Guild Wars 2

10% of the way towards Guard Leech…sigh

1. Fairly evenly matched
2. Engineer – I’ve not found a build yet that is effective against a well played condi engineer.
3. Can swing either way depending on the builds ( and the difference between a skilled mesmer and an ok mesmer is fairly substantial )
4 Necro – too much HP – no matter how you spec it takes too long to drop their HP down before the conditions get you, even if you’re good at avoiding marks
5 Neither
6 I’d probably favour the guardian here in a general sense provided you don’t get taken by surprise.
7 Regen warrior – I don’t actually mind a stun warrior so much, their burst is fairly easy to dodge or break out from and their attacks are generally predictable, but a healing signet/condi warrior is impossible right now.

caveat. Even when fights are favourable or balanced for us, usually the opponent can just disengage and run and we have no way of stopping them.

in order of annoyance: 1) Engineer, 2) Necro, 3) Warrior, 4) Mesmer, 5) Elementalist, 6) Thief, 7) Guardian QQ

in WvW it depends on which borderland I’m in tbh.

In the bottom right camp it’s a no-brainer to pre-stack because you’ve got the self-spawning coyotes – just run around a collect 5-6, use a 2-hander to AoE them all down to an inch of life and then switch to 1-hander to finish them off. You can get fully stacked in less than a minute

For left camp and centre I might kill a couple en-route and get the rest by taking out a couple of camps.

If I’m solo’ing and there are lots of zergs or groups around ( ie I’m dying alot ) then I might just keep one sigil equiped all the time and let it accumulate naturally and switch it out once I’m lucky enough to have filled it up

akamon.2769:

finally got AF about a week ago and it’s given me some room to gear a bit more offensively. slowly working towards GL now : ))

oh man, you’re syncing with me again – last time we were running around with the same roaming sword/shield+GS and bane build, and now we’ve got AF in the same week ( what a huge buff that is too! )

Back on topic – I was part way through working on a Celestial build, but now I’m not sure how Ascended armour is going to change the optimal stats distribution yet, so I’ll probably put it on hold until the December patches are out

With all out Berserker/Guard Killer and a Greatsword you can steam roll a camp in around 15 seconds and be halfway through the capture before the swords even appear.

On the other-hand if it’s upgraded you have to pull a couple of mobs at a time which greatly increases the time required

Whenever you receive a boon, the duration is taken from the caster’s Boon Duration stat. So if you cast an AoE skill, all the effected players will receive boons based on your duration stat and not their own, therefore boons cast on yourself by other players will take their duration from their stats and not your gear/traits.

The only possible exception being is that you could cast Hallowed Ground under a team mate, which will give them +20% boon duration and any boons they cast on you will then have that increased duration.

FAQ#41 has some general information about Boon Duration stacking.

Congrats on the sticky!

Can I suggest a title change in line with the other forum stickies?

[Guide/PVE] Guardian DPS

or something similar.

Updated:
Q25 – Added 30 points in Valor builds
Q26 – Updated link to Obal’s DPS guide now that it’s stickied

I also think Aegis works fine for PvE and sPvP where it rewards skilful timing, and nothing needs to be done to VoJ generally.

However, with VoC in WvW anything above a group sized encounter and it becomes useless.

Giving it a 1 second duration, or even half a second would make it have some kind of beneficial effect even in that game mode without effecting smaller encouters too much. You are right that the “zerg of guardians” balancing issue would need to be looked at carefully – I suspect that AoE caps and the naturally scarcity of skills that apply Aegis would be enough to prevent people from generating obscene amounts of damage mitigation – but it’s definitely something to be cautious about.

I was just thinking a flat 1 second block from the moment you are first struck, and keep the rest of the mechanics the same. You couldn’t really have it get affected by Boon Duration as having multiple sources of a 2 second block would get OP ( a group of Guards could probably maintain block indefinitely ).

It also occurs to me that when we put points into Virtues, we are infact increasing our Virtue Recharge Rate ( not directly reducing the cooldown time per se ). It might be interesting if we had some trait effects that would increase our recharge rate just like Vigor does for Endurance – something along the lines of “Increase virtue recharge rate by 100% for 5 second every time you block an attack” or “for 1 second while you cause burning” or “every time your blind an enemy” etc etc

I think he’s asking what ascended stat prefix is best for general use.

So Zojja’s Claymore which is Beserker Stats since damage is nearly always desirable ( especially on a GS ).

Like all condition removal skills in the game, PoV removes the most recently applied condition irrespective of intensity. ( or are you saying you have you observed it the other way around? )

This is why skilled players will attempt to cover important stacks with trash conditions to prevent them getting purged easily, and Anet probably view that as an extra dynamic of play.

Zojja’s Claymore = Berserker Stats

I think just making the Aegis block last for 1 second would be enough for it to soak up flurries of hits or zerg aoe, and make it worthwhile activating

Polearm ftw and Glaive for ranged attacks ( and an Ankh that’s a frikken blue laser beam )

Well Justice has a nice recharge on kill when traited for, which is good – it would be nice if the Resolve had a similar minor trait to renew it ( like recharge when your health gets below 15% with a 20 second ICD ).
Courage has a recharge on rally which is disappointing, because in an ideal world you will be downed rarely – not sure what an alternative might be – a minor trait that recharges it when you use a heal skill – or perhaps it could just be an added effect of Protective Reviver.

I want to be able to throw my hammer at people halfway across the map… we already have the whirling wrath bug animation…

I think the keyword there is pugs – ofc with an organised group you will be able to maintain both Aegis and sustained damage to a much much higher degree than when playing with randoms.

So yes, there is nothing wrong with using alternative builds in those cases.

or if you are lazy like me you just switch Virtues 10 to Master of Consecrations or something…

Hey Obal – I’m not sure if the mods can add empty sections in for you – I doubt it. But you could always recreate the thread and reserve the space you need ( you lose some views unfortunately ).

Alternatively create your posts below and then have a table of contents to link people directly to them. ( with a link to the next section at the bottom of each post )

edit: The advantage of recreating the thread is also you can start out fresh without all the mud-slinging and hopefully have some on-topic commentary ;-)

The absorb still works for a couple of seconds after you burst it too…. ho well

Brutaly.6257:

6.jpg Same armor, weapon and back kitten .jpg but the rest of the trinkets are pre/tough/pow. Check out the crit chance, toughness and healthpool. I can honestly say that this one is really mean in wvw. Especially if my team gives me fury, its just insane with 81% crit chance on a full tank.

kitten that kitten censor: “Same armor, weapon and back as 5.jpg”?

Kaptain O.1348:

No, PvE stuff like Fractals and whatever else there is nowadays.

Ah then they are all viable but bear in mind the “meta” for PvE is to do maximum damage ( ie full zerker ), so if you choose to go a different way then be sure you’re in a group that doesn’t mind.

Obal’s fractal builds are great, and you can check out his new dps guide

More or less – although the meta has changed somewhat, the guardian has remained pretty static in terms of build viability ( or in some cases, lack of viability ). We have seen more general emphasis on meditation builds lately since they’ve had several buffs in recent patches.

Are you specifically interested in sPvP/tPvP ( since you mention “meta” ) – if that is the case then Jax does keep his thread updated, and it contains very relevant/useful information ( as do most, if not all of the other build contributors on the list )

Healing Breeze had a buff to ally based heal but no longer stacks 20+ secs of retaliation when traited with Healer’s Retribution

consecrations:
-+ Purging Flames removes 3 conditions on cast and reduces condition duration by 20% whilst active
+ Hallowed Ground increase Boon Duration by 20% whilst active.
+ Scepter auto-attack speed increased a little

And lifesteal foods are no longer OP ( 1 second ICD added in late February )

Added:
Q41 – What is the maximum amount of Boon Duration a Guardian can achieve.

Sachit.9753:

Perikittenor.1892:

I know this is not a realistic game, but do they really think it was easy dodging in plate armor back in the medieval times.

Do you think one could swim with it?

My asura guardian serves as a flotation device in the event of an emergency

Updated:
Q26 – Now includes a link to Obal’s DPS Guardian for PvE guide.

Excellent guide – you mention about the +5% buff to damage the sword will be getting in the next patch – I suspect that may not happen in light of dev comments

On the other hand the Guardian forum is full of useful beginner guides ( check the sticky threads ) and helpful people ;-)

Perikittenor.1892:

But would you consider giving the shield 5 a channel self block as well during its duration op cause its current effects are so strong apparently?

Yup, one of the things I don’t like about it at the moment is you get rooted to the spot (often even after you burst the bubble) with no way of defending against melee attacks – so either lose the root or add some block would be nice for sure.

Nope, I meant it’s not as worthless as it might look. The fact it does little damage or doesn’t apply/remove conditions leads people to think it’s rubbish – but they fail to see how useful some of it’s attributes are.

It definitely could do with buffing yes, but a complete redesign of the way it works would be a real shame.

ezhcim.3075:

This is the only thing I hear in support of the shield as it is right now. Personally if I could choose between 1 skill to push people off cliffs with a very high recharge rate or an overall stronger and well rounded weapon with 2 useful skills in most situations I would choose the latter.

Granted it’s between weak and useless in 95% of PvE but very good in PvP and WvW

Knocking people of ledges is all fine yes – but really #5’s best feature is that it’s a 0 cast-time interrupt which you can actively use to negate any big attacks you see coming as well as an ally anti-stomp mechanism.

The fact it absorbs projectile’s and heals too is just icing on the cake. All it really needs is a slightly reduced cooldown ( and a blast finisher would make it perfect )

Right – well I certainly agree that Guardians have always seem to have a bad deal when it comes to skill cooldowns and effect durations

I’m not sure this is a meaningful comparison – you’re comparing a group support warrior to a roaming damage focused guardian build. They’re naturally at opposite ends of the utility scale.

Or are you trying to prove the mediocrity of guardian offsensive options even compared to a defensively spec’d warrior

Shout Guard vs Shout Warrior would be a more interesting topic for discussion.

I guess if they made it a water field, but removed skill’s normal heal it would give it an interesting dynamic – you can use the blast to either stack AoE swiftness/might etc or trigger a heal from it’s own field.

It’s a nice thought, but I can’t see Anet ever giving a guard access to a water field though

the blast triggers on the oldest field, so if you stand in a firefield, then double-tap shield#5 you will get your Might stacks – of course, that does mean it would be pointless putting a fire field down inside an already present shield bubble.

As a wvw roaming meditation guard I find shield#5 to be invaluable as an on-demand interrupt.
A slightly smaller cooldown certainly wouldn’t go amiss, and the shield burst command could do with being a blast finisher.
Perhaps a few seconds of regen on #4 too.

@Aza – great post!

ZoroDaOtter.3859:

They already have the system in place too (“Save Yourselves!” has a PvE/SPvP version). Why they don’t split more skills eludes me.

My guess is each time they split a skill it adds another test case to deal with.

We already know that some aspects of the game receive a higher priority of testing than others – the more you fracture the skill sets the more bugs you’re probably going to see in certain game types and I think there’s a danger that balancing issues could become completely ignored in anything other than pvp if changing one has no impact on the rest of the game

On the other hand, we are in most cases just talking about simple cooldown and duration timer adjustments here – so perhaps in these cases a separation isn’t too much to ask, but having alternative effects on traits or changing the way certain skills target isn’t going to be viable imho

Ah good to know it’s in the works – Just yesterday I was curious whether there was some method to authenticate against a gw user account.

Hope it comes soon!

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I’m raging a little bit internally, but can’t think of any elegant way to word my rage. They’re looking at “fixing” the accessibility of Vigor for the two professions who need it most. For us, that trait is one of the only things that makes DPS builds viable both in WvW and in sPvP. I assume the same applies to PvE.

If they move it to the first Major, it’s going to hurt us a lot in WvW (especially if you play an AH or group-based DPS build), but we should be able to give up either RHS or Inspired Virtue for it for sPvP. That’ll hurt, a lot. But it’s a possibility. I’m of course speaking from a triple medi DPS perspective.

If they move it to the next Minor, it’ll severely damage DPS meditation Guardians in sPvP, and will hinder some WvW builds. They’d also have to find a new place for SD, so I sort of doubt they’ll move it there… if it gets replaced with the last Minor of Honor, that’s obviously a bad deal for any DPS build, especially medi builds and those built around blind botting for groups in WvW.

As an sPvPer, I wouldn’t mind seeing it moved to the second Minor of Valor, replacing Courageous Return. As a WvWer, I would hate to see that happen because it would hurt support-type builds that invest heavily into Virtues and Honor.

It’s a tricky situation. I don’t know how to properly rebalance it without something relatively bad happening to us in either WvW or sPvP. For that reason, I’m pretty scared of them changing it at all, unless it’s to revert back to the original functionality to reduce availability to bunkers and let DPS builds keep most of it.

Agreed – pretty much what I outlined in this thread

I can’t really see any way of moving it without damaging build variety or nerfing the very thing they are trying to buff currently

eleshazar.6902:

So am I the only one that has gleaned that Jon Peter’s two favorite classes are ele and thief?

You can’t really use the frequency of posts to determine “dev favourites”. All it really shows is that some professions have been much more broken than others and have required much more dev attention.

The Guardian has always been a profession that broadly “works” – which can be an achilles heal [sic] because it promotes stagnation.

Professions like the Ranger have had broken core mechanics since day 1, which is why they top the “charts”:

Number of dev posts per profession

No.	Location
—-—-	—-—————————————-
112	/forum/professions/ranger
71	/forum/professions/necromancer
67	/forum/professions/thief
63	/forum/professions/elementalist
49	/forum/professions/engineer
37	/forum/professions/warrior
34	/forum/professions/mesmer
22	/forum/professions/guardian

If you look over the past few months only, then the mesmer is last with guard and warrior ( the poster child ) tied for second place.

Sadly, there’s a lot of vitriol in these forums lately and a lot of the useful and constructive player feedback gets irrevocably lost in it.

I’ll repaste the post I made in the December Patch thread, because the SNR is quite high in there atm:
If this change has been indeed been on the table, I find it a little odd that Vigorous Precision which is the cornerstone of so many guardian builds hasn’t had a direct mention in the guardian patch notes – as I think changes to it will absolutely require a lot of careful consideration.

The question is, what change to this would be acceptable as a guardian. When most professions complain about a Guardian’s access to Vigor, they’ve been stuck in an endless fight with a bunker or have been slowly whittled to death by a Healway. ( conveniently ignoring how little damage is being dealt in those kinds of battles )

On the other hand, a DPS guardian really relies on Vigor to survive more than the first few seconds of a fight against high CC or burst classes.

If you have 10-12k of HP and low toughness, if you can’t evade the skullcrack, shatter or heartseeker you are dead ( in one or two shots in most cases ). If you can’t dodge through a necro mark you are dead a few seconds later because we can’t remove conditions reliably at that end of the tree

A lot of builds are forced to either run duel energy runes or push 5 points into honor ( or both ).

If Anet are dead-set on pushing vigor traits into adept traits, then what are our options? 10 points investment in Virtues? ( since a lot of guards DPS or otherwise will throw 5 points in there anyway ): that severely limits the support guardians options in an important tree.

If you push it further into Honor to keep the Selfless Daring synergy you end up crippling many damage builds, and limiting shout or symbol effectiveness.

Short of making it a class mechanic ( Virtue of Alacrity? Passive vigor/active swiftness ), I’m at a loss to come up with something that wouldn’t screw over a significant number of builds ( replace Valor 15? ). Perhaps the goal is to just prevent 100% vigor uptime, which I can agree on – it which case you could make Honor 5 give you a flat Endurance regeneration boost ( +50%? )

I really hope we can just keep it as it.

Baneblade.9267:

I would just like to suggest that why not try and change that ability? Why not let the 20% additional damage take effect after the aegis has been removed for lets say around 10 seconds.

so…Scathed Contender

AndrewSX.3794:

You can’t have high DMG cause guard’s baseline is a good sustain, so slapping on top of it decent DMG or cc is dangerous from a balance standpoint. Just like warrior’s can’t have good sustain or big cc cause their baseline DMG is very high ….. oh, wait.

To be fair, Anet are attempting to decouple Warrior CC from their Damage skills in the december patch… still no sign on any changes to the sustain though…

Tyler Chapman.1832

The Guardian and Mesmer vigor traits are something that were on the table and will be on the table for change in the future. We don’t like those traits being that easily accessible. While they haven’t yet been changed as long as our thoughts don’t change internally they are part of the vigor rework we want to do.

If this change has been indeed been on the table, I find it a little odd that Vigorous Precision which is the cornerstone of so many guardian builds hasn’t had a direct mention in the guardian patch notes – as I think changes to it will absolutely require a lot of careful consideration.

The question is, what change to this would be acceptable as a guardian. When most professions complain about a Guardian’s access to Vigor, they’ve been stuck in an endless fight with a bunker or have been slowly whittled to death by a Healway. ( conveniently ignoring how little damage is being dealt in those kinds of battles )

On the other hand, a DPS guardian really relies on Vigor to survive more than the first few seconds of a fight against high CC or burst classes.

If you have 10-12k of HP and low toughness, if you can’t evade the skullcrack, shatter or heartseeker you are dead ( in one or two shots in most cases ). If you can’t dodge through a necro mark you are dead a few seconds later because we can’t remove conditions reliably at that end of the tree

A lot of builds are forced to either run duel energy runes or push 5 points into honor ( or both ).

If Anet are dead-set on pushing vigor traits into adept traits, then what are our options? 10 points investment in Virtues? ( since a lot of guards DPS or otherwise will throw 5 points in there anyway ): that severely limits the support guardians options in an important tree.

If you push it further into Honor to keep the Selfless Daring synergy you end up crippling many damage builds, and limiting shout or symbol effectiveness.

Short of making it a class mechanic ( Virtue of Alacrity? Passive vigor/active swiftness ), I’m at a loss to come up with something that wouldn’t screw over a significant number of builds ( replace Valor 15? ). Perhaps the goal is to just prevent 100% vigor uptime, which I can agree on – it which case you could make Honor 5 give you a flat Endurance regeneration boost ( +50%? )

I really hope we can just keep it as it.

Amins.3710:

JonPeters.5630:

The change to sword damage from 5% to 10%. I’ve seen a lot of talk that maybe it is not really needed. The fact was this was a lackluster trait and this is a lackluster change to it. I would love to do the right thing here and have a change that MH sword wants rather than just 5% more damage.

Thoughts?

Jon

Change the trait to make the blades pierce.

Preferably pierce and cast on move… but pierce is key.

I’d argue that piercing and “casting on the move” should just be something that it does anyway – requiring a trait for it doesn’t seem right.

( and to re-iterate foofad’s comment – sword#1.3 autoattack should not be reflectable )

JonPeters.5630:

The change to sword damage from 5% to 10%. I’ve seen a lot of talk that maybe it is not really needed. The fact was this was a lackluster trait and this is a lackluster change to it. I would love to do the right thing here and have a change that MH sword wants rather than just 5% more damage.

Thoughts?

Jon

I agree +5% for sword is fine as it is.

My personal view ( but one I know is shared by a fair amount of others here ) – is that we lack any kind of reliable melee range soft crowd control.

We have good DPS and good in-fight mobility but nothing that aids us to actually land any of our damage or prevent opponents from fleeing.

Sword has a teleport, very short range auto-attack and a long channelled #3 damage/absorption skill ( which doesn’t pierce ). Most of the time you’ll teleport to someone, you might get 1 good hit in, and they’ll be out of range of you again ( this goes for Judges Intervention and Leap of Faith with whirling wrath etc too ).

Adjusting the trait to a couple of seconds of chill to flashing blade wouldn’t go amiss perhaps? Ideally I’d want chill to be available to all our weapons though – so perhaps Glacial Heart could be made generic rather than be tied to the hammer.