Guild Wars 2

Strength of the Fallen
– Fixed a bug with this trait that makes it lose health 33% slower while downed instead of the previous 11%.

Discu….

…nm

modDW: great duel! – I think I would have got tired about halfway through and made a stupid mistake ;-)

I once had an enemy champion breakout NPC hit me with binding blade on the wall – except when he pulled me I hit the wall edge and went flying 100 feet straight upwards in the air and came splatting down on the ground again.

Wish I had video capture switched on…

Well the reason for this is that compared to other classes, the guardian is one of the most well rounded and viable classes in the game, so it’s at the bottom of the priority pile when it comes to fixes.

To be honest I can’t see that changing any time soon, so the best we can hope for is small tweaks and the occasional fix. ( such as the Scepter auto-attack speed increase for instance, that has been promised in a “future update” )

Well it’s easy enough with a shout build, but I see you prefer signets so it’s probably not going to work for you

If you can work some sources of Fury into your RHS builds, then there’s less reason to go above 80% crit chance, and you can better spend the stats somewhere else.

Well Vigorous Precision has an ICD of 5 seconds, so generally anything above 20% crit chance is good enough.

For the sigil you’re looking at a difference of about 14.4% and 16.8% chance of a proc with stones and oil respectively and I think despite the tooltip saying it’s a 2 second ICD, it is infact 5 seconds.

Empowering Might with its 1 second ICD is the only one where you might feel a difference, and I guess that will depend on your party composition, for getting maximum procs off Altruistic Healing.

With those stats, I think the sharpening stones might give you a slight edge on effective power. ( from a pure numbers perspective )

Depending on your traits, you may already have enough precision to benefit from on crit bonuses

To be honest, you have reasonably balanced stats, so there’s probably very little real-world difference between them – I suggest you spend some time running with each one and decide which has the best feel for you.

Personally I always prefer more precision.

Harbinger.8637:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|c.1n.a4.e.1n.a4|2.1n.0|1n.7m.1n.7m.1n.7m.1n.7m.1n.7m.1n.7n|31j.d16.21j.d1c.3v.d1c.31j.d1c.3v.d1c.2v.d1c|0.0.u690.0.0|40.1|0.0.0.0.0|e

Highest possible tough you can get without banner buff. 54% dmg reduction, which is quite huge.

Just for fun:
switch Dolyak runes for Runes of Mercy ( +400 toughness when ressing )
Find someone dead in the battlefield
Pop Tome of Courage ( +50% on pre-trait toughness )
Start ressing

= 4246 toughness

akamon.2769:

agreed! i just tried it for a few runs last night so will have to see how it goes long run for me personally, but other than smite condition and judge’s, i keep switching the first slot and so far, it was pretty fun when i did use it for the KD.

It’s great for downing fleeing elementalists

Yeah, not sure about relying on Radiation Fields either – you can probably get better utility from Skale Venom and Signet of Judgement active. ( and situationally the Shield of Avenger command skill )

The main issue with control abilities in dungeon runs is that the areas which would benefit from them the most tend to be filled with mobs that have stability ( and can therefore just walk right through your wards ).

There are definitely places where you can use a line or ring of warding to great effect, but it’s certainly not “everywhere”. This differs from WvW and sPvP where they can be both aggressively and defensively employed practically all of the time.

FinalPatriot.8034:

@ stunningstyles:
I’m wondering, how well do you do against those GS/Sword+Sword Mesmer’s out there if they get the drop on you?

The clones do fall pretty quickly to our insane AoE burst, and a DPS guardian still retains most of it’s damage mitigation ability ( although you will get downed instantly if you make a mistake). If you get them down, it’s probably worth avoiding stomp and continuing with dps, because Phantasm Rogue will hurt a lot if you aren’t ready for it.

Stunning’s sword+GS setup is great for keeping in a mesmer’s face when they blink or switch.

I love to roam with a dps build – yesterday for instance I ran into 2 other random dps guardians and we had a blast cutting through groups 3 times our size.

Scepter speed unchanged

green plum.7514:

Hm, Jon actually promised us a scepter fix :/ It it really that difficult just to increase projectile speed?

He didn’t give us a time-frame though. I suspect it was “discovered” too late to make it into this month’s release cycle

yeah I was waiting to test that – I see rangers have had projectile speed buffs ( fingers crossed )

Zealot’s Defense skill: No longer destroys unblockable projectiles.

awww was having such fun with that one, trolling treb operators

• Zealot’s Defense skill: No longer destroys unblockable projectiles.
• Shield of the Avenger skill: No longer destroys unblockable projectiles.
• Perfect Inscriptions trait: Now functions in PvE.
• Symbol of Judgment skill:
  * Now acts as a combo field even if the Writ of Exaltation trait is not equipped.
  * No longer heals for less without the Writ of Exaltation trait. It now uses the higher value in all cases, and the healing fact on the tool tip is now always accurate.

AH/Knight build is lovely for group play – but is definitely lacking in larger scale WvW zergs or raids.

In such cases I tend to forget about Valor grandmaster traits entirely – and get:

• ~1000 Healing Power
• >3k armour
• >17k health
• 20% crit chance approx to keep Vigorous Precision ticking
• Energy Sigils
• Orrian truffle and meat stew for faster Endurance Regen
• Soldier Runes for condition cleansing

Healing mostly comes from dodge rolls, staff #2 and #4 with your #6 skill as backup.
Blast water fields with your hammer whenever you can.

Clear poison before using any kind of healing.

Don’t dodge just to heal, make sure you time it wisely to mitigate damage too.

I use Shelter, because if timed right it blocks far more damage than you would recover from the extra healing from Signet of Resolve ( ymmv )

Downside: you hit like a wet kipper compared to a knights build, but still respectable enough

If you are roaming, then as others have mentioned, a meditation build can be nice, and it allows you to crank up the damage output.

Since no one else has commented on this, I’d just like to say well done on another great cast.

It was nice to have a WvW perspective from the indomitable Christos, and Professor Beard is always entertaining.

Good job

Ah, I forgot the original thread topic ;-)

Yup, I certainly wouldn’t want to sacrifice vigor or any of the other traits in that scenario

I love using the mace as a DPS weapon, I think it surprises a lot of people.

Jax.5261:

http://tinyurl.com/kwvkq7o

And holy crap, I just thought of this and it’s amazing.
Compact and more damage, harder to pull off but way harder to dodge. 6.8k prot strike is crazy.

Yup, and opening with focus 5 + JI followed by zealots fire and protectors strike is a crazy amount of front loaded damage. I usually try and work unscathed contender and/or fiery wrath into builds like that though as you want the fights as brief as possible

If you’ve not traited for virtues, then you really don’t need to bother and just keep it passive.

However with 15 points into Radiance you have Justice is Blind ( AoE 3 second blind ) and Renewed Justice ( cooldown is reset every time you kill a foe )

5 points into Virtues gives Inspired Virtues and 3 stacks of might to nearby allies. If you run Altruistic Healing you also get healing for every ally who gets those boons.

If you have points in Zeal for Fiery Wrath’s +10% damage for burning targets, then you can pop it if you want to front-load some burst

This means you should pretty much spam it to death ( although there’s no point in activating blind if you foes are already blinded, so keep an eye on their conditions ).

edit: lightrayne beat me to it ;-)

That really isn’t very Guardian – that’s what mesmers are for after all. I’m pretty sure other classes would scream if we were given yet even more indispensable battlefield utility.

WRT merciful intervention, it would be nice if it just worked and had a sensible cooldown imho. Sure, friend targetting would be nice, but I don’t think Anet will budge on their “no targeted healing” policy – and they’ve said the don’t want to give guardians a reliable escape mechanism.

In the past I’ve always fancied MI to be a skill which teleports an downed party member to your location (res loci anyone?) – that would be in keeping with the guardian ethos and justify the big cooldown imho – actually making it useful.

Anet just aren’t going to make any big skill changes though.

Running with Writ of Exultation can help avoid running through in-between the pulses.

But if you can’t work it into your build then it’s just a case of getting a feel of where to place it – it’ll grant swiftness the moment it is placed, so you want to be in it’s circle when it lands for best effect ( and this usually means casting it just in-front of you if you are running )

To avoid the symbol cancelling your existing swiftness, make sure you cast after it expires. If you use “Retreat!” then make sure you only cast it after applying the symbol, then it will stack correctly

Was away for the last few days, and only just got around to watching the matches.

Great job team guardian!

I groaned when I watched the elementalist match round 1, but you guys turned it around in superb fashion, and after that you made it all look so easy.

Great play, and great coaching Jax.

oh my…

Ins.7139:

Tarsius.3170:

My thanks to deso and viz, we were thinking of making our Keep more open plan and airy – I love what you’ve done with the place.

Deso had no where near the numbers to compete against SFR or VS on our own so we thought we’d join in with VS and grab what points we could that were on the table. Nothing wrong with that is there? haha

To be fair, SFR held out really well, if VS pushed in i’d take us round to your spawn and wipe what we could there, after that wasn’t working we decided to turn the keep into swiss cheese. Just as things got interesting a VS blob moved by overlook so we fell back and then after that there was no co-ordinated push from us and VS.

Yup, I was thinking by lunch time thank god VS and Deso weren’t actually working together – if both of you had zerged at exactly the same time we would have been steamrollered.

As it was, there was just enough time to dust ourselves off and sprint back and forth between opposite sides of the keep like loonies to repel the attacks.

Anyway, was good fun. At one point I had to stop and admire the effect of 6 VS trebs and assorted catapults at Jerrifers and 3 or 4 Deso trebs at Aldons continuously pounding away at all sides of the keep

We’ll be repairing our walls with siege engine rocks and cow carcasses tonight.

My thanks to deso and viz, we were thinking of making our Keep more open plan and airy – I love what you’ve done with the place.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Ken Virgo.6084:

i want to get to 3k armor and 3k defense

ummm……what?

I assume he means 3k armor and 3k attack.

But incase there is some confusion as to what the stats mean: armor = toughness + defense

In some sense, I think stats are key – But not in the way that xxx stats in armor is better than xxx crit etc.

GW2 rewards players with good timing on their dodges and skill usage ( and applying the correct utility for the situation ).

The stats fill out a user’s play style, and I think the right balance is different for every player. The traits, sigils and runes have much more impact on your effectiveness than the raw numbers – so they should be selected carefully for the synergy with your weapons, utils and technique.

At the end of the day you have to experiment and find what works for you. Of course different parts of the game have differing requirements – which is why many folks have multiple armour and weapon sets, and switch traits around depending on whether they’re going to PvE, sPvP or WvW.

I think most guardians feel the cooldowns are too long, even when traited.

The visuals of the shield disappears after 2 seconds, but the absorption effect lasts for the correct duration

I would encourage you to get at least one of every weapon on offer, even if it’s not the best quality – just so you can learn how they play and which set feels right for your game style.

I also encourage you to spend a week or two using each weapon in normal play, even if your first reaction is one of dislike. Some can grow on you when you get to learn their quirks.

For instance, I never used to think twice about the mace until I forced myself to play with it for a while and discovered it’s quite enjoyable with a damage build. I’ll think about equipping it if I’m roaming with a friend or two

A lot of guardians, myself included even have multiple weapons of the same type which have different stats and sigils, so we can mix and match depending on the situation. ( certainly not a must, but useful if you have the cash to spare )

Let’s just call it a nice feature….

Just tested – still works.

Here is the original discussion:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Bugs-compilation/page/7#post1031487

Indure.5410:

Tarsius.3170:

purpleskies.3274:

Dristig.9678:

yLoon.5289:

Solo without warrior =((

What is your build? How did you get 12 stacks of vulnerability solo?

I would assume the blind causing 3 vulnerability trait (blind exposure). Sword2, focus 4 (bounces so you can get 6 if the mob attacks fast), blind on virtue of justice, and sword 3 <- 12-15 vulnerability.

Don’t forget that when traited with Blind Exposure, Leap of Faith ( GS #3 ) will apply 3 stacks of vulnerability multiplied by the number of targets affected by the AoE blind. So five hits = 15 vulnerability

I believe it is just 3 stacks per target, not 15 to all targets.

Not unless they fixed it in the march patch, and I didn’t notice.

Note this is only a peculiarity of GS#3, other AoE blinds do not have this behaviour.

purpleskies.3274:

Dristig.9678:

yLoon.5289:

Solo without warrior =((

What is your build? How did you get 12 stacks of vulnerability solo?

I would assume the blind causing 3 vulnerability trait (blind exposure). Sword2, focus 4 (bounces so you can get 6 if the mob attacks fast), blind on virtue of justice, and sword 3 <- 12-15 vulnerability.

Don’t forget that when traited with Blind Exposure, Leap of Faith ( GS #3 ) will apply 3 stacks of vulnerability multiplied by the number of targets affected by the AoE blind. So five hits = 15 vulnerability

yLoon.5289:

This is why we love warrior in any dungeon.

Nice – wonder if you would have hit 20k if you’d got that last crit

There wouldn’t be a karma train if karma was divided by the number of participants…

Surely just make wxp/karma/xp rewards a fixed amount that’s dividing amongst all participants ( with sensible max and min caps ) will encourage smaller groups.

This would be akin to dividing the spoils of war.

Just needs the right scaling:
ie. a 12 man group member gets a full reward while a 30 man group member gets a 10th of the reward ( or less )

For merciful intervention – since Anet is adverse to providing any kind of targetted healing, I would like to see it as a skill that can teleport a targetted player to your location. Only then would it live up to it’s name imho

It would probably have to only work on party members or people in downed state ( or provide a confirmation popup ), otherwise it would get abused by trolls.

I can agree with the kite-ability point, I definitely would want to have a control weapon as an alternate.

Combined with a focus you can pump out 20k of damage in a couple of seconds with a pure dps build – so it’s effective as a fast strike weapon, but might suffer in a prolonged encounter ( as most damage builds do ). Heals are also welcome when you have sacrificed so much survivability.

I think the mace is better than you think it is, even (especially?) as a DPS weapon. While it’s not my weapon of choice, when I do slot it I’m often surprised by how underrated it is.

It is possible, but you would be unwise to just run into the middle and start hammering away.

Take them a couple at a time.

(And make sure the supervisor doesn’t have Righteous Indignation buffed, otherwise you’re wasting your time)

np, it’s easy to mix up with the Torch Skill cleansing flame. ( which btw, doesn’t remove conditions on yourself, but does remove 1 condition per tick of any allies within the cone )

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Flame

Purging flames should remove per tick too, but it’s bugged

Nope, unfortunately it just cures one condition the moment you first enter the ring. ( One condition per ally. It’s a utility and has nothing to do with the torch )

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Bugs-compilation/first

Maces are tricky – they don’t appear to have received much design love ( and are often skipped when it comes to the new weapon sets ).

I’m running with this one atm: [&AgF+ZQAA] Scorchrazor’s Fist ( or legionnaire’s skin ) – which is ok if you’re not after anything flashy.

Or if you want a bit of glow then the [&AgENegAA] Glyphic Mace ( I suspect that won’t suit the look you’re after though )

Bas.7406:

Dundir.2853:

Maybe something like The Guarded

Not bad. I was thinking of names like “I like Big Boons” or “Booned” or “Hammer & Boon” or “Blocks, Boons, and Bunkers” or even “Virtued”

Boontang
Glassbunker
Vigorous Indecision
Merciful Indirection
Downed State
Just Lost My Virtue
FeelMyFeelMyFeelMyWrath

Here’s mine then. Note this are the ones I find the most “fun”, not necessarily the ones I think have best utility. For some reason the all seem to be about doing damage

1. Judge’s Intervention
2. Shield of Wrath
3. Ring of Warding

1. No other skill is as versatile – Stun breaker ( that also cancels a knockdown ), Teleport ( avoiding fall damage, ambushing and escaping ), 0 cast time ( for skill chaining, surprise bursts ). 3 seconds of AoE burn ( activates Fiery Wrath ).
2. Shield of Wrath – 3 blocks is always useful in PvP and PvE, but the shield’s true beauty comes when you think of it as our highest damage skill. No other skill leaves an unsuspecting enemy going WTF?! – the icing on the cake is that it’s a blast finisher
3. Ring of Warding – keeping an enemy close is difficult for a guardian, so control skills are like gold dust – while it has its flaws, it’s still one of the best tools we have to make sure our initial burst lands successfully. It’s always fun to see inexperienced players constantly being knocked down by it too. ( or Basnished against it ).

It’s also worth noting my choices all have good synergy with each another.

No one reads the stickies on this forum before arguing the toss either:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Bugs-compilation/107021

Asking questions, like the OP, is of course fine – but if you’re going to argue then please at least read that top post first.

Doesn’t matter, we’re still OP with Zealous Blade