Guild Wars 2

I’d have to choose between Whirling Wrath, Retreat and Virtue of Justice. (auto-attacks shouldn’t even count)

“You don’t need a defensive build, just slot in Retreat over Save Yourselves”, you do know that’s an Aegis once every 40 seconds, with the correct build. Retreat is not keeping a team alive like that. Guardians have to bring Wall (maybe Shield, but Shield dies pretty quick to Lupee’s AoEs), one (or even two) Elementalist for Swirling Winds, Smoke Screen from the Thief, every thing you can bring just to stay alive, and hope the damage from ice bows, might from the warrior, glyph of storms, meteor shower, the thief and hoping you can reflect his Necrid Barrage and Frenzied Blast at the right time.

This fight turned from challenging and fun fight for a fight to survive against his melee attacks which have not touched us for years now, while the other attacks were the kind of attacks that either made you run or despair (if you don’t have Stability for the Necrid Trap, aka bubble, though it is broken now).

When I do Arah with my guildies, failing that fight is pretty rare, but not everyone in the whole PvE community does Arah everyday, and this kind of fight just disencourages the casual crowd (and encourages them to wallsploit) while encouraging few, very few players(elite ones at that) who like this challenge and have already probably forgotten about it after soloing them(correct me if I’m wrong).

Waiting for the video with Warrior + Knight + New Lupee.

Guardian:

66060 DPS build? Don’t you forget Unscathed Contender so easily.

I think it’s either a crit build with 66006 or a symbol build with 60066 with either

Greatsword + Mace/Focus/Torch

Hammer + Mace/Focus/Torch

and if you want full deeps take Unscathed Contender (if you can keep it up), while also getting some nice burning traits to keep up Fiery Wrath such as Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath.

I have a reliable source that told me this change is intended, and there is no one that works(spends company time) on these dungeons anymore. By the way, don’t forget to bring Smoke Screen and Swirling Winds after the Guardian’s Wall goes down.
(bye Necro solos, sorry spoj :/)
I was about to learn how to solo it, but oh well :/

Extreme.8350:

Most of the “maxing” guys are not even asking about much they just expect them to run zerker and to use melee and not to run useless protection skills.

Someone said useless protection skills? Hammer Guardian is here ;D

I don’t even think it’s about being larger or longer, it’s about the Elementalist knowing how fields overlap and which one takes precedence.

With some good pre-might stacking from Elementalists, you get at least 2 minutes of Fury (12 blasts, 6 each Elementalist).

Finding a fight that lasts that long is not easy, and you still have Staff elementalists blasting their Lava Fonts once in a while(if that still is used for ArLightning after the Specialization changes).

The light fields, especially bringing Vulnerability, are definitely good and still are a net DPS gain for the team, and with D/F and S/F-LH builds being nerfed in favour of Staff, we’re losing in-combat might stacking over the eternal presence of Phalanx with the Specialization changes.

Thing is, it depends if you’re doing a rotation saving Retaliation for Whirling Wrath and managing it. If you take Radiance, you’re managing Retaliation for WW bursts, if you take Honor you’re losing some very good crit and RHS for Mace but you gain more Symbol duration(and damage with it).

Since Zeal heavily defines damage and Virtues heavily defines utility, the fight is between Radiance and Honor.

It might probably be comparing group damage (maybe for unoptimal groups or long-lasting fights) with Empowering Might and more Symbolic Exposure procs versus self damage with Retribution, Radiant Power and RHS.

Could be that Honor is just for carrying, or it might actually have a higher DPS than Radiance by itself.

Math time.

Have they wrecked Necro that much or has it been like this for a while?

Virtues: This trait line is what defines the utility of a PvE Guardian, it cannot and will not be dropped in the dungeon/fractal environment.

Minor: No comment, all the same good spot.

Adept:

Unscathed Contender: Our still awesome damage increase if you can keep it, making it a choice between Master of Consecrations turns this into a very hard and situational choice, making it quite balanced.

Retaliatory Subconscious: Compare this to UC/MoC. Are you kidding me?

Master of Consecrations: With Consecrated Ground being baseline, an even stronger
trait, awesome for significantly improving our loved consecrations.

Master:

Supreme Justice: A nice pick for when you don’t need the condition cleansing/durability of Absolute Resolution.

Absolute Resolution: The cleansing backup for the Guardian with a durability increase, always welcome almost everywhere.

Virtuous Mallet: Hammer does not belong here, although this looks like quite a strong trait. Swapping Hammer with Staff would be a very smart choice, although you can’t really compete with Absolute Resolution here.

Grandmaster:

Permeating Wrath: Looks like Radiance and Virtues will give lots of love to Burning (Yes, I know PvE is direct damage right now). Only good change would be targeting the enemy instead of yourself when you actually want to range something (with Longbow!!)

Battle Presence: Swapping this with Purity of Body was one of the smartest (or obvious) changes I’ve seen so far, the synergy is really good and commendable.

Indomitable Courage: This trait is when for when stuff gets rough. Defensively, probably the best and most Grandmastery Grandmaster trait for it’s active. Shielded Mind has always been good but not picked because of other important traits, but now it’s incredible as the only AoE break stun in the game, also giving Stability.

Final notes:
Thanks for all the support, and I really hope this feedback is considered.

Good luck to Elementalists and Necromancers, I may not feel your pain but Necromancers should definitely get some group support and damage to make them wanted, while the variety of Elementalists is something that gives builds room to grow.

tl;dr: Really good additions, but Guardian still has some useless traits and now, probably more than one useless weapon (I’m looking at you, Shield).

Honor:

Minors: VERY good synergy, respect.

Adept:

Invigorated Bulwark: Cleric Guardian time! Although since it’s applied only on block, getting that trait, even with Mace/Focus, given the general cooldowns on our available blocks (besides Protector’s Strike) doesn’t give this trait a lot of love.

Shield of Absorption: No comment, good merging.

Protector’s Impact: Jumping puzzle trait, no comment.

Master:

Honorable Staff: A trait that values Staff for what it is, a boon giver. Very bad choice to put Empowering Might in the same tier, they synergize pretty well.

Pure of Heart: I don’t remember having touched this kind of trait (on Aegis removal) once.

Empowering Might: The only way to make this trait good is removing the internal cooldown (and maybe decreasing the duration).

Grandmaster:

All of the traits are very strong picks, one for condition, one for direct healing and one for general symbol improvement. One good Grandmaster tier.

Valor:

I only have three comments for this trait line, although it’s going to be forgotten even for Cleric builds.

Stalwart Defender: Shield has sucked since day one for PvE. If you want Protection, bring Hammer. The damage on Shield of Judgment is bad. If you want projectile defense, you have Wall, Shield of the Avenger and even Sanctuary. The only thing there is the small heal and the knockback. Having Shield being reworked giving short-timed Aegis as a baseline on both or one skill and having Shield of Absorption not rooting and just giving the heal right away (or not) would actually make this a good pick. Having the same trait and not touching Shield (I’m not even talking about PvE here anymore since Meditation Hammer killed Bunker Guardian) will make many sad.

Communal Defenses: This trait is counter-productive, since you have to block to apply Aegis, and in an environment in which you are hit in less than 5 seconds after you’ve blocked, this trait is not as good.

Retributive Armor: Putting this in Valor, a DPS trait when you have Monk’s Focus is a pretty hard pick. Not sure if it’s bad or not since it has changed a bit to make you even more tankier after blocking.

Radiance:

Minors: Still very strong, Radiant Power was nerfed compared to it’s flat 10%, but helps with critting. Although it’s a very big critical chance addition, it’s not a 10% damage increase.

Adept:

Healer’s Retribution: Retaliation has been heavily nerfed a while ago, either buff them or buff the duration of the current applications. Healing skills on Guardian have such a long cooldown no one is picking this, and the uptime for it won’t make you waste a Shelter to get 10% damage for 3 seconds.

Inner Fire: A much appreciated change that changes you from a suicide guy that wants to be burned to a reward from burning enemies, which you’ve always done.
Better for when you don’t need Fury from a Persisting Flames Elementalist, which means this one is better for Solos, probably.

Right-Handed Strength: Kind of weird to see this as an Adept, but a welcome change. Scepter, Mace and Focus benefit from this, but the Sword cooldown is nothing to make you use it, since Zealot’s Defense is very situationally used for projectiles and Flashing Blade is for movement/occasional blinds.

Master:

Wrath of Justice: So much wrath in everything, chill. Still have to wait a while to see how this trait works, looks pretty good, not sure if it fits Major or not.

Retribution: Flat damage for the Retaliation you’re probably getting from Virtues, light field blasting, Symbol of Wrath and other sources, kind of forces you to pick it for PvE, but Radiant Fire is definitely not bad.

Radiant Fire: Will have to see how the new mechanic works, I hope it’s an F4. Good to see a lot of burning focused into a trait line.

Grandmaster:

Amplified Wrath: A very good trait for Burning builds, Shelter will make this incredible for when you’re being heavily burst, and Mace/Focus will also help some more, though also shifting not only direct damage but burning damage to symbols and blocks, which means even more Mace (I love Mace though, gotta hate that ranged autoattack).

Perfect Inscriptions: Before the math from Amplified Wrath vs Perfect Inscriptions kicks in, I’d probably pick this trait only for the damage buff to Bane Signet.

Radiant Retaliation: This trait has been long forgotten, but now this specialization gives you the choice from Burning or Retaliation through your Condition Damage. I hope it works in the future, and I hope Retaliation is actually as good as Burning.

As a Guardian enthusiast I can only give my feedback on Guardian.

Guardian:

Zeal:

Minors:

Zealot’s Speed: (This trait’s name has been wrong since beta)

No comment on the rest, they are pretty good, and giving Burning to Symbols is a nice addition.

Adept:

Wrathful Spirit: They give too much credit to Retaliation. Three seconds of Retaliation is definitely not worth it, not even if you change it to all kinds of blocks (besides Shelter). A 5 seconds Retaliation with a 10 second cooldown would be good as a trait itself, but nothing competes with Fiery Wrath, and also hinders the synergy with the Retribution (10% damage when having Retaliation) since you can’t pick it. With the new Mace damage with symbols focus, giving Retaliation like that would have to be on block/blind/immobilize to give variety to Sword/Mace/Scepter.

Fiery Wrath: With burning stacking in intensity, this is getting somewhat of a nerf, but being pigeonholed into this trait with such a balanced but uncomparable buff is a bad choice by design.

Zealous Scepter: Unless Smite becomes a Symbol to benefit from traits/or this gets more might/damage modifiers, since personal damage is already happening with Symbol traits, Scepter will be dropped, perhaps even for bosses with large hitboxes that get hit by 16 hits.

Master:

Binding Jeopardy: This trait is pretty good, getting a small nerf on immobilize stacks but upping the duration, swapping this and Zealous Scepter would be a really good choice, because it would have you choose between a self damage increase (for optimal groups) and a group damage increase (with Scepter(immob), Sword(blind)), although considering how many immobilizations you have compared to blinds makes immobilizations less attractive.

Zealous Blade: Good before, even better now, this trait is not a pigeonhole like Fiery Wrath but it’s a really strong pick that defines a great burst with the DPS rotation on the GS builds.

Kindled Zeal: Please, just scrap this, this line has nothing to do with conditions besides two or three traits that don’t do almost anything to conditions. Also, no one even touched it when we had Amplified Wrath, now it’s even worse.

Grandmaster:

Expeditious Spirit: Spirit Weapons have always been my favorites, but Spirit Weapons are already conceptually bad, with the exception of the very important Shield of the Avenger. Wrathful Spirit merging with this trait would be a nice addition, but Spirit Weapons are still a bit squishy. Would love to use this trait, but let’s get to the other ones.

Shattered Aegis: I seriously have no idea how good or bad this trait and how it scales with Power/Precision/Ferocity and if it crits.

Symbolic Avenger: After years of not picking a Grandmaster for much better options, finally a respectable trait that looks overpowered, but is not since you do not have 100% Symbol uptime. For PvE this is the only trait you can pick, the damage bonus with Symbolic Power completely shifts the meta from Sword to Mace, spamming light fields, vulnerability, burn and regeneration with Mace, protection with Hammer. This is the kind of trait that kind of forces you to take Symbols that benefit everyone but Elementalists when you don’t have a Phalanx Warrior.

With the traits switching damage from
Greatsword + Sword/Focus
to
Greatsword + Mace/Focus
with all the Symbols damage trait, since we’re independent from trait stats the new trait spread is most likely
Zeal (Fiery Wrath, Zealous Blade, Symbolic Avenger)
Radiance(Right-Handed Strength, Retribution, Perfect Inscriptions/Amplified Wrath)
Virtues depends on the situation, it’s your utility line.

Time to get new Mace skins and find a good rotation that keeps up symbols and Retaliation.

Something they really should consider changing is Sword Wave (Sword third auto), the range is a bit better than the usual cleave, but not being able to do a full auto-attack chain on targets that reflect because the third hit is a projectile on a MELEE weapon, while the damage on the auto is very backloaded, it’s just wrong.

I think the only way to land it in that situation is having a Wall of Reflection while the enemy is reflecting (double reflection mechanics).

Clearing this out:

Mace is better for cleaving because of the reliability of the 5 target damage in Symbol of Faith. The third auto-attack hit, Faithful Strike, HEALS 5 people and hits ONE enemy.

In short fights in which you just drop all your Mace/Focus skills for damage and swap to Greatsword, it’s pretty nice.

In 30s rotations GS M/F rotation is 97% DPS of a GS S/F, so it’s also comparable for long fights. The light fields wreck the might stacking, but even then you can just pre-stack and/or have a Phalanx Warrior. Also, the 97% doesn’t even count the very nice block damage from Protector’s Strike, as long as you try to trigger the counter right away.

Mine’s as good as it gets:
Weapon skills: 1 2 3 4 E
Healing skill: Q
Utilities: ZXC
Elite: V
Dodge: Shift
Select next enemy: Tab
Mouse 5 for 1
Mouse 4 for F1 (Deathadder mouse)
Stow weapon: F5

If you don’t really care about meditations you can get perma swiftness with Retreat and Save Yourselves while having 5 or so points in Virtues for boon duration and 2 in Honor for Superior Aria (80% shout cooldown) and just spamming those.

At least that’s what I do when I’m roaming in open world.

You can have the whole team not take damage from a huge blockable enemy skill using one group Aegis, you can keep your team protected by over a minute of projectiles if you invest into it, you can clear a kittenload of conditions if the situation requires, you can blind many mobs (not as well as the Thief(Black Powder/Smoke Screen) or the Elementalist(Sandstorm)) but well enough to make a difference. Do reasonable damage to make the kills faster. Guardian has a lot to do, and I’ve been loving it for two and a half years anyway, because it’s a load of fun.

1 month in a great guild.
Since you have a high armor(good for direct damage) and low hp pool(good for conditions since it goes through armor), you can take more direct hits than conditions with your passive defense. Your active defense is aegis, blinds, reflections, projectile absorption, condition cleansing. You have a lots of tools to keep your whole team alive as a Guardian, and knowing when to and how to use them defines your skill as a Guardian. Warriors, having the highest armor, health and healing from Healing Signet are the best at being independent, just bashing things, dropping banners, giving might to others when needed, but their playstyle is almost always the same. Guardians have to adapt to every single fight on what they’re bringing, otherwise the team might end up wiping. In solos, it depends on your personal skill and skill traits, in groups, a Guardian might make the difference on the team being alive or not.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

PVE guardian with greatsword and sword/torch.

PvE, not PvP Medi Hammer

Guardian has the lowest base HP along with Thief and Elementalist but the highest armor, which means they are usually the weakest against conditions (which don’t go through armor).
Your survivability comes from blocks (Retreat, Mace 3, Focus 5, Virtue of Courage passive and active skill, Shield of the Avenger’s Command, Renewed Focus, Shelter) for Champion level enemies, blinds (traited Virtue of Justice, Sword 2, Greatsword 3, Focus 4) for general mobs and Protection (Hammer auto-attack).

Edit: On my fully ascended geared Guardian I have 11232 HP.

If you’re going PvE, the Guardian is very encounter knowledge intensive while the Elementalist is very skill-focused, with many attunements to take care of. I’d suggest starting out as a Warrior so you have the highest armor, highest health, best self-healing (Healing Signet) and easy rotations to learn. Check out metabattle.com or leveling guides for your class so you can do it in an efficient and fun way. Welcome to GW2 and have fun!

I really appreciate how Gaile tried to connect us with the developers, but really, what does it take for a developer to come up with a quick answer “yes, it’s staying like that” or “no, we’re working on ways to fix it”.

Ignore the one above.

Since Burning relies on less time and more damage without stacks, not having that half a second mattered a bit in builds that rely on Burning to some extent, like Guardians focused on that. It’s our only damaging condition (no Poison, Bleeds or Confusion).

When is Power of the Virtuous better than Right-Handed Strength? (4/6/0/0/4 × 4/5/0/0/5)

Thing is, the Guardian is the most important defensive support in the current meta, but not for armor, passive defense or selfish defensive traits. The way you can NULLIFY damage with Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Retreat, Shelter, Justice is Blind, Ray of Judgement, Flashing Blades (occasionally), Leap of Faith, Virtue of Courage, Absolute Resolution is the way you defend a team, not being a damage sponge that STILL WILL die after all of your teammates die since you survived, but you end up being a wet noodle.

Guardian is incredibly defensive, but DPS is always good and welcome, since if you can be majorly defensive while doing respectable damage, keeping you and the team alive makes everything faster, more efficient and makes you actually feel like you defended someone.

Or not.

Not all Guardian weapons are used vastly in the meta(besides Shield, never Shield). Greatsword, Sword/Focus, Scepter/Focus, Mace/Focus are all often used, and Scepter/Torch is only used if you are focusing on Scepter’s very high damage on large hitbox bosses, when you’ll want Scepter but get more damage while Focus skills are on cooldown with Zealot’s Fire. Since you’re mainly focusing on direct damage, activate Zealot’s Fire right away instead of waiting for Zealot’s Flame to nearly finish.

Torch is good, but only brings Burns that are not crucial to keep Zeal II Fiery Wrath up and a cleanse that is not needed when you have Absolute Resolution and/or Purging Flames, but Focus gives condition cleanse as well, plus three useful blocks, a Blast Finisher, high area damage if you don’t use those three blocks, regeneration and vulnerability.

Depends whether your focus is PvE, PvP or WvW. It’s a consensus that Guardian Shield in PvE is VERY situational (almost always very bad besides a few occasions). because Shield of Judgment’s damage and Protection are negligible, and Shield of Absorption not only roots you, but the AoE knockback is not worth it in the stacking way to fight, while the projectile defense is massively outclassed by both Wall of Reflection and Shield of the Avenger.

If you’re running D/D on a 6/6/X/X/X, you can use 6/6/2/0/0 for Shadow’s Embrace, it removes a condition each 3 seconds, so your rotation with CnD removes one each time and a Shadow Refuge can remove 5-6 if you can stay in it for long. Also don’t forget Signet of Agility if you need it for the condi removal (usually used for endurance though).

Regardless of the stow/draw command, whenever weapons are drawn, they will be stowed after 30 seconds.

Hammer is so ridiculous for camping (with a 5(II, I)/5(VI, VII)/0/4(II, VII)/0) that you can pretty much camp the auto-attack chain (90-97% DPS of a full GS+Sword/Focus rotation) and only use Mighty Blow to blast people’s fields (or your own for Area Retaliation).

You can pretty much use Greatsword with Scepter/Focus for leveling, since Greatsword is pretty good in AoE damage and Scepter/Focus gives you the range you need with Scepter and the defense you may need with blinds and blocks with Focus.

I suggest using the equipment that favours Power/Precision/Ferocity(mighty/honed/strong/berserker..) so you can damage foes quickly to move on in content.

Your traits could follow the building of one of the Guardian dungeon meta builds:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_GS_Sword/Focus

Or the Lootstick one under General builds for farming (the staff’s auto-attack tags 5 mobs in events so you can get greater presence in events):
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Staff_Farmer

Start the trait building from Zeal II (Fiery Wrath, every 10% bonus is great) or Virtues I (Unscathed Contender for 20% if you can keep up Aegis reasonably), then build up the staple 5 in Radiance with Blind Exposure, so you can get used to the Virtue of Justice spamming, since it is renewed every kill (with 3 in Radiance) and blinds enemies (1 in radiance) while giving might (with 1 in Virtues), so you can pretty much spam F1 every fight while using the blinds from Focus 4 or Greatsword 3 to blind enemies, while also making them vulnerable with the Blind Exposure trait (Radiance VI) giving them vulnerability, also upping your damage.

Good luck, and if you need a help with speed (since the Guardian is pretty slow), you can use the Staff 3 (Symbol of Swiftness) paired with Retreat! and/or Save Yourselves! for Swiftness.

Have a great time in Tyria!

I’d love to get some reply from the dev team whether this can or not be done, but if I don’t get some I’ll never know if it’s possible or if it will be forgotten in the forums since it’s just a Quality of Life update.

Right now, weapons are automatically stowed 30 seconds after not being used.
Could you please make it so that weapons aren’t stowed automatically at all, unless the Stow/Draw Weapons command is used? Would make it much better for roleplaying.

Thank you, and thanks for all the incredible content!

And thanks to Knyghtblade for pointing me this way.

Please pay attention to the Shield, beloved devs!

As a Guardian, the first thing that struck me was the Mace/Shield combination. It’s beautiful, heroic, especially with the Guild Tower Shield (which is the best shield skin ever), but it really frustrates me. The Mace’s number 3 doesn’t infinitely block ranged attacks like all other blocks(although it’s altruistic and deals a load of damage), but the main issue is the SHIELD.

The Shield simply pales in comparison in all game modes against the Focus (self-sustain with blinds, optional vulnerability, regeneration, blocks and a bit of DPS) and the Torch (niche DPS weapon) .

The Protection the Shield of Judgment gives really lets me down. As a low damage skill that gives 5s of Protection with a 30 seconds of cooldown (the Hammer can give permanent protection), that I need to use away from melee range (this is a Shield) to hit (I’m in melee range, gotta dodge back to give Protection to my allies from mid range). Could be an AoE Protection, or even Aegis! (would make a lot of people happy) and maybe a bit of control (stun/daze, it is a kind of bash).

The Shield of Absorption is a kind of shield people forget is altruistic, it’s a nice heal, projectile absorption and stuff. But the cooldown is still, way too long. Maybe if another buff was involved as well, or the projectiles were reflected, a bigger heal, I don’t really know.

tl,dr; —- Please change how the Shield of Judgment applies Protection, not a cone—-
and what it applies and the cooldown of it. Shield of Absorption is in a really good spot, just where you always love to say the Guardian is (in a good spot), but the cooldown is also really long (even when traited).

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for reading, if you did. Have a nice day!

Writ of Persistence effect is not shown in damage differences/buff duration.
Blind Exposure does not add Vulnerability to blinding skills and Virtue of Justice when it’s traited with Justice is blind.

Just as the
Zeal I trait “Binding Jeopardy”
adds the vulnerability effect to immobilizing skills’ tooltip, I hoped the
Radiance VI trait “Blind Exposure”
would add the vulnerability effect to the following blinding skills’ tooltip with its duration and effect:
Flashing Blades (sword 2)
Leap of Faith (greatsword 3)
Ray of Judgment (focus 4)
Brilliance (spear 3)
Virtue of Justice trait with Renewed Justice (F1)
Purifying Ribbon (Tome of Courage 2)

Thanks, Arenanet team

“Prevent a brawl between the three legions.”
Iron Legion soldiers pacified: 3/4
Blood Legion soldiers pacified: 4/4
Ash Legion soldiers pacified: 3/4

- Can’t be finished, no angry soldiers in sight (the event has been stuck for a few days)

Blackgate server (US)

Could anyone please tell me what’s the name of the golden armor in the Cursed Shore loading screen, and if it exists, where can I get it? Thanks.

“See the Pact crash survivors safely to Meddler’s Summit.”
The NPCs are stuck in the middle of the way, this bug has existed for as long as I can remember.