Guard Heal, new meta? Back to the drawing board guys.
Problem A is definitely that you are taking on tougher enemies than what you’re ready for.
The other issue I think is more of a mentality bit. In typical MMO’s you tank up to soak the hits and use recovery skills to get you back on par. In GW2 that sort of mentality will get you killed pretty quick (especially on a squishy Ele). The best form of defense is a pro-active one which is especially important for you to learn as you are using a weapon set that requires you to be up close.
Though you kinda got a preview into why players tend to invest in offensive gear. As you described the mob you were fighting can take you out in two hits. With more offensive gear the mob would have taken you out in one.
So, how do you survive? Be proactive, anticipate the attacks rather than react after the fact. Dodge, evade, blinks, blocks, invulnerabilities, all those tactics offer mitigation to make sure the attacks against you don’t connect. For now dodging is going to be the biggest lifesaver (literally) while the other tacts you’ll learn to appropriately use as you get more practice with the class.
The biggest mitigation tactics are going to be learning your dodges and being able to setup up against fights (weapons, any traits that you have, slotting the appropriate skills, etc). In PvE, I’d argue that learning technique surpasses your gear selection. In other words, even if you deck out in defensive gear you’ll just end up prolonging your death if you don’t invest in learning technique. Though I fully understand as a new playing you’re nowhere near ready to “yolo” quite yet by taking on hoards of mobs by yourself.
Ideally in the PvE aspect of the game you’ll want to aim for Gear that offers Power, precision, and ferocity in that order. At your level I believe gear offers only two stats atm. If you feel that you are needing some defensive stats for learning the ropes I’d advise going with the stat combination of Toughness, Power, Precision. The extreme defensive gear set would be Power, Toughness, Vitality. You’ll want to do a gear check about every 5 levels. The way scaling works in maps could be detrimental if you are not keeping current.
D/D is great for levelling and general open world as it has good mobility; however, should you decide to move further into PvE such as Dungeons and Fractals you’ll want to learn to play with the other three weapons as well.
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If you have auto targeting turned on lightning strike will hit a target in range so long as you are in combat whether or not you have something targeted. So if you’re trying to escape you’re going to zap someone if you attune to air while still in combat.
Out of combat you won’t hit anyone with the strike even if you have someone selected.
In PvE you would normally opt for a guardian for its support: reflects, aegis/blocks, protection, etc. That’s not to say that the class has terrible DPS (they actually have very good sustain dps), but its default behaviour even when fully traited and geared in berserker equipment will still allow for high level support. In high level fractals they fit a very well received role.
In WvW, there are effectively two builds. The more popular one is the Zerg frontliner which, as the name implies, has the Guardian spec’d for a more traditional tanky role. The goal of the build is to be the last one standing while buffing your allies and applying moderate control against the opposing threat. The other variation, the Medi Guard, fulfils more of the striker role. The goal of this build is to blink in and strike with high burst damage.
PvP has similar builds. The striker build is more or less the same, but the frontliner transitions to more a bunker build. Bunkers have virtual no threatening damage but they are built to hold a point or at least be able to hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
Overall, Guardians’ support is desired in a team because it is very proactive compared to what other classes are capable of. Rather than healing up or cleansing after the fact Guards excel at the harm not reaching the team to begin with.
Ele’s are a different type of beast that I could go into. TL;DR verison: Their learning curve revolves around cooldown and attunement (“weapon swap”) management. builds can vary wildly.
As a properly spec’d level 80 you will have a distinct advantage over players who are at-level for the zone you are playing in. At level 80 you have access to all your traits, better stats* on gear, stronger rune and sigil selection, and access to more diverse consumable items.
The downscaling system makes it to where higher leveled players are running under Beast Mode vs your typical MMO with no scaling system that lets max leveled players run around effectively as God Mode.
In your case, OP, I would suggest you revise your setup as being able to help low leveled players is very much achievable and noticeable. Though don’t expect to single handedly carry your friends as they still need to put in the effort to make sure they stay alive.
If anything, I feel that the scaling feature is one of the selling points of the game. Player in level 1-15 zones have a fair chance at events and tagging mobs while scaled players are still rewarded for entering a lower leveled zone.
*At higher levels you run into Attribute Caps which means that some stats on your panel have a cap that they are set to when entering a lower level. Though, few players need to be mindful of this boundary as this requires particular selections in builds and gear choices.
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As far as which would be the quickest I would argue the Warrior class would meet that. Warriors have less of an initial learning curve, and their skills tend to flow more intuitively. In PvE and Fractals they bring offensive support to boost damage. In PvP they can range from bunker, support, and strikers so they have lots of options there. WvW, they are excellent front liners when zerging and have great roaming potential due to their disengages/chasers.
Guardians have an initial learning curve so they may not be the best if you’re wanting a quick leveler. Guardians are naturally more squishy and require a bit of know-how in fights/instances to know when to use your skills to stay alive (Active defense vs passive defense). They are the defensive counter part to a Warrior in that they often bring mitigation/support skills to keep a team alive. They are jokingly referred to as the Carry Class due to their superior defensive skills and access to key boons even when fully traited and geared for dps. They primarily focus on bunker or striker builds in WvW and PvP as support is generally built into the class regardless of spec. Similar to Warriors, Guardians are frontliners in a zerg.
I’ll let someone else describe the ranger class as I’m not too practiced with it. All I remember is pet management could end up killing you or saving you.
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In PvE, the trait goes primarily unnoticed. In PvP/WvW that trait is considered to be a staple for survivability to its reliable/regular boon access. Up to 6.5 seconds of a boon (19.5 on might) as early as every 11 seconds is definitely powerful. Even more so the boon is applied to nearby team members as well.
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Imo, it’s the selling point that GW2 is advertised as a casual game. To where in other MMO’s you lose out tremendously if you take a break from the game GW2 is not as punishing. Sure, you may lose out on a skin or two and maybe a neat item, but there’s generally nothing game changing that a person will lose out on. Thus, if GW2 were just a casual game for me I wouldn’t care for going out of my way each time I return to the game to keep up with the consistently changing meta.
P.S. I’m a filthy min-maxer as well, and bearbows depress me in ways that words cannot describe.
That is just one boon from one trait. There are various other defensive skills that can be used pro-actively. Beyond those Earth is providing a new trait for front liners and strikers to be able to soak hits very well. Being a buff it’s not susceptible to corruption which already seems better to me than protection. Thematically, it makes sense that Ele’s are tankier if the choose to spec into Earth. Water is also bringing additional access to frost aura which by itself reduces 10% damage but can also be traited to offer protection. Those two specs alone can offer 63% damage mitigation (assuming additive stacking). That leaves one spec left up for grabs.
I recognize that the Earth trait will not work in ranged situations. Though as such distances it’s generally easier to disengage.
Elemental Attunement is too good of a skill. You get uncontested boons that require no effort to obtain other than attuning to an element. With decent boon duration those boons last quite a long time. I compare an Ele’s access to protection to that of a guardian’s. A Guardian has to expend a long cooldown (shout, virtue, etc) to obtain protection reliably. They have the hammer AA, but that requires cycling the attack and not getting interrupted In PvE that’s very easy to obtain, but that may not necessarily be the case in other aspects in the game due to AI vs Player tactics. Ele’s, on the other hand, simply attune to Earth and receive the boon everytime. What’s worse is that they are able to distribute the boon as well. Evasive arcana has two levels of balance in that each attunement carries its own ICD as well as the Ele has to have endurance for dodging to to be able to trigger the effect.
Elemental Attunement should have been a GM all along as that level of uncontested boon control is quite powerful. The other reasoning I can see the trait being GM worthy is that there is no proactive counterplay to it. At the very least Evasive Arcana has a visual for counter play. E.G. Warrior is going for the kill shot but can notice an Air Ele dodging in his direction.
I saw another thread suggesting that the Elemental Attunement become baseline, but the trait should be diminished a little by making the boons only apply to the Ele and instead make the GM a trait that would once again distribute the boons as it currently does. That I see being a bit more reasonable, though I would ask that the baseline have a shorter boon duration and the GM also expand the base boon duration of those granted.
He was referring to the stereotypical trinity introduced by other MMO’s that is Tank, DPS, and Healer.
Anyways, I agree with OP in that the trait should apply to the caster otherwise the trait is very build biased. The extra healing on the caster would fit thematically with the traitline so I’m not too sold on switching it out for Bountiful Power as that particular trait seems more DPS orientated. As a solo-ist the trait would only benefit allied NPC’s or summoms.
That makes sense. I can see how that one second can screw someone over if they (for example) were waiting for the moment for water to recharge to expend their last dodge only to get squat since ICD was still in effect. That, and it doesn’t seem fair to make players have to hesitate if they are really watching their attunement cooldowns. It would match up with the current CD’s lining up perfectly with each other (of course ignoring Fresh Air air attunement).
Though the 1 second hesitation may be intentional to add to the sense of cooldown management. /shrug
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It’s skill in the sense that there’s not going to be a catch-all traitline or build anymore. If you invest in Earth, then yes, you should be granted that passive defence. Add water for more passives make it all the better; however, now you’ve left yourself without much offence. If you want to be a striker you’ll need to start making appropriate sacrifices for that extra power.
Right now I agree that the Cele Ele’s in PvP are very straight forward to play and don’t require much skill. That, and I find it broken that with this build a good follow through on your rotation lets you end up with 15+ stacks of might, good uptime on protection and fury, near perma uptime on regen and vigor, and multiple sources of cleanses and heals.
I understand that the theme of the build is versatility, but Cele ele’s are masters of the trades more-so than Jack is. Polishing and perfecting the build is one thing, but the entry skill for this class in PvP is very low and forgiving compared to other classes.
Edit: Soothing Ice mixed with Elemental Shield I can see compensate for loss of protection and regen.
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Personally I’m in favor that you are required to choose; the two of them together were too powerful and could be used in just about every build to add survivability without much effort.
The other traits we are getting are more than generous to compensate for this “loss” and offer a new form of synergy. Thinking of water and earth alone. 20% damage reduction from new GM, unconditional above a certain health threshold. Throw in the Earth contingency for protection, and then Frost aura from the new Water trait. Regen, Vigor, and cleansing will still come from Cantrips, and healing is still available from water attune. From this point a player will choose between additional dodging functionality (blinds, blasts, heal), or they can gain boon management through attunement.
How this will play out, we shall wait and see. Though it would seem that they are trying add an element of skill to the class with this particular change.
For the most part it’s an “experience it and figure it out”. After running paths enough times you’ll automatically remember what did and didn’t work last. Bane and Retreat are my personal perma-slots in AC, and I float WoR, PF, and SYG. Depending on how a group runs through the paths and your level of comfort you may need to throw Bane into the float rotation to free up that second slot.
Later on in higher levels Traits start to make more of an impact and influence what utilities you should slot in. Builds will also be one of those topic where there’s a build that works for the majority of content vs builds for specific tasks.
WoR will be your floater as not every encounter in the AC dungeon paths will require projectile control. PF can also be seen as a floater, but when you need it, you NEED it. PF can also be used as an awkward fire field in case no one else brought it to the team. SYG will be used quite a bit for both its proactive stability and stunbreak.
Regarding blinds: Radiance offers two minor traits that synergize well to effectively create perma-blinding. Champion-level’d mobs and and higher have a buff called Defiant. One of the features of this buff is that it makes then only miss 10% of the time when affected by blindness. Otherwise, blindness still retains its effectiveness as normal on all other mobs that do not share that buff.
AC will be the first dungeon up on the list. At 35 you’ll be appropriately level’d for both the story and Explore mode of the dungeon. Retreat, as usual, deserves one of your slots. WoR will be great as there is quite a lot of projectiles through the paths. Purging flames is going to be another skill you’ll want to bring into dungeons as Guardians generally get the task of condi clearing.
Overall, you got a good setup going. SY isn’t as useful in a group setting as the boons you get from that skill are granted by your allies (assuming a decent team comp).
Without certain traits you’ll want to AA on hammer only when you feel you need its protection boon. MB contributing most of the damage. As far as Sw/F your Focus 5 starts to require more attention. As far as burst damage you’ll want to activate it as soon as you swap to that weapon as it is insta-cast and does not require channelling. Defense wise you’ll want to keep it for those extra blocks. Blinding, on the other hand, starts to become very picky. Bosses are more or less immune to blind (that 10%) so it is not advisable to aim for blind uptime of them. Mobs tend to attack you in decent number so you’ll want to make your blinds count. As you do not have certain Radiance traits yet you cannot effectively “spam” blinds.
For one, Guardians have a learning curve when compared to a class that is more passively defensive such as a Warrior. The tradeoff, however, is that the Guardian class has more potential. A novice Guardian will get wrecked everytime as panic mode kicks in and he ends up blowing all his cooldowns. The experience comes in knowing when to use what, and that’s what makes the profession excel. Persoanlly, I can comfortably run through any PvE content with my Guardian with competitive DPS and still offer superior support to my team.
Though, put me in PvP as a bunker, and I’ll hold the point for all of two seconds. Does that mean the profession is the weakest one? No, it just means I haven’t sat down to learn the profession. In PvE, I’m looking for the slow nukes and throwing up blocks, blinds, and protecting accordingly. In PvP, that doesn’t work as straight forward. Instead I need to look to mitigate smaller but more constant attacks while saving my big defensive tactics for the “Killshots” and heavy disables.
I can spec DPS, but I’ll be as squishy as my Ele if I don’t play right. I can spec Into Honor/Valor and pic up key traits such as AH and FoW, grab a hammer and staff with extended symbols, and I’ll expect to be the last one to die everytime but be lacking in the DPS department.
Personally I enjoy the challenge in playing a class that requires focus and acquired skill. I have other toons that I play when I want easy mode since they require little skill and attention (coughwarriorcough).
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The Looking For subforum is the key place to drop a recruitment post. I also recommend Reddit’s recruitment page as well as it is highly trafficked.
Effective Guild recruitment posts generally address the following:
- NA/EU
- Server
- Size of Guild both present and goal
- Game Focus: PvE/P/X, WvW and if roleplay is hosted
- Targeted audience: Newbies, veterans, elitists, etc
- Guild rep and if Voice Com are used/required
- Unique thing your guild has to offer (“the selling factor”)
Of course not all of these things may have already been decided if you just started up the guild but at least be aware that you may get questions regarding your guild suchs as those.
It’s the skills menu or sort is why I can see they left out the targeting icons. I imagine they’re far away from the polishing stage where little things like this would be normalized. In the longshot that they were made kits that would break a whole lot of functionality for the profession. For one, some of the conjures shouldn’t be accessible at will the way current kits operate. Introducing a cooldown on them would be required to maintain their balance. The second issue would be the question as to whether or not the “kits” would still create an additional weapon for pickup. If so, where would it be placed? My assumption would be at the feet of the caster.
Ultimately, though making conjures into kits would impose on the Engineer’s niche. The balance in their kits is the Engineers only have access to handful of weapons that are supplemented through at-will kit accessibility. Elementalists effectively have “4 weapon swaps” per weapon set. Adding Elemental “kits” to their high weapon availability would be too much.
I think that’s a stretch; nothing on that whole panel has a ground targeting icon.
This link provides a directory for returning player to click through and catch up on the new content.
Common questions are:
- Is ascended gear worthwhile?
- What happened to LA?
- Why can’t I solo Tequatl any more?
The ranger PC is in a good place, but the overall complains I’ve experienced are due to pet management. For the most part their AI is better, but they are known to bug out and go as far as ignoring F commands other than the swap.
The only traits that are unlocked by default are the minor traits (odd points). All Major traits (even points) have to be unlocked through completing a certain event/task or by purchasing through the traits vendor.
In short, once you hit 30 you’ll be able to acquire and spend points, but unless you complete certain tasks or buy traits you will only event have access to the minor traits. The trait you bought was a major trait and will be usable once you have enough trait points to open a slot for the trait you bought.
Single Attunement
If you want to camp one attunement your best bet would be to grab a staff and stay in Fire
S/F + Conjures can technically stay in water but beyond the raw DPS the group value in this build is the startup rotation which offers competive might stacking. Lightning Hammer and Flame Axe are the two most common conjures for this build which burst damage being supplemented by Ice Bow and Fiery Greatsword.
D/F is also one of those you weapon set where you could stay in one attunement (Air), but the popular build for this weapon set offers a similar startup rotation for might, and then the combat revolves are switching attunements for burst damage/utility and then returning to Air.
In short, you can camp in particular Attunements based on your weapon set, but you will be missing out on a ton of potential.
Tanky build
One of the most defensive setup for an Ele is 0/0/0/6/6 where you have 2 points leftover that are floaters and can be moved into the remaining 3 attunements based on what you need. The defenses from this build come from superior boon access, cleansing, and high regen/heal. For the most part builds such as these are used highly in WvW/PvP where Ele’s play more of a support class. In PvE, Ele’s are expected to be offensively specced for their high DPS and offer offensive support.
Conjure Build
There’s not really a build that can work on purely on conjures. the Scepter/Hammer builds are about as close as it gets, but even then there is a dependency of your primary weapon sets for additional utility and damage.
Why I love the class
I watched Avatar: The last airbender, and I wanted to be just like Aang.
I wanted to be like Aang and Korra!
The appeal was also due to the unique mechanic that the Ele has. We virtually have the ability to fill the role of just about anything needed in a team, and there are aspects that we truly excel at. Plus, who wouldn’t want to manipulate the elements to do his own bidding?
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As guards we have access to knockdowns, knock backs, push, and pulls. We have access to soft cc such as immobilized. Chill would be the limited soft cc we have access to through Glacial heart trait.
DPS we have access to flat % damage modifiers as well as the godly UC trait. In UC is easier to keep up time on it. To where roaming and PvP make better use of it for burst/opening strikes. We also have Wall of reflection that can be devastating to projectile based opponents. Lupi being the extreme cheese example of reflective DPS while the CoE Golem boss being a more reasonable example.
The blue was the eye candy for me as it is my favorite color.
I also enjoy the play style and knowing that my team members can depend on me. I typically play the Cleric/Paladin on tabletop and traditional MMO’s so the Guardian class was the closest thing that fit well.
Here’s my personal preference/decisions:
GS or Sw/F:
Default go-to when I want DPS or need a bit of extra mobility
Hammer
Need the protection uptime or CC
Staff
Swiftness while on the run. Pulling chanters during double seals and occasional awkward empower if my fire field just ran off with the hammer.
Scepter and Torch
Purely range fight such as bosses in the Dredge fractal. Torch substituted with Focus in Grawl Final fight.
Mace
Extra blocks are needed such as Mossman, Snowblind end boss, and Mai trin. Paired with Focus and Shelter makes for a very good defensive set up.
Shield
Molten Fractal when extra fireball mitigation is needed
*Note: Traiting, traiting, traiting. Know which builds enhance your weapon selection.
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Oh trust me, I wanted to break out a couple handbooks and bring up the comparison of Fighters vs Clerics. Then I realized that Guardians can’t cast Fly…
While there seems to be a common comparison on Guards vs Wars on their health bars the attention instead needs to be focused on what drives the two classes apart. It’s almost gotten to the point where I joke about seeing Warrior threads about, “Warriors need access to aegis and protection”. They are two completely different classes that are both balanced.
At the base level, Warriors have high health and armor but have very little mitigation and healing. When they trait into Tactics and Defense lines they have the option of gaining additional passive traits that enhance their survivability as well as obtaining non heal-skill healing. Guardians start off with low health pools but come packed with mitigation and superior healing skills. Honor and Valor both increase health and armor (via according stat increases and major traits), but additional utilities can be obtained through those line. Both classes dip into their Toughness and Vitality lines to close the gap from what they are missing from their counterpart.
At the end of the day Guardians cannot match a Warrior’s raw resilience, but a Warrior will never offer the utility and defence that a Guardian does.
Generalized Answer: Guardians have more proactive defenses that can mitigate/eliminate damage entirely to where a Warrior has the extra health to effectively soak the damage. Both classes can spec into DPS or support oriented builds. Though a Guardian will excel as defensive support while a Warrior brings superior offensive support to the team.
With the exception of Retreat, all other shouts are situational.
In your case I would move out SYG for something else. Both bane and retreat can be used universally, and the third slot you’ll want as your floater depending on the encounter. Slot SYG when you know you need stability. If you highlight a mob/boss you’ll want to look for keywords such as knockdown, knockback, pulls, etc. The retaliation from this skill is not worth your while. If you come across something that is projectile heavy Wall or Reflection (WoR) is going to take up that third slot. There will be dungeons/fractals that will call for more specific set ups, but that’s not too important right now, and we can explain those to you as you get close to the dungeon.
Personally, I find that Ele’s are in a good place.
Dodge
- True perma Vigor when taking Arcana II
- Evading Attacks on FDagger 3, FStaff 4, and Axe 3
Disengage
- Lightning Flash
- Ride the Lightning
- Burning Retreat
Invulberablilities
- Mist form
- Obsidian Flesh
- Earth Shield 5
Projectile Control
- Swirling Winds
- Magnetic Wave
- Magnetic Aura
Blocks
- Arcane Shield
- Shield 2
That’s just from weapons/utilities alone. Sure, traits and other gear choices will further help refine that. Granted, I’m coming from a PvE point of view where by the time I’m asking for more HP mos bosses are gonna one-shot me regardless. In PvP/WvW I’m one of those Cele ele’s so my two copper is limited it would seem.
Don’t worry Blood, we’ll bombard him with that later. Right now it’s important he understands and practices Guard-ing mechanics such as blocks, blinds, etc. We’ll show him how to melt faces later with all those synergetic traits, hehe.
Keep in mind that you can reset trait point allocations; the purchase and acquisition of the traits are permanent.
Training wheels wise the first trait I would suggest is Vigorous Precision (Honor 1) as you will get faster endurance/dodge recovery, and we cannot stress enough how important it is to know when to dodge.
Your second point can go into Justice is Blind (Radiance 1) or you can continue in honor for Superior Aria (Honor II). The first will allow you to get further practice with the blinding condition which is one of the Guard’s primary tactics for damage mitigation. The second trait will allow for faster recovery of your shout skills (retreat, most importantly).
In the long run if you continue with Hammer you’ll want to stick to Zeal (up to 5) or Honor (up to 4) as both lines have traits that modify the potential of symbols. For Sword/Focus you’ll want to max out the Radiance as that line buffs main hand weapons especially main hand sword.
Altruistic Healing (AH for short) is a good crutch as you start out the game and is used end game in certain builds for PvP/WvW, but for PvE you’ll want to graduate from it as soon as you feel comfrotable doing so. Remember, AH is a reactive defense, and it also affects you only.
If a guard is running soldier stats, then yes, any bit of fury/crit chance will make a huge difference to him. Though, most of the time when we’re running soldier’s we’re generally concerned with survivability and are running corresponding defensive traits (needing to go “tank mode” for something) or fighting a construct like Teq. In short, if I had the choice of taking 4 in Valor for Focused Mind vs 4 in Radiance for Powerful blades I would lean towards the latter.
Fire-Blasting is manageable, if the team messes up the combo they wait a bit and can try again. Messing up a dodge or a blind mid-fight? That may not be as manageable and could lead to a down. Thus, the extra Aegis from Retreat is highly valued. Even in a team that is highly seasoned the players will still make mistakes.
Defensively, retreat is used to cover your team when things go wrong or, when well-communicated, can allow your team to save their dodge for a future attack that is otherwise un-blockable or unpredictable. E.G. Throw up and Aegis when Mossman stealths so that the team can use their dodge for an attack that’s avoidable (“killshot” when he crosses his arms).
Offensively, retreat can be used to keep uptime on Unscathed contender or can be used on other players so that they don’t need to interrupt their attacks such as a Warrior’s 100b.
Anyways, we digress. For now, my advice for new guards would be to keep retreat slotted as that extra aegis would be very valuable to them.
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If you’re running solo we can all agree that the pre-fight might from staff is great. Though you can still switch out to a more effective weapon as you have not yet entered combat. Other than for tagging or farming staff should be shelved. In a group, however, staff empower is not the optimal way to go as even un-buffed fire-blasting will last you longer than the empower. If your group lacks the knowledge on how to fire-blast consider that an opportunity to show them the combo rather than short-cutting with a skill.
Renewed Focus can still be a go-to for the majority of PvE content. It’s not so much the invulnerability that makes it valuable but rather that it recharges your virtues which is arguably the better end of the deal depending on how you’re traited. Wrath tome can be used in organized groups for the quickness, but Courage tome still feels awkward to use given cast times on its signature skills.
Utility wise a full bar of meditations is not at all optimal. Without the Fury trait (which he won’t get til much later on) the meditations lack potential. That, and I would generally recommend flat bonuses rather than rng bonuses (Fury doesn’t guarantee the crit but rather makes it more likely to crit). The other big issue being that medi-bursting leaves you vulnerable, and you don’t always have the opportunity to engage. As a leveling Guard I won’t put more focus on learning the fights rather than chancing a burst. Fiery Wrath and Unscathed Contender are two great damage boosters that are accessed early on. Shouts are situational to use, but Retreat has access to an additional aegis is why it is considered universally worthwhile; the swiftness is a bonus but not the selling factor. Wall and Retreat are two great utilities carry, the last slot being used to counter the situation you’re in.
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Welcome to Guarding where Blocks are made up, and the light fields don’t matter.
PvE and WvW/PvP have different combat dynamics. As mentioned by others in this post PvE is all about looking for the slow, yet devastating, attacks. WvW/PvP, on the other hand, requires recovery and mitigation from relatively smaller yet more frequent attacks.
That dynamic alone is why Cleric’s gear is considered the raisin oatmeal cookie of the PvE stats. Knight’s is more favorable because it still provides Power and precision while toughness is a direct mitigation of damage. Vitality isn’t as important when compared to toughness as the PvE scene doesn’t bombard you with conditions as much as other aspects of the game.
PvE places a challenge on teams to be proactive with their defenses. For every class, dodging is one of the greatest forms of mitigation. For a Guard we bring superior proactive defense in the form of blinds, Aegis, stability, protection, projectile migtigation, and much more. By being a “Healer guard” with Cleric’s and that build you posted you are effectively shifting your defense to be more reactive. In other words your build works to recover from the damage/harm after the fact. While that sort of tactic works in WvW/PvP that sort of playstyle is crippling in PvE.
Best scenario I can describe would be if you were on a team with a squishy ele or two. BBEG swings his club at your team, and both you and the ele fail to anticipate the hit. Good news, you were able to soak the hit. Bad news, your ele friend got down. Don’t worry though you can just heal youself up and then start rezing him. Scenario B: You’re traited more offensivly, anticipate the hit, and throw up a blind/Aegis. Not only are both you and the ele still up, but there virtually is no time that was wasted as no one down or had to take the time to rez someone. (highly generalized scenario)
While you are right in saying that not every player out there is very good, the majority of the community is familiar with the profession sterotypes. Warriors are bringing banners, Ele’s are bringing conjures, Thieves bring blinds and stealths, etc. For a Guard you’ll be bringing defensive support in the form of mitigation and utility. Substituiting this role with one based on healing will just slow down your team. However, the general concensous for groups is max dps. So while staying alive is fine and dandy you want to make sure you are contributing to your team offensively as well. It’s no fun to have everyone in the party wipe except for that one “tank guy” that is slowly withering away at the mob he is trying to fight.
Other than hitting H and seeing your current available skills points in the upper left corner there’s not a “you have acquired this many total skill points and have used so many points.”
As you’re leveling the skills you choose won’t be too make or break your game play, but you still want to make sure your taking the right skills for later on. Similiar to buying gear at a low level right now you’ll feel like you’re in a bind for skill points. Later on you’ll get to the point where you have to many of them.
That poor ele…
I added you last night, but I was only on for a few minutes. I’ll be online from about 6-11 EST tonight.
Try to keep to that 5-10 level schedule. If blues are outside of your budget right now at lease go with the whites. Right now you may seem like you’re in a financial bind, but that’ll ease as you level up and complete more events. Again, the trading post may just be a jerk right now with players ramping up pricing.
Weapons don’t level up or anything like that but weapon skills need to be unlocked on an individual weapon basis. You do that by equipping each weapon and using them to unlock their individual skills. In other words, fighting with a greatsword won’t unlock your hammer skills though it only take a few minutes per weapon to unlock their skills. Your 6-0 skills are unlocked through skill points which are accumulated upon reaching particular levels, doing the skill challenges on maps, or consuming the scrolls of knowledge.
Gear levels 1-20 on the trading post is tricky as the pricing fluctutates terribly due to players wanting to make a quick copper. If the pricing on the post is out of reach look on your map for NPC’s with a sword or helmet icons. They will sell you “whites” (lowest quality) gear that is always level appripriate.
As far as the F-key issues you have two options. You can change your keyboard behavior when those keys are pressed through System Preferences → Keyboard, or you can re-assign the keys to something that doesn’t interfere with your computer’s reserved keys.
For gear specific questions there’s a site that came around while you were on break.
Overrall, here’s a Reddit post specifically for returning players.
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.
+1 Thad
Though I started on Ele followed by Guard, but the same goes for me when learning the rest of the classes.
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?
That all depends on you. As you’ve seen in the various threads you have created the community seems to lean on Guardians having more of a learning curve over a Warrior so going with the other heavy class will definitely seem easier. While Warrior will let you focus on the game more, a Guardian will force you to pay more attention to the content and challenges. In other words, it’s a tradeoff. You can go warrior while simultaneously eating a sandwich (mildly exaggerating) since the class will forgive you for making mistakes, or you can stick with a Guard get downed from not paying attention to the content and learn from said mistake. It all boils down to how much you think you can absorb while initially playing the game.
However, there’s nothing wrong with having multiple classes; it’s even encouraged. So if you want to spend a couple days playing Guard to focus on technique then switch to Warrior when you need something a little more forgiving or need a break that works perfectly.
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.
Thanks for the agreement.
As far as Valor goes I’ll admit Altruistic Healing is a hack, but it’s definitely a crutch in the PvE scene. I’m more of a fan of teaching people to swim by throwing them in shark filled waters. Besides, Guards excel at proactive defense so my advice would be to focus on skills and habits that prevent/mitigate damage rather than trying to recover after the fact.