Guild Wars 2

The advice and responses are good. I’m learning some things and thinking here but I think you’re missing the larger picture. Whatever method you use to avoid the damage isn’t really the issue so much as finding yourself in situations time in again where your mitigation methods don’t matter since the monster isn’t actually attacking you.

I’m willing to flatly state even given my limited experience that there is nothing you’re going to survive against using slightly different builds than I use. The differences are either going to be insignificant or situational. I can take on a Champion for quite a long time too and do so well enough to actually tell others to make a break for it since I can tell when we’re not going to win.

The problem is that if you’re going to go for a survivability spec in a game without tanking then you’ve put yourself in a strange place since you’ve got no method to take advantage of that in group situations, particularly dungeons where it won’t help you that much.

The best fortress ever built is just a pretty pile of rocks if nothing is attacking it and you spent so much on that fort that you just don’t have the army to send out when your fortress isn’t being assaulted.

The other problem seems to be with no tanks and no real major forms of crowd control dungeons go from a challenge to a chaotic mess that gets everyone killed. In or out of a dungeon if the mob is not actively attacking me in a group situation then all I’m doing is wasting time with poor dps. Switching to another weapon doesn’t really help that much since I’m not set up to do damage regardless.

And due to that poor dps, you’re never going to get aggro. Being tough at the expense of damage is pointless if you can’t get anything to hit you because your DPS is so low.

The only situation where this works out is solo. I can take on things and situations I just can’t do on other characters.

As stated I can ‘sort of’ tank in dungeons in as much as I can hold on to a gold while the party deals with the silvers, but my healing can’t keep up, and nobody seems to care about using any abilities that heal other people. You’re not going to ‘be a healer’ and keep somebody up and alive, but if everyone in the group quit spamming dps as fast as possible and threw out some healing things would go so much better.

So I’m one of those Guardians that runs around with a shield and a mace but I looked in to things well ahead of time so I’m not the type who thought I was going to be a ‘tank’ nor did I have delusions of being similar to… Well, a class from another game.

I’m about ready to purchase my final traits book for the crazy sum of two gold which naturally resets all my traits. I’ve been using the pretty standard ‘lots of end/vit/toughness’ ect ect.

I have no problems with running around ‘doing maps’ but I pretty much get destroyed in dungeons the same as everyone else seems to. I was thinking that perhaps my shield, armor, and build would keep me in the fight longer but it doesn’t really seem to help that much. Part of this is probably that I just don’t know what I’m doing, or I’m overlooking some critical timing/ability, or something, but nobody else seems to be doing any better.

If it’s not going to really help keep you alive in dungeons, and since you can’t really tank, I’m wondering what the point of having all this toughness and armor is. It just seems like that you’re giving up a lot of damage for marginally better survivability. The trade off seems disproportionate I suppose.

I did notice I could ‘sort of’ tank in a dungeon in as much as I could hold down a ‘gold’ enemy while people killed off the silvers. I almost think if people would just throw out a few of their ‘heals others’ abilities that I could hang in there. Perhaps too many people are focused on having every single solitary skill dedicated to blowing things up. I really don’t know.

Is it worth it to stick with the ‘durable’ Guardian thing? Outside of dungeons it seems to work fine but even there, what are you really gaining vs giving up?