Guild Wars 2

yLoon.5289:

There is not a single bad class in 1v1, only bad and noob players.

Some classes are better in 1vs1 and that’s just how it rolls thanks to class mechanics etc. Nothing really tops having a Guardian in a group and when it comes to 1vs1 Mesmers are lethal and there is nothing wrong with that just Mechanics doing their thing.

Nice video and it was nice to hear one of the top Guardians opinion on things because I’ve been having a hard time in this condition Meta because I play a Zerker Guardian. I started thinking it was down to my skill as a player that I was having a tough time but apparently it’s the same for us all.

I honestly have to reach some transcendent enlightened state to keep up with the conditions I see bombarding my status bar and although I manage to keep up most of the time I still feel like it’s far too much effort and makes me want to have a nervous breakdown.

Amins.3710:

tanshiniza.8629:

Only classes that bother me are Mesmer and Engineer and that’s because of that currently overpowered confusion rune that can get you to 25 stacks in a few seconds other than that all is fair in love and war.

D/P thieves will kill you eventually. They can stack the Condi / Confusion just as good: HeadShot

True but I see less of them on the battlefield compared to the other 2 options.

PierPiero.9142:

Mesmer , Engineer and thief can kill you ok , but you can kill them …it depends on many factors and first of all from the player you have against. if , for example , you try an elementalist (i used one for a lot of time ) it is really much more difficult to stand up against an enimy.

Always depends on Multiple Factors and some classes will always have it hard than others depending who they go against due to clashing mechanics.

Aeolus.3615:

Fortus.6175:

This is a very popular build in PvE, works wonders in dungeons, doesnt work too much in big zergs in WvW but in small skirmishes it is really strong

I adopted it because of how well self sustain you are while providing condition convertions while pumping insane damage!

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.5g.h2|6.1c.h2|1g.a5.1g.a5.1g.a5.1g.a5.1g.a5.1g.a5|2s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0.3s.0.1g.67|0.5.u64b.u29b.5|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

basically it is 0/5/30/30/5 focusing on Pure of Voice for conditions to boons convertions and AH for self healing, full zerker gear with some valkiry or knight as needed, personally I run it with some knight armor and valkiry weapons with full zerker trinkets.

pretty much 1 out of 2 hits are crits and they hit really high, survivability comes from the 1:1 healing power of the dodges and perma vigor, coupled with AH proccing from pretty much EVERYTHING you do.

Hope it helps, for some more WvW focused builds I think soldiers with more into x/x/x/30/20-+ but that isnt my field.

Isnt the build to short in health, link shows 10k hp btw thats way to short in WvW, some skills can take almost the double of that health if requirements are met and this is on guardians wit protection and 3.3k+ armor.

My HP in WvW is 12K and I have 2.8K armour and I survive rather well thanks to damage avoidance. In some scenarios you’ll end up dead no matter what build you run unfortunately.

Daecollo.9578:

Ath.2531:

tanshiniza.8629:

Bacon Please.8407:

urieldhynne.2743:

Bacon Please.8407:

I feel like a melee class that can’t manage to stay on target easy enough and always having to wear runes of melandru + dogged march+ lemongrass and dedicate most of my utilities to condition cleanse to just stay up in wvw and tPvP. PvE I beat the hell out of everything with my full zerker gear and gs because they dont dodge.

Play a guardian and tell what you feel.

My first class I got to 80 was guardian and I can stay on my targets quite easy. GS leap, Sword teleport, Judges, Plenty of ways to get in and out. Half the time I am ranged though with a scepter so it doesn’t even matter.

Guardian – 2 teleports 1 leap without sacrificing a utility slot for a long cooldown sprint. Escaping from combat involves finding targets away from the enemy to teleport to which 7/10 is not the case which leaves you with 1 leap skill to get away.

Warriors – Perma Sprint, lord knows how many leaping/dashing moves, ability to cripple, immobilise and stun, mobility trait that breaks immobilises. If the warrior really wants to leg it he’s pretty much half way across the map before you can say Sausage and Bacon.

Agreed but guardians are a pain in the kitten when warriors stay and fight :P

Guardians have the new 25% Speed Runes now.

25% is less than 33% and we have to sacrifice plenty to get the 25% speed buff effect so no.

Only classes that bother me are Mesmer and Engineer and that’s because of that currently overpowered confusion rune that can get you to 25 stacks in a few seconds other than that all is fair in love and war.

Talyn.3295:

Khenzy.9348:

The next big balance patch will bring some juicy stuff for Guradians this time.

I hope it brings something New to our table. I love my guard… But he feels alot weaker then he used to

We’re unfortunately the most ‘balanced’ class and in a game full of Meta’s that makes us the weakest in a lot of respects so hopefully they’ll bring back the true meaning of balance.

You can always run what you feels comfortable playing but by the sound of it you’ll fit in as the expected DPS that everyone runs in dungeons. You can go with radiance 30 for the extra crit rate on one handed then go sword/torch and mace/focus to give you DPS and some survivability when switching to mace due to blocks and a bit of regen.

Reality does suck but still doesn’t change the fact you’re beating on people for not playing in a predefined way. What you say may ring for true and if you want to play that way it’s fine for you but don’t beat on other people just because they aren’t meeting your quota.

Maybe it’s because I come from a PvP perspective but skill makes up for short comings of a build any day of the week.

Still not seeing where AH and skill are coming together but at least you understood the point I’m making I suppose. They’re not bad players they’re just playing in their own way and if people want to play in a certain way then they should be able to do so without being classed as ‘weak.’ Like I said I can do better than someone running the PvE build stated as long as I make use of what I got properly. That is skill.

colesy.8490:

I’ve done runs in dungeons with AH and 0/5/30/30/5 and not a single person has batted an eyelid because I keep up, deal a sizeable amount of damage, don’t die and offer acceptable support for everyone.

Not a single person batted an eyelid because you were playing with weak players.

I did COE a little while ago with two people I knew and some PUGs, we advertised an experienced group and then when it came to burning down the bosses they took longer than usual. What a surprise, the PUGs weren’t properly geared when I asked for a ping. Now you or the people you play with on’t notice something like that because you don’t pay attention nor care, because simply getting through the run is good enough for you, you don’t care about doing it well (hence the use of 30 points in valour … if you cared you wouldn’t use that).

One of these days I should do a video of me doing PvE content with 0/5/30/30/5 and have a royal giggle with how well I’m doing despite using AH however I am lazy and also prefer PvP any day of the week.

You can do PvE content with a condition damage guard, doesn’t make it any good though.

I’m pretty sure you could even do a dungeon on a 0/0/0/0/0 guard.

—

is pretty nice and it also makes it possible to do dungeons and fractals in a much more fun fashion compared to everlasting kiting.

Except … you don’t need to kite. You don’t even need to kite the rampaging ice elemental on dredge fractal and that fight is meant to have you kiting the boss.

I care about doing it well as much as the next person but I’m not the type to go with the elitist fashion and say ‘Run this build or get the kitten out’ and I also said the following

“I can understand the ‘Max DPS’ approach in games to get things done quickly with speed runs etc but that is no excuse for elitism and saying that all other builds are garbage and everyone needs to run such and such as a set-up or they’re no good.”

Also what is this about weak players? Just cause someone doesn’t run a specific build doesn’t make them weak it just means they have a different play style. Weak is where you can run any build and get your kitten handed to you by a squirrel so it has nothing to do with builds.

Let me ask you this what do the people who don’t run the specific ultimate dungeon crawling build of doom do if they want to run a dungeon? Are they simply not allowed to because they are running the build? I don’t think Anet built the game with that in mind.

colesy.8490:

You feel bad for a class that is basically never nerfed?

And yet I bet you don’t give a kitten about how rangers, eles and mesmers were nerfed in to the ground, do you?

We’ve never been nerfed because we are the most balanced class out there however in the current climate our ‘balance’ has changed into ‘immobile punching bag’ and all classes can do what we do just better so we are a pointless class now. They have indirectly nerfed us to put it simply.

I respect all those classes you’ve named have had a hard time but this isn’t about them this is about how the Guardian has been screwed this time around so if you want to talk about rangers, eles and mesmers go to their respective class forum.

Brutaly.6257:

@OP
If you are into speedruns or want to finsih content as fast as you can, Guang i right. Stay away from 0/5/30/30/5.

If you dont want to retrait every time when you go from wvw to pve, 0/5/30/30/5 and 0/0/30/30/10 do work great in both types of contents.
Trust me no one will notice if you run 0/x/30/30/x as long as you know how to play, i havent gotten single complaint in the pugs im playing and when i play with my team/friends no one cares about builds when we do pve.

Still AH is for unskilled or new players.

And despite comments likes this, there is no difference in skill based on what build you use, just a difference in perspective in how you want to play the game.
Im definitely a top tier guardian when i play and half of the time in pve i play with either AH or monks focus, why, because i like it is fun and having fun is more important than having optimal performance in a non competitive environment as pve.

Well said you covered all the bases. I can understand the ‘Max DPS’ approach in games to get things done quickly with speed runs etc but that is no excuse for elitism and saying that all other builds are garbage and everyone needs to run such and such as a set-up or they’re no good.

Play the game how you want to play it and as long as you have fun who cares and. I know for a fact I can fight competitively in PvP/WvW in a fight while running AH because skill is making up for short comings and utilising the strength of what you’ve got available to you at the time.

I’ve done runs in dungeons with AH and 0/5/30/30/5 and not a single person has batted an eyelid because I keep up, deal a sizeable amount of damage, don’t die and offer acceptable support for everyone.

colesy.8490:

How does wanting to have fun make AH any more skillful?

In PvE it’s just a crutch trait which not only do you not need, but involves wasting 30 points in a weak trait line.

I wanna know where you managed to combine having fun and skill? He never said it was more or less skillful he just said he finds it fun and if that’s the case good on him.

One of these days I should do a video of me doing PvE content with 0/5/30/30/5 and have a royal giggle with how well I’m doing despite using AH however I am lazy and also prefer PvP any day of the week.

The thing with AH+EM is that the EM will always be there and will proc pretty much when it comes off of it’s 1 second cool down due to our relativity fast attack pattern so 30% is more than enough.

To truly make use of the AH though you need to slam down as many boons as you can in succession so Symbols+finishing for more retaliation etc are little things to pick up since if you get a bunch of people sitting in your symbol you’ll be getting a nice 5×75 hp a second at tops + blast finishing gives another instant 5×75.

It doesn’t seem like a huge amount but over a period it all adds up and it’s what makes up for our disturbingly small HP pool.

Ath.2531:

tanshiniza.8629:

Bacon Please.8407:

urieldhynne.2743:

Bacon Please.8407:

I feel like a melee class that can’t manage to stay on target easy enough and always having to wear runes of melandru + dogged march+ lemongrass and dedicate most of my utilities to condition cleanse to just stay up in wvw and tPvP. PvE I beat the hell out of everything with my full zerker gear and gs because they dont dodge.

Play a guardian and tell what you feel.

My first class I got to 80 was guardian and I can stay on my targets quite easy. GS leap, Sword teleport, Judges, Plenty of ways to get in and out. Half the time I am ranged though with a scepter so it doesn’t even matter.

Guardian – 2 teleports 1 leap without sacrificing a utility slot for a long cooldown sprint. Escaping from combat involves finding targets away from the enemy to teleport to which 7/10 is not the case which leaves you with 1 leap skill to get away.

Warriors – Perma Sprint, lord knows how many leaping/dashing moves, ability to cripple, immobilise and stun, mobility trait that breaks immobilises. If the warrior really wants to leg it he’s pretty much half way across the map before you can say Sausage and Bacon.

Agreed but guardians are a pain in the kitten when warriors stay and fight :P

Guardians are really in a bad place at the moment but we can fair quite well in a straight up brawl still which is at least one thing.

Bacon Please.8407:

urieldhynne.2743:

Bacon Please.8407:

I feel like a melee class that can’t manage to stay on target easy enough and always having to wear runes of melandru + dogged march+ lemongrass and dedicate most of my utilities to condition cleanse to just stay up in wvw and tPvP. PvE I beat the hell out of everything with my full zerker gear and gs because they dont dodge.

Play a guardian and tell what you feel.

My first class I got to 80 was guardian and I can stay on my targets quite easy. GS leap, Sword teleport, Judges, Plenty of ways to get in and out. Half the time I am ranged though with a scepter so it doesn’t even matter.

Guardian – 2 teleports 1 leap without sacrificing a utility slot for a long cooldown sprint. Escaping from combat involves finding targets away from the enemy to teleport to which 7/10 is not the case which leaves you with 1 leap skill to get away.

Warriors – Perma Sprint, lord knows how many leaping/dashing moves, ability to cripple, immobilise and stun, mobility trait that breaks immobilises. If the warrior really wants to leg it he’s pretty much half way across the map before you can say Sausage and Bacon.

Bacon Please.8407:

I feel like a melee class that can’t manage to stay on target easy enough and always having to wear runes of melandru + dogged march+ lemongrass and dedicate most of my utilities to condition cleanse to just stay up in wvw and tPvP. PvE I beat the hell out of everything with my full zerker gear and gs because they dont dodge.

I read this and even though I don’t play Warrior very often it’s a heck of a lot easier to keep on them compared to the Guardian and you can escape from a fight quite easily as well

Currently running 10/5/30/25/0

with no food etc my stats are as follows:

HP 14200~
Power/attack 1980/300~
Toughness/armour 1600/2800~
Crit chance 45%
Crit damage 92%
Healing power 250

I’m having fun with this at the moment since I’m often seeing whirling wrath hit for 5-6K on a nice clean hit and zealots defence usually hits for around 4K. Very much a DPS Guardian and not everyones cup of tea as it takes some effort surviving but I’ve always been a little kamikaze.

fishergrip.4082:

Relentliss.2170:

Scepter/focus and GS are your best bets. You can’t really engage with them unless you have Stability running. I find Guardians one of the easiest targets on my Skullcracking Warrior.

In my experience, most guardians are really bad at 1v1.

Guardians are good at 1v1 it’s just we have to try harder than other classes because we don’t have the mobility, CC, stealth etc that other classes have that allow them to take a breather before getting back in the game.

Guardian is a very ‘once you’re in you’re in’ kinda class and the only real options are killing everything or die trying.

I’ve played Guardian since day 1 and while I’ve touched on other classes to see how their mechanics work 99.9% of my playtime is Guardian however just recently I have made a ranger and I’m playing that now simply because we got screwed so hard with this Meta I can’t be bothered any more.

The lack of Mobility was always a problem but it’s never been more apparent with the latest condition spam where chill and cripple effects are a constant or you got Mesmers of Thieves teleporting around so much it takes such epic determination to kill them you feel like sitting down and saying ‘sod it I’m done.’

All the heals in the world won’t make up for our supreme lack of mobility to keep the pressure on and the fact most classes can do more damage, CC and maintain survivability is a giggle.

Finally the reason we can beat on warriors comes down to 2 things:
1: They have to be in melee to do the most damage so that means we can actually deal our best damage as well.
2: A lot of people who play warriors are turnips who rolled it because it’s a ‘Warrior’ and that’s ‘awesome.’ Fighting against a skilled warrior is a different ball game and I’ve had some insanely close fights.

Guardians are a great class and I’ve loved playing mine but everything just seems like a lot of hard work lately so hopefully some changes will be made and I can go back to feeling on-par instead of a punching bag.

Conditions are the new Meta and are superior to raw damage at the moment however guardians don’t do conditions it just isn’t viable in any way or form because we can’t rely on burning cause let’s face it 500 damage at the max per a second isn’t killing anyone.

Darek.1836:

tanshiniza.8629:

In the current Meta I find myself having a nervous break down every time I have to have a 1v1 with a thief because it turns into some funky death match ballet. The amount they dodge around is ridiculous and it takes some Ninja style precision to get a clean hit. I really do dislike how immobile we are for a melee class.

guardians are practically the counter to thieves so tbh it’s probably a L2P issue. try using blinds and blocks at the right time and dodging when you suspect a backstab.
unless they’re s/d then use blinds and evades on their boon steal skills and try to zealots defense or WW when they spam 3

Kinda insulted you called it a L2P issue considering I only stated they give me a nervous breakdown, I never said I’d lost to one and I agree we do counter thieves rather well it’s just all the darting around makes a man dizzy haha ^^

The condition Meta is far worse by far though there is no way you can out cleanse them all and it doesn’t take a surgeon to simply throw aoe’s down and play cat and mouse.

In the current Meta I find myself having a nervous break down every time I have to have a 1v1 with a thief because it turns into some funky death match ballet. The amount they dodge around is ridiculous and it takes some Ninja style precision to get a clean hit. I really do dislike how immobile we are for a melee class.

I’ve been testing a Might stacking build with GS + Mace/Focus and the survivability is good and it hits like a freight train. I’ll post a build once I’ve tested further.

Epix.4839:

tanshiniza.8629:

Here is a DPS Guardian build based on Hammer/Staff that I played for a while and was pretty darn fun.

http://tinyurl.com/ljnsyqz

You can use the staff for healing/ranged+mob control and the hammer for DPS and mob control. The Altruistic healing and boons while give you some reasonably good survivability and remember to keep dodging

That’s very useful and gives me a good feel on what I should be speccing for, but I see you used the term “was”, do you not play this style anymore? If not what kind of guard do you play now?

I use the term ‘was’ since I don’t really PvE anymore only really do PvP if you’re interested in my PvP build I can give you a write up on it.

Blasino.3128:

tanshiniza.8629:

When it comes to stomping I usually don’t bother the AoE damage I do will eat the downed player and the guy trying to resurrect him applying so much pressure they both end up dead or one of them dies while the other runs to save himself.

Sorry if anything comes across in the wrong way.

Maybe in WWW or hotjoin pvp, but not so much tpvp.

Never had much of a problem in tpvp but then again it may just be because I’m not facing the right teams

Here is a DPS Guardian build based on Hammer/Staff that I played for a while and was pretty darn fun.

http://tinyurl.com/ljnsyqz

You can use the staff for healing/ranged+mob control and the hammer for DPS and mob control. The Altruistic healing and boons while give you some reasonably good survivability and remember to keep dodging

Jax.5261:

tanshiniza.8629:

Jax.5261:

stunningstyles.7054:

the more dps u can get while still being able to do your job as a bunker and condi clearer the better

But you don’t as a DPS, even running an optimal DPS build, with Soldier’s + PoV, you still won’t be able to secure stomps or give your team the high healing power regeneration like a Bunker.
Even running with a Hammer, which is pretty much standard in DPS atm, you have less control and less ‘set-ups’ for your allies.

If it works for you, do whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal or recommended.

I play a Hybrid Guardian that’s more focused towards DPS in the grand scheme of things and yes I cannot heal or buff my team as well as a Bunker but dealing damage is it’s own form of support and if you add sound mechanics into this as stunning stated then it can be superior to just running bunker.

We have some Impressive AoE DPS and hounding all the enemy team with this and making them burn cool downs and go on the defensive stops them from killing your team mates since they’re more concerned about surviving themselves.

As for stomping ‘stand your ground’ hasn’t done me wrong so far and when in doubt VoJ.

It’s not just about having Stand Your Ground, you need toughness to survive, you need condition clears to make sure you don’t die (and SY to remove poison off your downed ally), you need more than one source of stability, unless you plan on only being able to res once per half minute, you need to be able to stay on the point and support your team.
Even with the DPS build I use: http://tinyurl.com/kjhnvt5 I always play sidepoint with a bunker mid. It doesn’t matter how you build the bunker build will just always do better unless the current meta changes.

Cymmer already mentioned it above: there’s always a trade off and in this case it’s a pretty big one. I’ve tested this a lot and against really good players too, especially res/stomps if you don’t have the correct toughness + prot + stab you really don’t stand much of a chance and DPS guardians rarely are able to secure those stomps well.

As I said ‘It can be better’ there will always be situations where it isn’t up to scratch when comparing it to a bunker and of course there is a trade off. I said I wouldn’t be able to directly support as much as a Bunker however I don’t think it is as major a trade off as everyone thinks. I believe the DPS Guardian is strong and viable in many situations however it does take practice to make up for the squishiness.

I know and respect Guardians make exceptional Bunkers compared to other classes but as the Guild Wars 2 motto states ‘No defined classes’ and although that’s only partially true I still think it’s possible to pull it off.

When it comes to stomping I usually don’t bother the AoE damage I do will eat the downed player and the guy trying to resurrect him applying so much pressure they both end up dead or one of them dies while the other runs to save himself.

Sorry if anything comes across in the wrong way.

Brutaly.6257:

Crapgame.6519:

A little piece of me died watching your video Brutaly.

Honest question though – same fights but on your Guardian. How do you think you would have done?

Using a build that can do 16-18k damage in 8 seconds (thats the bleed burst i can set up) i would have to go pretty much with an offensive build and my survivability wouldnt be even be near that.

The issue is that we are talking about a bunker build doing that type of damage and over 500 passive regen per sec while almost immune to cc and has tons of cc one being on the chain.

The scary part is that i do better on my warrior (maybe 100 hours gametime) compared to my guardian (well over 2000 hours) without knowing how to play warrior.

If i swap two utilities for banners i stil have stability, perma regen + passive and ofc two great aoe buffs from the banners.

its silly tbh but i will enjoy it while it last. I quit playing guardian in wvw, for me its almost dead as a melee stormtropper. I will do one last test with melandru runes to see if its doable but i dont have the gold or time atm.

I tried running my Guardian in WvW with as much condition removal as possible (including stun breakers + stability) and 2 Necros managed to turn me inside out with conditions in about 10 seconds due to near perma fear and constant conditions re-stacking faster than I could ever re move them.

I’m not saying I should have been able to kill them both but I would have expected to last longer with what I was packing.

Jax.5261:

stunningstyles.7054:

the more dps u can get while still being able to do your job as a bunker and condi clearer the better

But you don’t as a DPS, even running an optimal DPS build, with Soldier’s + PoV, you still won’t be able to secure stomps or give your team the high healing power regeneration like a Bunker.
Even running with a Hammer, which is pretty much standard in DPS atm, you have less control and less ‘set-ups’ for your allies.

If it works for you, do whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal or recommended.

I play a Hybrid Guardian that’s more focused towards DPS in the grand scheme of things and yes I cannot heal or buff my team as well as a Bunker but dealing damage is it’s own form of support and if you add sound mechanics into this as stunning stated then it can be superior to just running bunker.

We have some Impressive AoE DPS and hounding all the enemy team with this and making them burn cool downs and go on the defensive stops them from killing your team mates since they’re more concerned about surviving themselves.

As for stomping ‘stand your ground’ hasn’t done me wrong so far and when in doubt VoJ.

Vitality is one of those traits that really only helps against a quick burst and is useful for very little else as in a prolonged battle that extra 1-2K will be eaten away in literally milliseconds.

Throw some Berserker in there and throw Battle sigils on your weapons to allow for might stacking since you do have increased boon duration which I assume you want to keep you might as well make extra use of it.

If you keep 10 stacks of might up near all the time (more than possible with this build) then you’ll get an extra 350 power+ some Berserker and I think you’ll be fine for damage personally.

Nice little Dragon Heart reference. Loved that movie as a kid and still love it now.

You’re right there I am looking at this from my perspective where I can tell what an enemy Guardian is going to do because I’ve played the class for so long however caught off guard this combo is lethal and really fun. Another way to look at survivability is you can’t be killed if you’re target’s are all already dead.

Guardians can take a beating but so can warriors and other classes just avoid as much damage as they can through illusions or stealth so each have their own way of dealing with keeping the onslaught going.

Ezeriel.9574:

I have leveled every class to 80, and the one that has cost me the most money is the guardian. No matter what gear I use, no matter what spec I use, nothing seems to work.

But people keep saying how awesome guardians are, so I keep trying to get it right, but in reality, guardians are a lousy class that isn’t good at anything beyond standing the the middle of a group, and soaking damage with Altruistic Healing.

Sad, truly sad, damage. Sure you can spec for decent damage, but you’ll be squishier than a thief, and you will have no tools for survival, like escapes or stealth, or even a decent run speed, or heaven forbid a blind.

Sure you can spec to tank, but you’ll have no chance to kill anything, and are basically a boon-kitten for your group.

One of the best guardian skills is the aoe flame one for 30 points, but there is no way to get it and Altruistic Healing + Empowering might, so there’s no viable build that uses it, cause you can’t stand in the middle of the fight without AH+EM.

…and it’s a condition damage skill, as the top trait in a line that has nothing to do with conditions.

Stuff like that, has me putting guardians in the same category as rangers; sure they can do everything, but they just aren’t fun, and they always feel lacking.

Of course the big difference between the two is that every zerg/group want it’s boon giving meat-shields, and rangers are bordering on hated.

I usually hate handing out builds cause I’m selfish like that but give this a whirl. http://tinyurl.com/ktshvml

It’s all situational but I’ve tanked 3 people for 2 minutes while holding a point and I dropped 2 of them before the last one killed me

Aye you’re running the build that I would define as a proper pure burst guardian that is capable of dropping people in a few seconds. However as I said before hand you’ve given up a lot in the way of survivability but in return you do get some impressive damage.

What is the usual skill rotation you use for this build? and also a lot of what you use is easily counter-able to those who have seen a guardian at work.

The Guardian rarely is able to down someone with the first 5-10 seconds of a fight like a true Burst style should. We are what you would call sustained DPS as in we can dish it out consistently over an extended period. When I say pure burst I mean those few guardian builds that sacrifice their survivability for that ability to drop someone in a few seconds like might stacking + 10% burn damage etc.

In reality the only classes that can truly ‘burst’ is the thief and warrior as they have the skills that can completely nuke a players health in seconds.

I’ve played all professions and I understand where you are coming from however are we talking pure Burst Guardian or a Hybrid? Because if Hybrid then you are absolutely correct I can do good burst damage while taking a pounding from up to 3 people and not breaking too much of a sweat over it.

You can sacrifice some of the crit rate for more healing power since after a certain % it begins to become a waste of time other than that it’s not a bad set-up. Also I would recommend pairing Contemplation of Purity with Save yourselves as in WvW if you yank conditions from other people and have no clear way of removing them it can mean suicide.

The concept of ‘I want to blow everyone out of the water with amazing DPS yet still survive" is one that’s been floating around for ages and my reply to such a thing is this:

You will die.

However how much carnage and destruction you cause before you die is what defines a DPS Guardian. Back when I ran full DPS I used to port into groups and unleash AOE that dropped most people to a fraction of their HP and in a lot of cases killed them. It was a Kamikaze build and I died a lot but y’know what I was true DPS and I bloody loved every second of it

It really depends on what you enjoy playing and if that’s a DPS guardian then go for it and play to the strengths of that style and the same goes for Bunkers. I’ve always said if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing then what’s the point in playing a game? Neither Bunker nor DPS are superior as each have their own benefits.

I’ve seen Bunkers square up to 5 people and hold a point for what seems to be a decade and I’ve seen DPS guardians join a losing battle and tear the enemy team into shreds in a matter of seconds.

1: Greatsword
2: Evenly matched
3: Depends what you want to do each have their strengths and weaknesses
4: Hammer
5: I’ll say Hammer due to the 3rd auto attack dropping a protection symbol plus you can CC enemies
6: Greatsword
7: Both are equal however I usually go Hammer

I’ll give more detailed answers if you let me know the specific kind of thing you’re looking to do.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

tanshiniza.8629:

Anna Kruse.3941:

so bursty as in spike someone down pretty quick.
i might try out the boon duration runes. but tbh the protection is a 30% dmg reduction for 10sec which can make and brake a fight imo (defending my runes to the last!! :p ALSO the extra toughness is nice
and my build is build around the hammer so not gonna be removing that.

I have no idea to reply to this cause I personally have tested a lot and without blowing my own trumpet I am pretty darn good at PvP and your build in theory sounds good but bad things will happen to you in actual battle.

I’m not going to go into any further detail on this post because you keep repeatedly defending the Forge rune and it’s getting annoying so since you aren’t willing to take peoples input as such just roll whatever ya like and have a good day.

Forcing the way you play onto someone else who’s already stated they liked the runes yet you continue to say “change them because I say so” is equally annoying. You’ve given him no feed back in regards to the rune choice other than to say it makes no sense or bad things will happen. This isn’t constructive feedback. Perhaps you should explain why you have those opinions and suggest other runes.

The same goes for you other posters, with the exception of the one that actually suggested changing the sigil for fire.

I will quote myself ‘It’s down to your personal preference I’m just giving advice based off of my experience.’

I may have come off aggressive and for that I apologise but as you can see above I have stated it’s down to personal preference however what I can’t stand is when someone asks for build help but defends their build without thinking ‘why is that person saying to change this’. I am giving feedback which is of course based off of my personal opinion nothing more. Don’t like my opinion then don’t take note of it ^^

Welcome to the Internet.

On another note I fought a Guardian in Spvp yesterday who was running this build and he was very good since we were toe to toe for most of the fight but I did eventually down him. This build can work like many other builds can but at the end of the day it is skill that will cause you to win or lose and a bit of luck never hurt anybody. Run what suits your play style but bare in mind with threads like this you will get opinions and of course they will be different from your own which is the point at the end of the day. You like Forge runes I like runes of Divinity and that’s how the cookie crumbles

Trickfully.1830:

playing with a similar build. can confirm its kitten.
if anyones interested in gameplay watch this vid. ayra is a awsome guardian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjC18mZlmbQ

The date that video was made was a while ago and a fair few things have changed since then including Spirit weapons being able to die (rather easily as well) so yeah that Video isn’t overly useful.

Anna Kruse.3941:

so bursty as in spike someone down pretty quick.
i might try out the boon duration runes. but tbh the protection is a 30% dmg reduction for 10sec which can make and brake a fight imo (defending my runes to the last!! :p ALSO the extra toughness is nice
and my build is build around the hammer so not gonna be removing that.

I have no idea to reply to this cause I personally have tested a lot and without blowing my own trumpet I am pretty darn good at PvP and your build in theory sounds good but bad things will happen to you in actual battle.

I’m not going to go into any further detail on this post because you keep repeatedly defending the Forge rune and it’s getting annoying so since you aren’t willing to take peoples input as such just roll whatever ya like and have a good day.

It’s down to your personal preference I’m just giving advice based off of my experience.

and purity really isn’t going to do all that much for you if I’m going to be honest here and you could use the extra crit chance.

The runes still make no sense cause there are simply better ones out there and in all honesty that protection won’t do you all that much trust me I’ve tested a lot of builds etc.

The Sigil is down to personal preference but I feel as though there are better options that the air sigil but again that is down to you.

Also what are you trying to make? A glass cannon, A balanced build? ( I understand you said bursty but that can fall under a few categories)

Change the runes to something else as the ones you’ve decided on make no sense when looking at this build.

Change Purity for Retributive armour.

Change the lightning strike sigil to something else cause in all honesty there are just better options for example Blood is nice or use the hydro rune to chill them so you can get off the whirling blades easier for example.

I could go on but that’ll do for now I don’t want to go changing your build into something else haha.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

I just helped out guildies who couldn’t get through frac40, with my support build they never downed once.
It’s not even “full” support as I still have 40% crit or so.
100% protection duration, massive amounts of crazy team healing and 12might + Xmight from VoJ while being pratically invincible is much better than “Hey I just hit this mob for 4k, Warrior friend! I almost matched the final hit of HB! Hey did you just die due to no Protection? Sorry… I so wanted to deal some DPS”.

But I realize most people who play Guardians will just think they’re dealing good DPS etc etc.

So the “note to new Guardians” should rather be: You are not a DPS. A Ranger pet outdamages you. You give perma protection and crazy heals, do not dump them to hit mobs for nothing on glass gear.

I’m a DPS Guardian and when is comes down to sustained damage I do more than all other classes but sure I don’t have that ‘oh kitten son you dead!’ burst attack but I can outlast other classes on my Guardian so sustained damage works just fine.

You play what you play and people who decide to support can go support and people who want to blow stuff up can go blow stuff up. Sure I don’t have protection up all the time and this crazy team healing but I have a few other tricks up my sleeve that you won’t.

Hammer has mighty blow but for the most part is based around CC so comparing it’s damage to the GS which is the DPS weapon of the Guardian isn’t really the best way to look at it.

Instead look at it as an attractive Thai ‘woMAN’ it’s a trap or more precisely a way to trap so that you can unleash that DPS. I wouldn’t recommend unleashing DPS on a Thai woman though cause that can end in a weird messed up mixture of fluids and life imprisonment.

When it comes down to it the only thing I got to say is the idea’s are good but the application of said ideas is so bad you may as well have just not bothered in the first place.

The only other thing is class imbalance but I have played MMO’s that are even more broken than GW2 so I ain’t going to whine too much.

This game is no where near as good as GW1 because of the above.

JJBigs.8456:

Obtena.7952:

Amins.3710:

I’ll state the obvious again: AH in and of itself, does NOT support your group.

Please try to argue this fact some more.

You’re just splitting hairs. Call it whatever you want. If you’re alive, your supporting your team. AH keeps you alive. If ANYONE in your team is staying alive, they are supporting the team.

You do realize AH heals the team at the end, Right?

AH does not heal the team end of.

I am also a very selfish Guardian who provides no buffs and no heals for any of my team mates because being DPS is a way of support in itself and I prefer playing that way as it fits my style. Therefore I am the pinnacle of not being a healer as a Guardian and this has caused no problems for anyone I play with because if something’s dead it can’t hurt your team.