4/6/4/0/0, since we’ve got more than enough damage mitigation to not have to worry about healing, but having monk’s focus there is nice. I’ll also agree with 4/6/2/0/2, regardless of my disdain for unscathed contender.
4)PvE is laughably easy, WvW is either a blobfest or roaming, and sPvP is sPvP. Retreat in any of those situations would be a terrible choice and basically be a wasted slot on your bar. SYG provides stab, which is probably one of the strongest boons in the game. With stab, your team mates dodge roll un-impeded, and still have plenty of stability left in case they make a mistake. Hell, they could just walk right out of the BIG. RED. CIRCLES. without much effort. You’re talking about the highest level of PvE which literally one dungeon vs the rest of the game. Do your team mates honestly need YOU to block for them when pretty much every class in the game as their own way of getting through damage? At least with stab, you give them a chance to make a mistake, as opposed to their entire livelihood being based off of your timing. You’re basically babying your team with retreat.
Come now, are you even trying?
I don’t understand why people don’t just carry a spare staff to spam swiftness with, like what’s wrong with you guys? If you run a 2h, keep your inventory minimized as much as possible so you could quickly swap weapons. Hell, if you do this, you could even start the fight with 12 stacks of might, which is usually a deal closer vs all these full zerk “geniuses”. With all the damage mitigation and healing we have (if you run around traited for medis), giving us mobility comparable to that of a warrior’s or a theif’s would be gamebreaking.
TL;DR Run with a spare staff you hobos.
Slick shoes isnt honestly that big of an issue. Eles can teleport through it, ranger can pop stone/rapid fire and stand still, thief can do pretty much anything they want since I doubt they actually ever walk, necro can pop DS (if they’re traited for it), guards can just chill there with their ridiculous amounts of blocks for a second or two, warrior has more than enough HP to not have to worry about a second or two of ranged DPS from an engi, mesmers can port out as well, or just daze the kitten out of the engi until he forgets his own name. Slick shoes is nothing but annoying, but giving it an obvious tell would make it really easy to dodge and break half the skill.
Well, personally, I hate conditions with a passion, but you can more or less just walk out of a warrior’s fie field easy. Sure, necros can spam a thousand marks to make your day harder, but, fortunately, they’re easy to kill. Engis with their grenades can also give you a hard time if you don’t have the ability to remove at least three condis per minute, but again, grenades are so very telegraphed that its almost like dodging a PvE boss’ attacks. Things like meteor shower only do damage when the actual meteor hits you, so if you stay frosty you should be fine, also there’s counting how vulnerable it leaves the ele when they’re casting it since its so easy to interrupt/rip em to pieces with pretty much any power build.
Oh of course, the zerker amulet. Wth, every guardian I see runs rabid stats. I also see plenty of thieves and rangers running cleric, doh.
But false, you run a condi build and turret engis have no condi clear, how could YOU share in our pain?
I know. Personally, I use renewed focus because I’ve been pvping for so long that not having on my bar makes me feel a little naked. Tome of Wrath, though, can throw out some serious DPS. Of course, it isn’t on par with lich in terms of raw damage, but its still really nice. I’ll agree that courage is a little iffy, but oh well. Although, I will admit that I should’ve clarified that my advice was based on a person who hit cap, since PvE is so simple you could even run without any utilities equipped and still do fine. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend unscathed contender because all it takes a single hit from ANYTHING and boom, a useless trait. I understand why people would lean towards more flat bonuses rather than RNG, but you have to realize that the bonus crit , in the long run, makes for much more damage than a person running, say, soldier stats. As for retreat, like the point you brought up about teams knowing how to blast fire fields for might, I think a team of competent players know how to dodge the already very simple to avoid attacks in this game that wasting a slot for a single block is pointless.
Any guardian worth his salt knows to swap to staff for might/swiftness before a fight and then swap back to their main weapon. I, personally, keep my inventory open and as small as possible so I can swap between my hammer and my staff when in OOC for might/swiftness. I never said to have it as part of your main two weapons.
Renewed focus gives you 2 seconds of invuln which aren’t that big of a necessity in PvE due its simplicity. Tome is great if you can find the spots to get it to work.
Meditations provide very high fury uptime which leads to many crits. No other guardian set of utilities provide any type of damage bonus aside from the weapons which are still lackluster.
Shouts (or rather, guardian shouts) are the best support utilities in the game, probably slightly outclassed by an engineer or a well necro, but shouts are much easier to apply which makes them the best. Retreat is the weakest of all of the shouts, since every other class with the exception of probably mesmers and necros has access to their own swiftness.
Please re-read carefully before you bash.