Guild Wars 2

mrsrachelm.7618:

I find I can do pretty well with SB as long as I have enough room, and not too many adds, to kite. The thing I dislike intensely about SB is the auto attack is set up to hit as many mobs in an area as it can by default. So, even if I wanted to just pull one mob…or need to pull a certain mob for quest purposes etc, I am stuck aggroing the entire bunch. I should like to see a differentiation in having an auto attack that is single mob attack and a separate attack that bounces the arrow to all mobs in the area.

If you use Dagger/Pistol or Sword/Pistol as your main weapon set, you can pull single targets with #4 [Headshot] while still having Shortbow ready to go for events as secondary.

Dagger/Pistol is far better when you’re in any area where the mobs are spread out far enough that you can fight single mobs at a time. Against a single mob you can pretty much just use #3 [Shadow Shot] over and over and never take any damage.

Sword/Pistol is better when you’re constantly fighting groups of mobs. Just use #5 [Smokescreen] as often as possible and let your cleaving auto-attack do the work.

Of course other players have listed plenty of other setups that work just fine as well, but they all involve some sort of kiting and/or waiting for bleeds to tick which doesn’t feel very Rogue-like to me.

D/P
Hit 3, wait for auto attack chain, hit 3, auto attack chain, 3, chain, 3 chain
You win and took no damage!
Sub in 5 for 3 against multiple enemies or fast attacking enemies, occasionally dodge away and kite for a few seconds to gain initiative or heartseeker out of your smoke field to stealth.

Solo PvE is really QUITE easy for Thf.
But if you can’t make it work, just try another class.
Mesmer and Engineer can both make use of stealth as well.

Kintari.4172:

I could be wrong, but I think most people just dislike being globalled, or even close to it.

So maybe they should pick up some VIT via trait lines or gear?

Let’s not dance around the crux of the issue. The VAST majority of players complaining about Thf burst are playing glass cannon builds themselves.
Not only are they complaining about being global’d while wearing all power/crit gear and putting 0 points into the trait lines that give toughness and vit, they’re also complaining over on the Guardian forum that they can’t solo point control guardians from 1200 range.

It’s mostly a L2P issue fueled by kill compilation videos that simply aren’t indicative of how often you can pull it off, how many times you’ll die trying, or how strategically viable it is when putting together a team.

saurus.8290:

ppl that asking for nerf are here becouse of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-udk3CEtc7E

So he uses 4 60 second cooldowns and a 45 second cooldown ability to kill 1 person each time, and that’s overpowered?

Gearing is a skill.
They had a chance to “react” before they ever entered the ring, and the decision they made was the wrong one.

Yes, transmutation stones should work.
You get 3 of them each time you clear a map, or you can buy them with gems.

Your bank is shared between characters, so you can just put a white helm of any type in your bank, make a new thief and run to the bank, then transmute the starting helm with that one to get the appearance back to your 80 thf.

I didn’t know anything at all about the lore, and chose due to some of the wallpapers making them look like faceless ethereal killing machines:
Norn
Norn Bonus

The second being the same model that is shown on the “race selection” screen.
Imagine how disappointed I was based on the character creation screen that came next…
Still holding out hope that one day I’ll be able to pull off something remotely akin to the concepts.

Sword/Focus + Scepter/Torch
10 in Radiance to pick up [Blind Exposure].
Then 10 in Zeal for [Fiery Wrath] and the added Power.
Then I’d say go 5 in Virtues for [Inspired Virtue].

Sword/Focus makes you pretty much invincible early on.
You have three blinds in [Flashing Blade], [Ray of Judgement], and [Virtue of Justice].
You have an activated block in [Shield of Wrath].
Then even if you run out of blind cooldowns you can just dodge backwards, switch to scepter, and lock them in place with [Chains of Light] and hit them with [Cleansing Flame] while your blinds recharge.

If you get into events where you need to tag waves of enemies, [Cleansing Flame] and [Smite] work incredibly well.

I know lots of people will extol the virtues of using Greatsword early on, but I found that you weren’t really fighting big groups early in the game, so a lot of potential GS damage was wasted.
The 1h setup lets you plow through 1 enemy at a time at a faster pace than with GS because you can [Flashing Blade] to the next enemy every 10 seconds rather than the 20 seconds waiting for [Leap of Faith] or running to the next enemy. It’s also MUCH MUCH safer than GS against veterans and champions, which you will find yourself wanting to solo pretty often in the early levels.

Personally, I think 1h weapons are just flat out better for most of the game.
At least until 60 when you can finally set up some interesting trait combos such as Hammer+[Altruistic Healing]+[Empowering Might].
Or if you’re playing mostly in a group where you can utilize the short cooldown Combo finishers of the 2h weapons, then they really shine as well.

Tomkatt.1684:

Any race should be fine, but currently due to a bug with Sanctuary, Norn and Charr are best. Sanctuary is currently bugged and the bubble and knockback range is affected by character size.

I thought this had already been debunked by a GW2 Mod.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Huge-Problem-with-Shield-of-Absorbtion/first#post237502

The visual size of the bubble is the only thing affected, and they’re already looking into fixing that.

Asura
Reason: [Radiation Field] + [Mighty Blow] = Self AoE Weakness Combo

@Brutality

You go take [Altruistic Healing] and have a high crit rate, but put only 15 in Honor?
Wouldn’t it be much more effective to put 20 into Honor for [Empowering Might] than [Inscribed Removal] from the extra 5 in Radiance?

[Empowering Might] together with a crit gear lets you dish out a ton more boons which means a lot more self-healing as well. (as long as you’re in a group that is; and the bigger the group, the better)

Aseyhe.2948:

It’s worth noting that Burning also scales the worst with the condition damage stat of the three DoT conditions (I haven’t looked at Confusion).

Bleeding: 100 condition damage increases damage by 11.7% of the base
Poison: 11.9%
Burning: 7.6%
(Binding Blade: 12.5%)

Since the base value is different for each type, comparing them each to their own base and then trying to draw a broad conclusion from the numbers you get is entirely meaningless because it doesn’t tell you anything about how much damage your condition actually does over a set amount of time.

You also have to take into account the time on target.
It takes time to stack other conditions and a condition removal resets the entire stack, whereas burning does full damage from the very first tick.

To form a meaningful comparison between the condition damage types(including scaling), you need a LOT more than a simple formula. You need an entire statistical analysis that runs through dozens of battle scenarios for each type.

What does “the number of different types of condition damage” have to do with the usefulness of condition damage as a stat?

Burning gets 25% of condition damage added directly to each tick compared to only 5% for bleeds, so you have to stack at least 5 bleeds together before you get the same added damage from stats.
It takes time to get 5+ stacks, meanwhile burning has been ticking for full value.
Condition clears also hurt bleeds far more than they hurt burning. You lose your stack and have to start over, meanwhile 1 attack gets burning right back in the game at full strength.

As Schakal said, Condition Damage is GREAT for Guardians.
It’s Condition Duration that doesn’t make much sense. (unless you’re trying to build for some kind of weird hit and run strategy maybe?)

Proteus.6320:

… not to mention nearly permanent protection…

I keep seeing this, but can’t quite work out how it’s at all practical.

With [Writ of Persistence], the symbol barely lasts for the full duration of the next chain. So that locks you into using absolutely no other skills, never dodging, etc… You must stay in range and hit 111111111 forever to keep it up. That’s not exactly practical if you’re taking damage. If you’re not, then does the protection really matter?

It also doesn’t take into account the ~3 seconds at the start of each and every fight that it takes to get the symbol down. If you’re grinding through PvE then you’re still going to get hit quite a lot while protection is down.

Not exactly “permanent protection” in my opinion.

Sweet.
Pretty much what I expected, but good to see them.

WillAD.9670:

In Review: How does a Guardian spec for Destoryers?
_
…

phor.7952 says: Use a ‘V’

…

Just for clarification in case the reference wasn’t clear, V is the default key for dodge/evade.
:D

Am I missing something, or did the OP not mention any of the Major Traits in his build?

I’m assuming [Pure of Voice] is in there since he mentions turning conditions into boons.
[Right Handed Strength] and [Empowering Might] since he concentrates on precision and mentions critting often.
[Superior Aria] since he takes at least two shouts?

Several of the others could be tossups.

I agree that Binding Jeopardy is pretty much worthless.
The only skill you have to activate it is [Zealot’s Embrace], so all you’re getting is 1% extra damage for 5 seconds every 12 seconds, and that’s assuming you actually hit someone with it. The slow moving projectile is pretty easy to dodge.

[Blind Exposure] can be VERY good when fighting a ton of weak enemies in PvE. Combined with [Justice is Blind] and [Renewed Justice], you can pretty much spam Virtue of Justice and stack Vulnerability.
But in sPvP, you simply won’t be killing people anywhere near fast enough to make it worthwhile.

As Arken said, Inner Fire is pretty good in PvP.
I’d probably also get rid of those last 5 points in Zeal and use them in Honor instead to make Symbols larger.

Don’t forget V

Magma Symbol? V
Wind-up attack coming? V
Need a second or two before a skill comes off cooldown? V

Little point to nit-pick:

People keep saying “you can get permanent protection with Hammer”.
But that’s only if you’re ONLY using auto-attack and no other skills, never dodging, etc…
Right?
And it’s very hard to control where those gaps in protection will be. Whereas with Shield you can ALWAYS throw it up exactly when you want to negate big attacks.

It’s actually QUITE impractical to keep up “permanent protection” with Hammer.

I do agree though that right now it seems like the Focus is actually a more defensive option than the Shield, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Just wanted to make sure everyone posting in this thread knows that Guardian can equip BOTH Spear and Trident and switch between them underwater.
You can set up a couple great skill combinations between them such as Spear5/Spear4/swap/Trident5 right as they get into the barb field.

Maybe it changes later on down the road (my guardian is in mid 40’s), but I was actively trying to find underwater areas because I kill faster with less chance of dying underwater than I do on land.

@Kidel the #2 spear skill IS aoe. It’s a frontal cone.

Game needs to be fun.
If I put a fun rating on each of the Hammer’s attacks:
1.1 – 10 fun
1.2 – 10 fun
1.3 – activation time – 0 fun
Don’t want it to be faster? Fine. Spread out the activation time between the three so that the pacing isn’t so horrible and the most important attack in the chain isn’t so horribly easy to interrupt.

2 – 1000 fun! This skill is literally the ONLY saving grace for the Hammer. Low cooldown, no activation time, blast finisher… THIS is how melee should feel.

3 – activation time, slow projectile, difficult to use effectively in PVP and almost entirely useless for PVE – 0 fun

4 – the first time you use this skill, it seems AMAZING. The animation makes you FEEL the power of the Hammer. But use it a few times more and once again “activation time” quickly ruins any visceral feel that this attack should have. Since it knocks your enemy so far away and you have no movement skills with the Hammer, it’s another one of those “Situational PVP, will I ever really use it in PVE?” skills. – 50 fun

5 – ANOTHER ACTIVATION TIME?!? switches to GS

So many skills with activation times completely ruins the melee experience for me.