Guild Wars 2

This is ridiculous. At this point I’ll cry about Ranging is OP because mobs can’t hit me when I run screaming like a little girl, turning around each 5 second to attack from range.

THAT’S OP ANET FIX THAT.

SlayerSixx.5763:

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.

1) Staff. If you are in a party without any source of might and you are out of combat so you can Might up, switch your staff to another weapon, then go into the fight, i guess than ya. Or if you are using Hammer and staff, using staff at the start of a fight, then swapping to hammer and staying hammer for the rest of the fight. Or if you are in a team of high dps character and no one is giving might. Otherwise it’s never useful to bring a staff. The might from staff is short duration and it lock you in one of the worth PvE weapon.

2) Tome of Wrath can do some dps, but unless your build is bad you will do FAR more dps by your own than using this tome.

3) Meditation build. Let say a 4/6/4/0/0 build with mediation. It would actually be decent in solo situation. Compare to a 4/6/2/0/2 build it would be similar in dps. A 3/5/6/0/0 meditation build for more healing would lack a bit in term of dps. Those are not bad solo build. But it’s useless in half decent group since a elementalist can provide perma fury without sacrificing anything. But like I said, medi build won’t be really better than a 6/6/2/0/0 or 4/6/2/0/2 build in solo situation in term of dps, while limiting yourself when it come to your skill.

4) Are you talking about PvE or WvW. Pick one side and don’t switch. Or you are talking about PvE all along. If it’s the case you don’t know much don’t you. Retreat is the most powerful shout for PvE. Who care about switfness, they could remove it from retreat it would change anything it’s the aegis that matter. You can prevent a attack for all your party, and when you know when you use it you can provide up to 50 000 of incoming damage for your whole team. Attack of 10k is not rare at all at fractal 50 in a team of zerker. Not rare at all. Hold the line provide 14% protection uptime while the regen is pathetic. If you need protection Hammer will give you perma protection. Save yourself give a couple of good boons but only for yourself. It’s a nice thing in specific situation, but most of the time it’s useless. Stand your ground is also situational. Stability is not really useful most of the time in PvE. Except retreat, all shout are really situation in PvE. They are nice when you need specific things (like stability of vigor), but for the vast majority of the time you don’t want them. Of course that’s only for PvE. In WvW it’s another story.

So yes I read attentively and it’s worst than I though.

MeththeMadman.7420:

I’m thinking that Hammer/Sword + Focus would be a good way to play for now…

I think Altruistic Healing is something I’m going to look towards once I get to traits, but traits wise I’m still confused as I haven’t reached them yet. Shouldn’t be long, though, before I’m dungeon capable, so planning ahead is important.

Hammer is a good camping weapons. Meaning that it can do a good amount of DPS without swapping weapons. All of it’s dps come from the auto-attack so just auto-attack and use other skill when you need it. The most important thing if you play Hammer is to take the trait writ of persistance. It’s a 50% dps increase from the symbol. Without it Hammer is an ordinary weapon, with it hammer is a top weapon.

Sword is also an auto-attack weapon, but less good than hammer. You usually want to use Sword with GS because GS have a good burst but bad auto-attack so Sword can make up for the weakness of GS. But with hammer, Sword help you that much. Each time you will switch to sword you will drop a little bit in dps, but not much. If you play that stay in Hammer unless you need to blind and block of Sw/Focus.

Mace/Focus or GS as secondary would be better. With GS you can swap each 15 seconds do GS skill 2-5 then swap back to Hammer. With Mace/Focus you can swap to use Mace 2 which is also improved with Writ of Persistance. Both would have around the same dps with Hammer + GS a bit ahead, but Hammer + M/F better as sustain yourself and your team.

For AH, it’s a good training wheels but you should be looking to stop using it eventually. Timing your aegis, blind, block, reflect, etc will be more efficient while you can put the pts from AH to more powerful trait. But like I said, it’s a good starting point. I use AH for the six first month in PvE before switching. And it’s a really really good trait for WvW.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

If it really gives 50% MORE crit then there is really no point is rolling any class other than revenant. Might as well just remove them at that point.

Because pretty much all profession can reach 100% in dungeon group anyway?

Because we would still need stealth, group might, group fury, vulnerability and we don’t know if Revenant can provide all of that (probably not).

Because we don’t know if Revenant have more Raw damage than a Elementalist.

Because in some situation we still need the defensive utilities of a guardian, thief, mesmer like blind, aegis, reflection, etc…

Because record run would still need the utilities of a mesmer like Portal.

For now I don’t see any advantage yet to running a Revenant over any other profession. We’ll see when we have a complete picture of the profession.

It’s not an exploit. You build your character to do this.

nesh.7234:

You probably saw this, but I found a lot of useful info in the https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-30-pts-in-valor-gameplay-Hammer/532372

Don’t be put off with the hammer in the title, even if you don’t want to use it there is plenty of good info in that thread.

That is for WvW only. It’s terrible in PvE.

Joey.2769:

Is HoT going with condi stacks higher than 25? Would that help in builds/group comps to maybe maximize bleeds between a few team members instead of everyone go zerk?

They tested it during the beta of HoT. But it was only stackable condi that didn’t have a cap (or at least we could get it to 99). If they put that in the real expansion, of course it will help condition build, especially in Open world, but it’s far from enough to really make it worth it over power build.

- Burning, Poison, etc would still be capped with the duration.
- The strength of power build is damage modifier. Wihtout them, both condi and power build are similar in dps (like in PvP), but when you stack all of them power have a lot more dps than condition (like in PvE).

Removing the cap of 25 is only fixing a tiny part of the issue. It won’t be enough to make condition on part with power build.

Some good information, but a good amount of misinformation in the last post.

- Staff is a bad combat weapon and you should never switch to it in the middle of a fight. 10 second in staff isn’t worth the 12 stack of might because that might is really short in duration and the dps of a staff is one of the worth for the guardian. At the start of a fight yes, between fight yes, in the middle of a fight no. It’s a great weapon when you run around, or for PvP, but not for PvE fight.

- Renewed focus is arguable the best elite for both PvP and PvE. Tome are ok.

- Full bar of meditation have good burst damage in PvP, but that’s far from the highest damage possible.

- Shout are really good in PvP, in pve only Retreat is really powerful. The others are situational, they are good in specific situation only. They are certainly not the best support in the game at all. Blind, Aegis, Reflect, Protection are the best support. Shout can provide some of them, but they are not always the best source of those. Which mean that Honor trait line can be good in PvP, but not in PvE (except for Hammer build and vigor on crits).

- Never even go 5pts in Virtues is a SUPER BAD ADVICE. Either go 2 pts or 5pts. 4 pts is a bad choice in general but for some build you don’t have a choice (but that’s very situational). 6pts on the other end is rarely a good idea.

I generalized there a bit, but my point was that a lot of people talk about more diversity in gear for the sake of diversity in gear. They see that defensive gear isn’t optimal so their answer to either to give role to defensive gear (Trinity) or they want to make defensive gear better so they have a use in optimal situation (Vitality give endurance regen, etc).

Most people want more diversity. Where does people divide?
- One group want only to improve diversity about what is already good in the game. More diversity in term of dps (condition), more diversity in term of active defense/support and more diversity in term of build (trait, sigil, runes, skills, etc, but not gear).
- The second group want more diversity in everything. From trait, sigil, runes, but also gear. They want their defensive and healing gear to be good and not second citizen to direct damage.

That’s where we’ll never see an concensus. One group don’t give a crap about defensive gear, they don’t want to hear about it, they think it’s just fine where it is as training wheels and in PvP. The other group can’t stand that there is 26 different stats combination but there is only 2 that are really great in PvE. And you know what? They are both right. It’s kind of stupid that only 2/26 gears type are optimal, but at the same time a lot of people like the ‘’glass canon relying on active defense to survive’’ type of gameplay and don’t want to lose it.

Leo G.4501:

The reason I write up ideas is to spark some discussion and brainstorming on things outside the norm.

Shorter post, easier to read would help you way more. You push so much information that people just don’t read it and even if they read it, they can’t discuss every single point you make, they take one or two to argue about. Not the best way to spark a meaningful discussion. (Something that I always find nice to have).

See that we always end up discussing specific thing in the end, like the actually definition of passive, and not actual solution or middle ground. We need specific and limited subject to spark discussion. If you go large or to general, then people will pick something (not always what you wanted to talk about) and will run with it.

- Healing Power in general
Healing skill in GW2 have a high base amount of healing and healing power improve them only by a small margin. So you need to invest massively into healing power only to heal a little bit more. For exemple, AH heal you of 69 and improve by 1 each 100 healing power. AH is one of the worst healing skill in that regards, but you don’t have much skill that have a ratio of 1 or higher. That’s on purpose because Anet didn’t want to create healer, but we can argue that they kind of over do it in PvE. In PvP, that’s not as big of an issue.

- Damage mitigation is king
The game was designed around damage mitigation and preemptive active defence. Recognizing an attack and counter acting it is more engaging for some compare to healing after it. That’s why PvE is all about slow big attack that we can see and block/dodge/blind, etc. The game was designed to push the player to prevent a hit rather and repair the damage afterwards. For that reason damage mitigation skills are far stronger than healing of defensive stats and they need very small investment in your build.

- Guardian healing capability
The guardian is actually pretty weak when you talk about healing others. Yes if you list all the skills of the guardian that allow you to heal others you gonna end up with a good list. But they are usually all over the place making them hard to use in one build and they usually need high investment in term of build meaning that you need to sacrifice a lot to gain them. Don’t get me wrong, you can do a healing guardian, but you gonna need to make a lot of sacrifice to do so. Other profession like Warrior or Elementalist can do the same job with lower sacrifice. Guardian is better in slow sustain healing than anything else, something that can be hard to notice in fight.

- Guardian strength
Not only damage mitigation is stronger in this game, but the Guardian is the king of that kind of defence. Blind, Aegis, Reflect, Protection, etc. He can do it all and he can do it better than anyone else, while sacrificing little.

- Gear
You have 4 main type of stats from gear. First is healing power, which we find out isn’t that great in PvE. Second is condition damage, which should be good but for bad design isn’t that great for group PvE, but good in Solo situation. Something that we hope will be fixed with the expansion. Third is personal survivability with vitality and toughness. And fourth is direct damage. Basically in the current state of the game, gear is pretty much a slide between direct damage and personal survivability. Gear is independent of your build and you can put the amount of personal survivability you need, while the rest is about direct damage. Ideally you would want to be 100% direct damage from your gear and use damage mitigation alone to survive. But for new player, casual player or players that just want to play relax, vitality and toughness are good option. The goal here is have just enough defensive stats to feel comfortable, but not more. As you get better you slowly replace defensive gear by direct damage gear (mostly zerker or assassins). Because in the end, your gear won’t help you to give better support. Your trait and skills will do that, not your gear.

Exun.7825:

To get back to the topic, in GW1 sometimes we were looking for “how to survive” before “how to kill the enemies” and so there were some setups and group strategy, and we had a lot of different ways to get the stuff done. In GW2 you don’t have those variables, everybody has 1 selfheal and should dps, you put some banners, you got some might and everybody can dodge whatever the armor they are wearing. So of course dps is the leading factor.

True. But that’s because of the ‘’easy/old’’ content. I would love to think : hey how can I survive this fight?. That’s my dream for GW2.

But I want the answer to be more vigor, sigil of energy, protection, more reflect, blind, aegis, weakness, etc, etc. And it’s exactly that in a really small portion of dungeon/fractal. It’s important when you solo or you speed run through more difficult content like Arah or fractal 50, but for most of the dungeons, it’s not really that important.

For me difficult content (hard mode or scaling content like fractal so that casual can still experience the content) and a true fix for condition damage in PvE are the answer.

Exun.7825:

Thaddeus : I don’t understand if you are mad at me or not.

I’m never mad on internet

I just hate some toast with nutella and banana, how can someone be mad after that.

Exun.7825:

About the “well played, active defense is better” : well, in PvE the enemies are no brain and scripted, all you have to do is to push a key at the right moment and oh, you just cancelled 100% of the incoming damage during a sec. You can do it twice in a row, when you don’t have it then you have to wait like few sec and it’s up… seriously even if you are not good at it, it is already effective.

And getting gear to receive less damage is what then? More challenging, more skillful??

Yes PvE enemies are often not enough challenging. AND THAT’S WHAT WE ARE SAYING FOR THE LAST 2 YEARS. Some encounter are nice like Lupi, Liadri, etc. But most of them don’t really push ourselves and we want more. We want to have a hard time playing zerker, but we want it to be fair too. We want to fail at difficult boss, but only because we did a mistake, didn’t use aegis or dodge at the right time, etc.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

as others have said: take 4 noobs into arah p1, and see how easy hard it is to complete.

Even people that are not noob have a hard time playing Arah. I prefer to duo it then to get pugs, it’s just a terrible experience in that dungeon.

phys.7689:

no, even for unskilled players active defense is far superior.

you can give all of your major stats to toughness, so you take 40% less damage, against an enemy swinging once every 4 seconds, 5 attacks in 20 seconds
or you can give nothing to toughness and dodge, and you take 40% less damage by only taking 3 attacks. if you use vigor? well you can take 80% less damage.

active defense is always superior to passive defense, the advantage to passive defense is when you run out of active defense, or mess up.

And to say it once again, i have no problem with active defense at all, i think that active defense should be the main way in which you deal with enemy attacks. However, IF you want to have a stat system, it should represent a real choice, and real descions. Most stats do not represent actual useful descions. People who dont know this assume they will actually matter, and are shocked to find out they are relatively worthless.

So either, make stats actually be a descion, that effects how you actively play the game, or get rid of the false choices that lead to poor encounter design.
Or keep the status quo, and have people forever complaining about stats that dont matter, and HPbag bosses for average parties, and lack of challenge for elite parties.

See you are closer to use than you think. We know it’s an imperfect system. Defensive gear are there for WvW and Training Wheels only and it bugs a lot of people. We just don’t give a crap about that and wouldn’t mind at all if they removed gear and we all had celestial stats.

But the other way around? Every single person that came forward with an ’’solution’’ to the problem by making other gear better was painfully bad. Trying to artificially give more use to defensive gear. Those idea usually end up forcing player to use some sort of defensive gear because without it you can’t dodge or received so much damage or thing like that. It’s gear diversity for the sake of gear diversity without improving the game and usually by destroying the active gameplay that we love so much.

So none of the three solution are appealing. Status Quo will still continue to see those kind of tread but at least the game will still be about active gameplay. Removing the gear choice will kitten people off, will make WvW weird, and it will be hard to do for Anet. Making defensive gear an optimal choice will destroy the game we love.

phys.7689:

as for the passive offense, no, its not passive, you have to choose an attack, and press the button to gain anything from a DPS stat, that is the opposite of passive. Those stats effect the damage of your skills, defense stats do not effect the defense provided by your skills.

And you have to choose to put yourself in arm ways to gain anything from defensive stats, that’s the opposite of passive??. That’s not an argument.

You need to actively use a skill to use the passive buff provided by offensive stats.

phys.7689:

counterplay requires your opponent to be able to do something to you.

If a fight lasts 20 seconds, and an opponent attacks once every 4 seconds, you can negate everything he can throw at you with 3 dodges and 2 aegis, which you can generate in 20 seconds fairly easily, heck you can even eat an attack or 2 in that time if you have protect.

lets be honest, defensively such a fight is far from deep, or even requiring counterplay.

You are partially right. The emphasis in such fight is usually more about the offensive strategy. You need to stack might fast (hopefully before the boss is ready), you need to give fury, put your banner down, get the boss to 25 stack of vulnerability, etc, etc.

Yes some fight make that super easy. Super fight like in CoF or AC end boss are brain dead whatever you do, they are just so easy. But you also have a lot of interesting fight where trying to burst the boss down will make you in a difficult situation.

Let take some exemple. The Spider Queen in AC need some reflect and a fast Deep Freeze to make the burst. Otherwise the little spider will kill your group or the Queen will immobilize you in her poison. The end boss of HotW path 1 will need you to manage his defiant because you want to deep freeze him back to back. Lupi will be able to do around 10 attacks before you take him down with several of them being one-kill. Archdiviner will last long enough while you need to stay in melee range.

phys.7689:

dps stats do not increase passive offense, there is no such thing as passive offense in this game (that would be auto attack) Dps stats make offensive skills, that you press, when you want to press them, do more damage. Defense stats do not effect defensive skills, and make them more effective when you press them.

We don’t see it that way.

Stats passively improve you offense and defense. That I use GS with my zerker gear or my soldier gear won’t change how I play with my GS.

My rotation, my weapons swap and my utility skill will change actively how I do DPS, but offensive stats will passively make them do better damage.

Press H to get to the hero panel, skills and trait tab. You can see them on the top left portion of the window.

Smite condition start unlocked by itself.

I think you need to wait until somewhere between level 10 and 20 to unlock further skill even if you have the skill point.

- Retreat, Signet of Bane and Wall of Reflection are three of the best PvE skill for a Guardian and you will use them a lot.

- Signet of Judgement is not really good. You can unlock it to get access to the other tier of skill later, but using it?? Not really. If you have difficulty playing the profession and need more defence then I guess yes, but you shouldn’t aim to using it.

Bubi the thing is when people talk about how Dungeon are easy they talk how you can explode a boss in second leaving him no time to attack back and that’s speed run.

So use that fact + the fact that most of us only speed run and you can see how we respond that way. But I get your point and you are right. But I rarely see people arguing that dungeon are easy without using the argument that you can kill a boss in second.

It’s not dumb guys. Before the patch if you were to use a teleport to a place where you can’t teleport, then your skill would enter in cooldown, but you would stay in place.

Now if you can’t teleport you don’t waste your skill for nothing.

Jay.1085:

Guys he just started out and fresh, having him trying to be full zerker or get BIS gear is a bit much. He probably hasn’t mastered how/when to use his virtues yet(No offense OP). In regards to power infusions don’t make them. They are a waste of money for a casual player, hell even for people like me that do fractals 50s daily they are a waste. I understand people will suggest a lot of metabattle.com things to you but don’t be fretting about the expensive stuff. Zerkers with scholars is the way to go for us, but seeing as you are new and casual player you probably barely have enough gold to make/ buy all of those right now. An alternative to scholars is Flame legions. Try those out for burn build. Its just an alternative to scholars till you can get the right gear. Good luck man and learn to love your weapon swap its very important. Also practive those dodges its very important as well, especially in COE dungeon.

He ask about berzerker and people answered it. If he can’t play zerker then yes he could ease his way into zerker over time, but he don’t need too. I got some new players in my guild that went for optimal build right away, it was hard at first but they became better player in no time, even faster than older players that were still relying on defensive build.

oxtred.7658:

A berserker meta guardian is more supportive than any ptv AH “support”.

It’s not like AH or PTV provide any amount of support at all.

coglin.1867:

I dunno about the rest of you, but I consider the 300+ power+condition damage I can stack purely by my self, in an AoE to my party, with fire bomb alone, to be extremely beneficial to the overall damage output. Not sure why everyone keeps looking at it through the narrow view of its base damage alone, with no condition duration, while ignoring the might stacking value at the same time.

It’s just that with PS Warrior and Elementalist it’s easy to get to 25 stack of might. And with Elementalist and Guardian, it’s easy to get perma burning.

And PS Warrior, Elementalist and Guardian are some of the most popular profession in dungeon.

So yes Bomb can have a LOT of benefice and it’s worth taking most of the time. But it’s not a blank check either, in a lot of situation it’s not that great since other profession can do it better. The engineer is best at adapting to the composition of a party to fill out the needs. Don’t have a thief? Take smoke bomb. Don’t have enough might? Blast fire field. Don’t have enough vulnerability? Use more nade, etc, etc.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

They aren’t doing it because it’s a challenge. They aren’t doing it because that’s what they enjoy. They don’t give a rat’s kitten whats actually ‘happening’ in the dungeon. All they care about is getting to the end to get the loot, then it’s over and done with, on to the next clear. To them, nothing between start and finish is worth the time, worth the effort (and they aren’t necessarily wrong).

I’m doing solo dungeon because it’s challenging. I was doing the old fractal 40-80 because it was challenging.

I have a ton of fun trying to figure out new strategy and get better with them. Each time we finish a dungeon faster we feel proud of ourselves.

So don’t generalize pls. Do you really think that guild that go through hours of fail, rinse and repeat the same dungeon several times each day without the bonus reward at the end to get that new records is doing it to get to the loot as fast as possible?

In the end, the point is that Bomb isn’t overlooked. It’s not bad, but just not as good as nade. Bomb can be a good 2nd/3rd kit but there is also other option.

tanshiniza.8629:

I’m not here to provide the god build for dungeons but something that is ‘balanced’ and by no means the Meta because the fact is not everyone wants to play the Meta. I set that build up because it is easy and doesn’t punish you too harshly for messing up.

Also the difference in damage dealing really isn’t as much as you make it out to be.

Black Box.9312:

tanshiniza.8629:

You’ll always want 6 points in Valor (at level 80) as it is our best skill tree without a doubt.

That’s kind of bad advice, IMO. Valor is good in PvP, but in PvE taking any more than 2 points in it is strongly discouraged.

Haven’t done PvE in ages and I don’t much care for Metas but when it comes down to it Valor is a good tree and can make life a lot easier for people starting off.

1) I tested your build and it’s 3k dps. If you don’t agree then tell us what is the actual number and we’ll debunk it. It’s easy to say that ‘’oh no my build have a lot of defensive stats, but it still does good damage’‘. It’s another thing to actually do the little work needed to prove your point. Don’t run away, you challenge my numbers, give your own numbers or provide us with a video of the build something.

2) Yes exactly. Valor is a good tree TO make life a lot easier for people starting off. But that’s not what you originally said. You said that was what he should AIM for. You should AIM for a meta build, start up with an easy build and maybe finish with a hybrid build if you can’t play the meta. But you shouldn’t aim for an entry easy high defence build.

And??

Some ppl see D/F, which is one of the best build, and freak out because Staff can do more dps.

Other ppl see a Sc/X Elementalist and don’t ask question.

In the end that doesn’t change anything. Scepter/X build have a terrible auto-attack, that’s just a fact. But like anything, everybody can do what they want and find people to play how they want.

Laki.7160:

Honestly, I think part of the problem are the invincibility frames (dodging, skills with evade, etc). If it’s possible to avoid 95+% of the damage by dodging properly, why would anyone run anything other than full damage? I think Wildstar did a much better job with dodging. The dodge physically moved you out of the way (and much faster than simply running), but did not make you invincible.

That’s not a problem, that’s the beauty of GW2. Not needed defensive gear isn’t a problem by itself.

Bubi.7942:

Don’t believe me? Go set a speed run record… etc.

You aware that you are saying that to Nike from DnT right? Because if you are saying that, it mean that you should already set a speed run record, but didn’t like it a bit, but if you did that you should know who is Nike, so you probably never set a record speed run. So the guy that never did a record run ask to a guy that did it to do it and see how boring it is?? Now I have a headache.

phys.7689:

uhhh what other factor should cause success, you basically covered everything

experience
knowledge
reaction
thats about all anything is based on.

Not totally. Here some challenging aspect that Anet already put in the game.

- Liadri : The fight was challenging because you were always under pressure. You have several thing that could one shot kill you that weren’t the boss. So not only you had to kill the boss, you also had to remove her 3 stacks, be aware of the big AoE that could almost one shot you, check for Comsic Rift to not drag you in the wrong place and keep a eye on the Visions that could 1 shot you if they touch you. All of those thing are actually easy to do, but all of them at the same time? Even if you get used to it, unless we find a gimmick strategy you gonna have to paid good attention to the fight at the time.

- Old Fractal Agony and Lupi Solo : They have one thing in common. They have one thing in common. They both have quick successive one-shot kill attack. Let’s take the old shaman first. Back in the days you didn’t have the agony resistance to do the highest level of fractal. Each arrow of the shaman was able to kill you. Not down, but dead right away. Not only you had to dodge quickly to not get hit by it, you also needed to manage your dodge or you could run out way to quickly. Lupi solo is similar. You have a lot of attack that can make a lot of damage so not only you have to dodge at the right time, you also have to manage your block/endurance, etc.

There is also stuff that were never really in the game. Like random complex AoE pattern. There is plenty of tool that can be used to keep a content challenging. Of course any content will be easier and easier over time, but there is stuff tactics that can be use to always keep the player on his toes, even if he is good and experienced.

The problem isn’t that Anet can’t make that kind of challenging content, the problem is that they don’t want. The game is casual friendly so content need to be feasible by almost anyone. Truly challenging content won’t be able to be completed by everybody and I don’t think that it’s something that Anet can accept, produce and put into their game for that exact reason. Which is kind of sad.

Xyonon.3987:

Even with bufffood, you can SUSTAIN (!) only 15 stacks vuln on bosses. Sure you get higher but that’s just spike like from barrage. Don’t dream too much :P

He didn’t say by himself. There is other player providing vulnerability in your party.

King Noob IV.3560:

for pve you get atleast 10 points in zeal and radiance then throw the other 4 points in what ever you want but for pvp you get VERY little in zeal and radiance and put 6 points in valor and 2 or more in virtues. why is it so different?? they don’t even resemble each other even though they are both dps builds

Because
- PvE need good DPS, while PvP need good burst damage. That’s why skill like Hammer 2 or smite Condition are great in PvP, but not really useful in PvE.

- In PvE you have a group to provide buff. Only the best at providing it will provide it, while the other will focus on their strength. In PvP you won’t have a team to provide you fury, might, vulnerability, etc. So for exemple guardian isn’t great a providing fury so in PvE he focus on something else. But for PvP Guardian is good at self fury and that give him more dps to do so since he probably will never get fury from a team-mate.

- Support and Survivability is different in PvE and PvP. Going PvE meta build in PvP will get you kill rather quickly. PvE is about slow but hard hits and you focus on stuff like aegis and dodge for that. But for PvP you will receive a lot of small hits and need more sustain than just dodge/block can provide. You also need to protect yourself against condition a lot in PvP, but not so much in PvE.

Jerus.4350:

I really don’t agree with the idea that dungeons are too easy. They only got to be this way because we have done them dozens and dozens of times. Because people like Wethospu and many others have analyzed them to death and spread that information to help people get through them.

True.

And ppl like to talk about situation record run and use those example like there were common in-game.

Vargamonth.2047:

In the current state of the content, most bosses just explode against a meta-ish setup.

Exactly like that. I’m a min-maxer, I solo and speed run dungeons. But I rarely just explode most bosses when I play. Yes it’s easy to do for AC, but other than that, rare are the groups that just explode bosses. More than just meta build, you need a good group composition, knowledgeable players, consumable, good tactics, etc.

It depend on the group setup.

- If you bring your engineer in a party with 2 Elementalist with 5pts in Air, 1 warrior and a thief then you don’t need to use as much nades and you can replace the nade auto-attack with bomb auto-attack. You will still be at 25 stack of vulnerability against boss.

- But if the rest of your group can’t provide much vulnerability, then nade auto-attack will be better.

But I still don’t really like bomb. Big O Bomb is your best damage skill but the launch can be bad news. Against a single boss after the Icebow burst ok, but against several mobs it only de-stack them and can make the managing of defiant harder. The other advantage of bomb is fire bomb. But it become useless when you have Ele or Warriors (which is the majority of the runs for me).

I prefer using Nade/Elixir Gun/Flamethrower or Nade/Elixir Gun/Tool Belt and switch out for bomb only if we need stealth.

But really as long as you have Nade you can use any of those kits : Bomb, Elixir Gun, Flamethrower and Tool Belts and still do a decent job.

- Bomb will depend on the vulnerability and utilities that your group need.
- Elixir gun give you the most dps but it the hardest to use
- Flamethrower give you a nice burst
- Tool belt give you a little less burst than Flamethrower, but give you a nice block.

MeththeMadman.7420:

Guardian seems a little… complicated. I’m not opposed to that, but I wonder if I should start with a simpler class to learn the game mechanics first? I want to play a Guardian, but I also had a desire to play a Warrior…

So, even though my overall goal is to build a strong Guardian (it’s the class I prefer at the moment) I feel like I could learn the game mechanics a heck of a lot better with a more straight forward face smasher like the Warrior… Am I wrong? Is it better to just play the Guardian now if that’s my overall goal?

We can’t really answer that question for you. Everybody will have an answer about that.

Some people will say that there is easier build to use for guardian early so it won’t be an issue.

Other people will say that the best way to learn is to learn the hard way. It will take you a lot more time to get use to the profession and the game in general if you try to ease your way in too much by using easier profession and easier build. It will be smoother in the beginning, but it will be harder to learn to play more advanced build.

Everybody is different on that but here is my personal opinion.

I started by playing Guardian and Elementalist, both have the lowest amount of HP possible. All the other profession I play since then are easy since they are usually more tanky than my two main.

Most of my friends that started by playing warrior have some difficulty with other profession. They get used to it after a certain time, but they all make the same kind of comment about the difference in hp/armor.

savacli.8172:

Guys, he just started playing the game. I would suggest that it’s a little too early to start throwing builds, metabattle, and all those other optimization or end-game guides at him.

That’s why I gave him the link to metabattle but added to explore everything he can with his guardian and don’t worry about the actual effectiveness of the build before level 80.

He shouldn’t worry about that yet, but he should be aware of it so he don’t spend gold and time on useless stuff like I did when the game started.

And yes Valor is one of the worst trait line for PvE. But a good one for WvW.

Sinister should be a good setup, but unfortunately Condition themselves have a lot of problem.

Condition build vs Power build are really similar in term of overall dps except for one thing. Damage modifier. They are powerful, stack well together and don’t affect condition.

In PvP, taking a lot of damage modifier isn’t reliable since you sacrifice too much survivability. So in this situation condition is on the same level as power, each with their own strength and weakness.

In PvE Solo, you start to see a difference. Power build are usually (depending on the profession) a bit higher in DPS, but condition build don’t suffer as much from using a range weapon as power build does (condition hit as hard if they come from a bow or a sword). That’s why certain profession actually have really good condition build in solo situation.

In PvE group problem are even bigger. Additional damage modifier can be apply, which aggravate the difference in term of dps between condition and power build. But the condition cap start to make a even bigger difference at this point.

Kydar Schattendolch.6879:

Der ANet,
Hey all,

i created this thread to get some Ideas for new Runes or redesign actual runes to make them more viable. Post your Ideas and give constructive Feedback pls. Have fun all.

I would love to see this new Rune with HoT or maybe earlier:

Rune of Extinction
(1) +25 Power
(2) +3% Condition-Duration
(3) +50 Power
(4) +7% Condition-Duration
(5) +100 Power
(6) +10% Condition-Duration, +100 Condition-Damage

Otherwise it would be very nice to add an +20% Bleed Duration to the “Rune of the Elementalist” XD.

Thx for reading.

I would rather that they change some of the existing runes to make them useful. Like Rune of the Thief and Rune of the Engineer that give a nice damage modifier as 6th bonus, but give condition stats, which make no sense since damage modifier don’t apply to condition.

tanshiniza.8629:

that deals good damage

And by deals good damage he mean around 3k DPS fully buffed compare to 10k for a Meta build in the same situation.

tanshiniza.8629:

You can use this to give you a general idea of what to aim for

You can use this to give you a general idea of what you can do if you want an easy but long time in content. Just be sure before spending gold to acquire ascended gear of that type since you may regret it if you later want to play a proper dungeon build.

True, but the initial build he provided was PVE.

PvE dungeon : Retreat is far superior. Fury should come from other profession and most of the other boons aren’t really that useful with the short duration/long cooldown. Retreat on the other end is one of the most powerful skill to protect your team. You shouldn’t base you choice on swiftness for that.

PvE Open world : SY become a better choice since you usually can’t count on other ppl to provide boons and swiftness become more important. Both are good, it depend on what you prefer.

PvP : SY will help you more since it will help you to burst a target down. Fight in PvP are a lot of small attack so retreat isn’t as powerful as in PvE where you receive small amount of big hits.

What you should know?

http://dulfy.net/category/gw2/
http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki
http://gw2timer.com/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first

Here some of the best website full of some of the best info about guardian or the game in general.

Otherwise explore the game. Try out everything you can as you level up and don’t start to worry about if your build is good or not until you reach level 80.

People don’t call you out because it’s not obvious. If you go into a dungeon with a Longbow Ranger and stay at 1500 range, it’s obvious. If you have a couple of minions following you, it’s obvious. But when you play Sceptre with an Elementalist, ppl assume that you play LH build. If you stack might with it, then ppl will be happy and won’t try to check you out further.

But that doesn’t change the fact that spectre auto-attack is one of the worth in the game and that you will do ridiculously low DPS on the character that have the potential to dish out the best DPS of the game. If you prefer to play that way, go ahead, but it won’t make it good. LH compensate for the lackluster auto-attack of the S/X setup and transform it from a bad weapon set to one of the best in PvE.

kagak.4230:

I’m not saying these are the best builds ever

Good because they seem ok for WvW, they are terrible for PvE.

Like every game there is good and bad tactics.

Healing, regen, defensives stats, etc are view as bad support. They can do the job, but poorly in PvE because the game was designed this way.

Protection, Vigor, reflection, blocks, condition removal, etc on the the other end are view as good support.

Overall? That’s a bad build. It do the job in Open World since everything work there. It will be terrible in Dungeon, Fractals, etc. Don’t get me wrong, you will be able to complete any content with it, the game is designed like that. But you have abyssal dps and use almost none of the advantage of the guardian in PvE. In a game where DPS and Support are the most important things you sacrificed both for more personal survivability.

Weapons : GS + Sw/x is a good choice. Shield isn’t a good weapons, with focus or torch being better, but it won’t hurt you too much and you can keep shield if you really want it.

Healing Skill : It’s a good choice. Most ppl prefer shelter for the block, but the signet is a solid choice.

Utilities : Save Yourselves is a good solo skill, but not that good in dungeons, while hold the line should never be on your bar in PvE. Retreat on the other end is the only skill that should almost never quit your PvE skill bar. Wall of Reflection is a good choice.

Gear : If you really need sentinel keep it, but that’s really bad. See those piece as training wheels and your goal should be to replace them with as much zerker pieces as you can. But still stay comfortable, if you can’t play full zerker then keep the amount of defensive gear you need. But in that situation, Soldier or Knight gear would be better choice than sentinel.

Runes : Rune of the Ogre isn’t a bad choice, but the Pet will be annoying as hell in dungeons. A pet that you can’t control will do stuff that can ruin strategy. Scholar is the best choice, but Flame Legion is a solid cheaper choice.

Sigil : Ruby Orb are cheap, but are not worth much either. Sigil of Force + Accuracy will do a far better job and will work everywhere. There is also some more powerful combination, but they don’t work everywhere (Force + Night for example).

Trait : You get a big portion of your dps from damage multiplier from your traits, but you got none there. Fiery Wrath, Zealous Blades, Right-Hand Strength and Powerful Blades are very important offensive trait for a GS + Sw/x build. On the defensive side almost all good guardian build in PvE bring Blind Exposure + Renewed Justice to spam F1 and blind. It’s one of the best defense you can have against group of enemies. Optionally, the Virtues trait line can give you powerful defensive abilities like Master of Consecration or Absolute Resolution.

MeththeMadman.7420:

Man, I was all set to start playing with a guardian until I read this thread. Low health pool? Frustrated with playing in dungeons? Ugh.

I was looking for a class that can be tanky, wears heavy armor and is wanted in dungeons (for PVE purposes) and can solo relatively well while leveling.

Guardian is an active profession compare to lets stay Warrior that rely on pure passive stats. It’s harder to play, but there is a lot of easier build that make you feel tanky.

‘’Frustrated with playing in dungeons’’ that’s a personal opinion and you can find someone saying that with every single profession, it all depend if the profession fit your playstyle or not.

Guardian survivability come from active defense and since active defense is FAR FAR FAR more important than passive stats defense, Guardian is the king of defense in this game. But of course, it doesn’t fell like it for new player that want to play some of the best build around. Because those build left you with little passive defense and you need to rely on reflex and knowledge of encounter to survive.

Good choice. But Guardian is my main so i’m kind of biais

Guardian is squishy in term of passive defense. It have a high armour, but the lowest amount of HP. Warrior is closer to a more traditional ’’tank’’ as it have both high armor and high hp.

The strength of the guardian come from active defense. He focus on blind, block, reflect, invulnerable, etc to not get hit. And he can provide the same for his team to protect it from incoming damage. A guardian will boost the survivability of the team and it can be a really important member of a party.

Zelyhn vs Kodiak

It’s all I seem to see these days lol.

ViceeCRO.7519:

BlackBeard.2873:

If you care about support and doing damage, I would suggest taking a scepter-focus fresh-air build that has at least 4 in arcana, 2 in water, and the last 2 in water or arcana.

This gives you a couple projectile blocks/reflects, some heals and cleanse in water, good might-stacking for your team, and an invuln to secure resses without dying. I usually also take mistform (for resses) and sometimes glyph of renewal (for mai trin to pick up people who die during the cannon phase). You can also still do good damage (with ice bow added in).

Its much better to consider some select ways you can provide support while still doing damage, as opposed to building 100% for support.

hmm never thought about that … whats the armor for that build full zerk or ??

Don’t use that build, it’s bad for PvE. Scepter have a high burst, but terrible auto-attack, which equal to a bad dps overall.

That’s why it’s a good PvP build, but not PvE build. If you like the concept of Fresh air in PvE, then D/F would be a better choice. If you like scepter for PvE, then use it so stack might/burst, then take the Lightning Hammer for auto-attack in-between.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Highest DPS classes would be elementalist, warrior, and thief.

Warrior is 5th in term of dps, so nope. Engineer and Ranger have a higher dps than Warrior.

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