Guild Wars 2

Good fights often start off in a roaming 1v1 and progress to duels; players aren’t always willing to lose their stacks or position on the map and go to OS. Not to mention, EB doesn’t have a “windmill” area. The areas around SM are the only neutral areas that are also easily accessible, so duelists often gather there. Yes, it’s a bad idea. However, there’s nowhere else to go.

lil devils x.6071:

ventusthunder.5067:

Pretty amazing how little appreciation some people have for roamers/duelists, especially in T1. I am usually kind to people who interrupt my duels, but the backlash I get sometimes just proves that the only reason you are interrupting a duel is because you’re not confident you could do it on your own.

Plus, a lot of us are plenty effective even when it comes to playing the PPT game. When [TW] is trying to hold down a map, and we get scouting information about a havoc or a few roamers at a camp, what does our driver do? He sends me (and my team if necessary) to take care of the opposing roamers/havocers. Why send a zerg if I can go down and kill a couple on my own, or send my 3 to frustrate their 6?

I may stand around doing nothing/dueling/not really going for objectives, but you can’t deny that roamers and duelists are for the most part helpful to a server.

Lastly, dueling is dying. It’s all a bunch of PU mesmers/cele eles/burn guardians and other boring stuff. I’d much rather roam and find fights, even if I am solo.

That is the difference though between a contributor to the server and a noncontributor. I don’t go out of my way to kill duelers, however, TW/ TWL actually contributes to the server since they understand that to be good you take care of business and have good fights. I wont intentionally go wreck a TW duel, because I respect their contribution to the server as well, and will help them clear the roamers off a map so they can get on it because that is what is better for the server. TW/ TWL is willing to work with us and the other guilds on the server to get the job done, so yea I think they have earned the trust they can handle their business. The same can be said for other guilds that actually do something rather than go through the motions., however, many of the duelers/ guilds that play do not and yea.. Roadkill. LOL XD

I mean we’ll go for a fight over PPT any day, but fighting others, regardless of whether it’s a duel or a massive blob fight, also engages the person/people on the other server, meaning they don’t contribute to PPT. And heck, I roam, so the reason all the camps are turning our color in succession? That’s me. The guy preventing all the baddie thieves from ganking your eles? That’s me. I sometimes even break off from our group if pugmanding, to roam/scout/follow up on scouting info. Dods knows he can only keep me chained to the zerg for so long before I go on a rampage.

We all have our roles in WvW. Even the duelers and ERPers.

You are probably dodging out of it because it’s 3 seconds instead of 2. I did it a lot on the first day of the patch.

Ranger:

Power- Much the same as before, except once they pop Signet of Stone they are almost completely screwed. Defensive traits are quite frustrating, but by keeping pressure up it hasn’t been a huge issue so far.

Condi- As with the aforementioned classes, we can cleanse condis quickly, and the burst allows us to actually pressure a condi ranger beyond what he can regen.

Overall: Same matchup with power (or so it feels), just a bit quicker. Condi rangers are also easier to deal with.

Mesmer:

Power- Oh dear lord, much harder. Get hit by one burst and you might be dead. However, a guardian can 100-0 a mesmer relatively quickly, so keep up pressure, force their defensive cooldowns and then pop the big one (Signet of Wrath) and end their day. This is a much more difficult matchup than before. Bonus points to PU for being annoying and wasting my time.

Condi- PU condi is still PU condi, don’t waste your time. This has been the condi class that’s given me by far the most problems since the patch hit. Thieves aren’t so bad because they’re not spamming protection and aegis, but a PU mesmer… don’t waste your time. Just walk away.

Necro:

Power: Much the same as before imo. Blind/block Life Blast, get in their faces, and end them quickly.

Condi: The jury’s out because I haven’t faced one who knows what he’s doing, but I suspect the signet build will be a bad match because of corrupts.

Ele:

Dagger mainhand- This absolutely screws us after the patch with the ridiculously low cooldown on Shocking Aura. The most annoying thing I’ve faced is a Stone Heart ele running D/F with a 33s invuln and 16s reflect. I don’t see us beating a dagger ele of equal skill level. Bad matchup before the patch, just as bad if not worse after the patch.

Scepter mainhand- Somehow an even more risky matchup for both sides. If you can bait out defensive cooldowns, one burst will take them down- but if you don’t dodge the phoenix, you get one shot. Still a very fun fight.

So anyway, that’s what I’ve seen. Have you guys noticed any differences in matchups that have become tougher or easier?

Ello guys,

I wanted to talk a bit about a zerk/power based meditation guard’s matchups in a 1v1 scenario post-patch. I know a lot of you also play it. I’m primarily a WvW player, although I do PvP quite a bit so I’d like to hear your experiences whether they come from WvW or PvP.

What classes do you think we have the upper hand on and what classes do you think counter us? I’ll take a stab below from personal experience but it would also be helpful to hear what the rest of the community thinks.

Here’s my perspective from a Radiance/Valor/Virtues viewpoint.

Warrior:

Power- hasn’t changed much, we still do well against them. Pretty easy to burn through most warriors now, even with double endure pain. Signet of Might passive proc is strong, but I didn’t have an issue with all the blinds/saving invuln for it.

Condi- I haven’t faced one of these, but I feel like it’ll be fairly even.

Overall: I’m not impressed by the warrior changes. Good warriors will still be a tough fight but the blind/block is even more effective against their heavy hits.

Guardian:

Power- Lot more susceptible to burst and lack of recovery on each side. Losing Might of the Protector sucks for being able to outplay the opponent, and trading damage won’t be as easy even if you time your blocks very well. Of course, it’s a mirror match but I feel like now it’s harder to translate well-timed blocks into wins.

Condi- I think this should be a solid matchup for us, with solid condi cleanse from Smiter’s Boon, Virtue, Contemplation, normal Smite Condi, and Focus 4. Still, probably haven’t faced a good one.

Overall: Same as before (duh, it’s a mirror), just shorter fights and tougher to turn blocks of the opponent’s GS2 into wins.

Engi:

Power- Really easy to set up and lock down into burst, and our blocks/blinds/invuln help us escape theirs. Stability is a huge aid against Overcharged Shot. As long as you don’t get one shot by Grenade Barrage and put pressure down early, I’d put this matchup at least slightly in the guard’s favor.

Condi- Much easier to face than before with the burst and lockdown. Condi cleanses can actually keep up with their application, and stability can prevent perplex from proccing (or getting pulled, etc).

Cele- Haven’t faced one yet. Betting it’s still the perfect balance and really annoying.

Overall- I feel like facing engis got a lot less annoying with the ability to take both condi cleanse and stab in the Virtues line without sacrificing dps. The extra stunbreak/stab makes it a lot harder for them to lock us down, giving more of a window to us.

Thief:

Power- In WvW at least, this is just hilariously easy, even if the thief is SA. The biggest problem is definitely thieves who spam 3 with shortbow. However, that’s more of an annoyance than anything. Acro thieves are probably the most annoying, as they can avoid immob.

Condi- With our improved condi cleanse and burst improvement this is no longer a complete death sentence in WvW. Still annoying but I find myself coming out on top way more often than not.

Overall: Guard counters thief. From my viewpoint that hasn’t changed.

cont.

Avectius.3271:

mrauls.6519:

Use radiance, virtues, and valor for your traits. Equip berserker armor with pack runes & weapons with air/fire sigils on both weapon sets

Taking into consideration the metabattle page with the old build (which I’d still like to maintain as much of as possible) that I posted, what infusions should I add to my armor? The build only mentions runes and sigils.

That’s tough, because if you’re full berserker you’re susceptible to one shots anyway (even with 15k on my new build I can still get into “uh-oh” territory pretty fast. I usually add Vitality infusions until I reach a specific health threshold, and then Toughness.

Secondly: Try Hydromancy sigil on Greatsword. I’ve been shifting off Fire sigil in favor of Energy on my offset, but I’ve had Hydromancy for a year on GS and it does not disappoint.

Pretty amazing how little appreciation some people have for roamers/duelists, especially in T1. I am usually kind to people who interrupt my duels, but the backlash I get sometimes just proves that the only reason you are interrupting a duel is because you’re not confident you could do it on your own.

Plus, a lot of us are plenty effective even when it comes to playing the PPT game. When [TW] is trying to hold down a map, and we get scouting information about a havoc or a few roamers at a camp, what does our driver do? He sends me (and my team if necessary) to take care of the opposing roamers/havocers. Why send a zerg if I can go down and kill a couple on my own, or send my 3 to frustrate their 6?

I may stand around doing nothing/dueling/not really going for objectives, but you can’t deny that roamers and duelists are for the most part helpful to a server.

Lastly, dueling is dying. It’s all a bunch of PU mesmers/cele eles/burn guardians and other boring stuff. I’d much rather roam and find fights, even if I am solo.

Alright, this trait (Wrath of Justice) has seriously cemented in my mind that Radiance is really a great, viable option for a medi guard. I kept joking that Guardians were getting Panic Strike, but if you ask me this is a more well designed trait than Panic Strike.

Soft CC: The immobilize on this trait has been so incredibly useful for a guardian used to playing sword and just now getting my first taste of real CC (Sure, I run Hydromancy on GS but that ain’t immobilize, and scepter is boring yo). It makes setting up attacks much more viable and finally gives us Guardians something we have been asking for for a long time.

Counterplay: Even better, if you ask me, is the fact that unlike passives like Panic Strike or Chill of Death, enemies can observe our Justice effect on the bar and, if we don’t land it well, dodge it, providing some legitimate counterplay unlike Panic Strike. We can’t just spam against a decent player and expect to land it.

Fair ICD: 30 seconds is more than fair ICD for this trait. Also prevents people from spamming VoJ through Renewed Justice, and keeps the trait in check.

A tough choice: To get Wrath of Justice, you have to give up Radiant Fire (buffed and improved) or a 10% damage mod whenever you have retal (which is to say whenever you activate a virtue).

So we get a controlled Panic Strike, on a higher CD, with higher reward but counterplay through dodge. Whoever designed this trait and finally gave us Guardians a brand spanking new trait to play with did his/her job well.

Works really well too, I’m glad they made it an adept in a great line. Radiance is really amazing stuff, between the panic strike copycat (which is absolutely fantastic), crit chance increase, blind spam, and condition pressure on a berserker build.

Sadly, you might be right on Dragonhunter. I don’t want to see Zeal or Radiance phased out before they even had a chance in the meta, which is why I’m salty.

Zeal vs. Radiance is a pretty close call, before today I was saying Radiance all the way, but then it took two very, very nasty hits. That’ll have to be determined in game, and Honor has inched its way back into the discussion, in my book at least.

It does make very little sense, I’d like to get an explanation from the Guardian developer(s) on why they believed this was a fair change. Our class wasn’t really the highest skill cap in the first place.

I’d simply propose for Amplified Wrath to go back to at the very least 20% (remember the hype surrounding it when it came out? "Guardians are going to get access to the most damaging, devastating condition in the game! 33% burning damage!!!) And now it’s been pushed back to 15%, which is nerfing over half of the extra damage the trait provided anyway.

Secondly, keep Might of the Protector the same as it was before. 1 stack of might for 15 seconds with no ICD was perfectly fair and in my opinion was one of the best-designed traits for guardian. Defender’s Flame can keep that ICD, that trait was stupid.

Medi guard isn’t dead, calm down. Any of Zeal, Radiance, and Honor are still gonna be viable (although Honor nowhere near what it used to be). Smiter’s Boon is a big buff, don’t overlook that- not to mention how strong we’ve been against other power builds.

Secondly, virtues tree is getting a huge buff. Extra stunbreaker, and the CDs will now be:
Justice 21.25
Resolve 42.5
Courage 63.75

The nerfs compared to what they said they’d be giving us are unfair, but at the most they should dissuade players looking to play medi as a flavor-of-the-month build.

Booms.2594:

yeah i understand fiery wrath and maaaaybe amplified wrath nerf. also radiant power was 10% more d mg not crit chance, no 25% anything.though that wouldve been awesome haha.

the one I really dont get is destroying might of the protector, which maybe using shelter at the right time be actually rewarding, and was one of the very few skillful things a guardian could do. I’m really disappointed in this change hope they reverse it.

My thoughts exactly. Dumbs us down even more. Really sad. Punishing enemies for hitting into blocks always felt rewarding to me, and timing blocks well was one of the few things that required real skill on the guardian’s part.

Yikes, this wasn’t what I was hoping to see.

Fiery Wrath down to 7% from 10%

Amplified Wrath down to 15% from 33%, and the ICD on the Defender’s Flame component added

Radiant Power down to 10% extra crit chance from 25%

Might of the Protector: ICD added

So in total, we get DPS reduced not in a crippling way but noticeably shaved. The crit chance and damage changes I believe are fair and I can deal with, but…

I feel adding an ICD to Might of the Protector and the burn-on-block component of Amplified Wrath is unnecessary. This prevents the guardian from being rewarded from timing a Shelter or focus 5 properly to block attacks, which was a major, major source of damage and reward for good play. I’m a bit disappointed.

Edit: Besides that, I think Virtues is still getting a more-than-solid buff, medi traits are fine unless they mess up the scaling, etc. Just that Radiance looks a WHOLE lot less attractive now.

Melee is perfectly viable in WvW. I make a full zerk guardian work in either zergs or roaming, without any issues.

It’s even easier as warrior. Just give them a real try and learn how to play the classes, and you will be fine.

Do any of these crying kids actually know the next thing about guardian? Or are they just mad they lost to one so obviously it’s a game design problem?

Mikau.6920:

ventusthunder.5067:

Wings of Dwayna, this is my warrior, she’s an exact clone of my guardian.

What pieces of armor are you using? I want to my Revenant to be female, but my Guardian and my Warrior are males, so I don’t know what heavy skins what good to females.

Wreath of Cooperation
Glorious Hero’s Pauldrons (leaderboard, NOT reward track)
Stag Mail
Glorious Gauntlets
Stag Chausses
Stag Greaves

Wings of Dwayna, this is my warrior, she’s an exact clone of my guardian.

Long as this is viable with Medis I don’t have a problem with it, hopefully longbow can provide an alternative to the slower scepter/focus set.

Poor HoD has been bandwagoned and used so many times by transfers that it’s a far cry from the community I was happy to help move from Bronze to Silver. Lots of HoD have a vested dislike for me but above all I hope this gets better for them, it was still my server from the beginning and it’s sad to see it get used as a vehicle for mass transfers over and over again.

PS. If [Hel] really transferred down from TC, I suppose Mag and SBI should get ready for bags galore.

Good luck to those who have been there from the beginning, except a select few salty individuals.

Hi Stephen,

I’ve been roaming on Blackgate BL for the last hour or two and have encountered none of the issues that have been there before. There haven’t been too many JQ brothers on map but even while a giant BG zerg chased us to spawn we had no issues with lag. Hopefully it stays this way! Thanks a lot for giving your time to help out this specific Borderland, it’s good to have four playable ones again.

Mmm, I’ll just post what’s on my mind.

Remove Kindled Zeal. Replace it with some cheesy name, like “Symbolic Inferno.” Your symbols are now fire fields. Blast finishers executed on these fields make might last 15% longer.

Radiant Retaliation- Just fix it. Please. Not too hard to ask.

For weapons, I’ll state that I think Scepter, Focus, Hammer, and Greatsword are fine. I don’t personally use Staff or Mace very often and since I have little experience with them I will refrain from making a possibly uneducated remark.

Sword:

Auto-attack chain: For the love of Dwayna remove the classification of the third attack as a projectile. This is just plain unnecessary.

Flashing Blade: Nerf to not use to negate falling damage was also completely unnecessary. I’d like to see this reverted as in the first place there should be much bigger priorities to “fix” than nerfing an already slow class’s way of a skillful escape.

Zealot’s Defense: The changes I’d like to see to this are twofold.

First off, make the projectiles more accurate traveling to the target at 600 range. At the speed they travel and even at maximum (600) range they should seek the target, not go off to the side even if the target is static.

Second, when Zealot’s Defense is reflected back onto the guardian, it should have no effect. It makes no sense to me for a skill that allegedly “destroys ranged attacks” to hit through its own shield and protective purpose.

Torch:

Zealot’s Flame/Fire: Okay, keep them as is.

Cleansing Flame: Keep damage, cast time, and number of pulses the same. Remove one condition every third pulse from both the guardian and any ally within a 240 radius, for a total of 3 conditions if allowed to fully cast. Cooldown increased to 25 seconds.

Shield:

Shield of Judgment: Add Aegis to it, keep Protection duration and cooldown the same.

Shield of Absorption: Shield gives the heal right after being cast, does not root the guardian, and stays for the full four seconds in the same spot. Making it a water field is also something I was tinkering with in my mind, but that might be too powerful. Keep the cooldown the same.

Of course, these are just my opinions, and I know they won’t be implemented into the game. However, it is fun to play make-believe.

Tarsius.3170:

And does JI or Flashing Blade still avoid fall damage?

Yes. If timed right and you have line of sight to the target, it works as it did before.

Merzonathl.8329:

Rip Stability. Guards have 5 secs on Stand your ground, and 2 secs on Hallowed ground, GG. Even Warriors have more with Balanced stance, 10 secs. Are Warriors the new support class? -.- Might aswell switch main. Fix this Anet.

Balanced stance= one person gets stability. SYG: five people get stability.

It’s better now, actually. Prevents you from wasting it if you don’t have LoS. The amount of times I gambled that Flashing Blade would work and it didn’t work, well, I’m out of a 10 second cooldown on my teleport. Now you can just spam it until it works. Same with JI.

Solo roaming guard is perfectly viable. Maybe not optimal, but viable.

A medi build, let’s be real, doesn’t need a buff. In the hands of the right player it is one of the strongest 1v1 builds in the game, and even has the potential to 1vX.

I don’t even run Traveler/Speed runes and I still manage just fine with Pack. High stats and swiftness on hit goes a long way. I don’t understand why so many “longtime guardian players” just come on here to cry when it’s so obvious that many other roamers are managing just fine.

Just run zerk, then and again I prefer investing in Honor for roaming so I get all the vitality I need from there.

Alright I consider this debate over. On a night with new keybinds and taking me 5 seconds to find the button for Shelter…
http://imgur.com/K5Lkp4P
http://imgur.com/sKP07U2

Oh noooo, you included the one where I got pulled out of Shelter.

Good fights with you man! We ended up perfectly even in the end (until you forced yourself to switch to trimedi, which isn’t your main anyway) . Lots of fun that night.

-Meri

P.S. Not to BM too much… but dare I say… classic Texblue? Also, interesting to see you utilizing a 20651 trait spread (or something very similar) with double damage modifiers well. I’ve been experimenting with it myself, and it’s definitely pretty good.

It isn’t the gameplay in your video that is as absolutely disgusting as your attitude. Claiming to be the best guard NA when you play condi- yes, I have killed you in even numbered fights- and making false claims about everything is just plain despicable.

I’ve played guardian for 5.5k hours, and even I can be wildly inconsistent- on most nights when I’m playing my normal build, I’m “on” and kill almost everything, but on some nights, like yesterday night, I try out a new build, or my reflexes aren’t there, or I am just plain bad and I lose fights that I think I shouldn’t.

I can’t claim to be the best guard in WvW even if when my ceiling is so high I still lose sometimes. In fact, Redgen taught me how to manage my elite better in a couple of the fights he beat me in (we ended up even) and I came out of it a more experienced player and better off in the long run. I’ve dueled all the guards that Ent mentioned and they have more than proven that they are just as competent as I am.

Dueling, ESPECIALLY guard vs guard, shouldn’t be for kitten status. Even if I beat a guard who was using an inferior build and he landed his GS5 on me and I didn’t land it on him, I played badly and was carried by my build. Duels should be for improvement of personal and group play through more experience, and not waving around some BS title like “Guys, I’m the best guard NA.”

Edit: Kitten status= electronic bragging rights status. Dang filters.

All I am going to say is you lost all credibility when you said Texblue is one of the best guardians NA. I dueled him a couple fight nights ago- actually, in fact, he bowed and jumped me before I bowed back. He lost 100-0.

In addition, even if he didn’t pop shelter at full health and his burst wasn’t the most predictable thing I’ve ever seen, he doesn’t even run GS to cleave your mindless AI, and second of all, this is condi vs. power so why should you be surprised? Not to mention he almost downed you and your AI and broken krait rune burst saved your kitten .

If you want to duel a good guard in T1, the problem is most of them are on your server. Redgen (previous poster), Glacies Aurora and I Like Big Boons from FLOT, and Got Boons from Blackgate would all hand your lunch to you.

Edit: Watched the full thing. Calling any of these people “top players” is laughable. That thief who almost downed you? I 100-0’d him in a single burst, and I do not claim to be anywhere near a top player. If Texblue ran Greatsword you’d be dead in the water. Sorry.

Run full zerk. I used to run valk and knights mixed in but I eventually just got more zerker until I couldn’t get any more zerker. Running as glassy as you can even at the start will be a boon to you in the end.

If you are roaming, GS is a great tool. The build Black Box mentioned is super fun, but lacks sustain and AoE.

babazhook.6805:

Yes I did in fact finally see this rune PROC today. I got a significant heal on my guardian. You do have to watch that screen closely. I think what was happening before is when it did kick in I was always at or near full health.

It was actually such a BIG heal I did not notice

In any case with the Aegis giving another heal of near 1k on removal PLUS those regens this makes for a very useful rune. One can go the AH route and get all those small heals kicking in on every block or go medi guard. It might also open up builds for guardians who want neither but want an extra heal source.

Now according to the WIKI the new AEGIS goes up after the heal. This means you will get that 4k plus heal on a block then instantly throw up another aegis.

Agreed. The sustain is absolutely amazing. I have a lot more fun just running full zerk and yoloing it, but… in a small man fight, this rune can take the pressure off me so much faster if I get focused. It’s interesting and definitely did not disappoint me since I have been cautiously optimistic about it since it was datamined in November. I will refuse to run this in 1v1s though. It’s making medi guard the power version of condi regen ranger.

To me it all came down to how the rune functioned with Pure of Heart, the ICD on the regen, and the amount of heal on block- and it has met or exceeded (that 4k heal tho) expectations on all three of them. Definitely a good alt set for me.

Edit: I just tried this in a medi vs. medi duel. It’s OP as all hell.

LetoII.3782:

How to control when #6 proc’s for a guardian..
As of course the very first thing that happens in any fight is a block, inconvenient.

Agreed. It’s more of a 1v1 rune than anything else in my opinion, but once you get going, the sustain is pretty crazy considering you can still spec mostly for dps, but take aegis heals. It’s at least something that’s usable.

I made this set for my zealot’s/zerker set today. I noticed the 6th effect is indeed proccing, in fact it heals me for 4.6k in WvW with ~700 healing power. However, you have to watch for the green number to appear on your screen as this doesn’t show in your combat log. Whatever fueled the idea to give one of the best sustain classes even more sustain with this rune beats me, but I’m having fun with the rune.

Lux.7169:

Keira Ferland.5619:

Lux.7169:

Out of curiosity have the prizes been distributed yet? Particularly the glorious heroes armor. I am not home and won’t be home for 3-4 hours and so I have no way of knowing and am just curious.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

I got my armor, but no llama.

Sweet that’s exciting!

And as an aside, perhaps top 20 doesn’t get a llama period. I realize they said top 100 would get a llama, but the post could also be construed to mean that you either get one or the other.

Nah, I got both at position 16. All should get a llama.

Justin ODell.9517:

I’m really curious as to how you guys are figuring out if the other team is a pre-made. We don’t tell you, and looking at the data there are very few party rosters compared to solo.

Is it just match quality being bad? Are you just recognizing player names?

Sometimes it is that, and other times you can tell it’s a premade because all five, or four of the five etc, are in the same guild. I can predict whether a pug has a chance or not just from seeing all five players, both in terms of their name (whether we know this person is a well-known PvPer) and guild tags.

Yeah exactly, as soon as you see map select, instantly 5 go for Courtyard and you’re like, “Welp.”

Yeah, I had one go each way. One was four of us and a really newbie mesmer against three of another guild, and two pugs, and we won like 500-100. Then another one was two of us and three pugs against, I think, two engies (crate city), two mesmers (portal and burst city), and Caed.

It ended well.

Courtyard is fun but when you run into a team that actually knows what they’re doing on the first day of the patch, yowch.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Aeolus.3615:

i can imagine guardian with more tooltip updates for a better guardian balance offcourse.

lol i think 90% of guard changes since launch have been tooltips

“Hm, a patch, can we get our shield fixed?”

“Updated the [random skill] tooltip fact to accurately display the number of targets effected.”

“k”

If you have problems beating dps guardian, just roll celestial d/d ele, play the piano, and you will beat dps guard.

Yes, if you want to be able to 1v1 effectively with a two-handed build, meditations is the way to go. All you need for a GS-hammer builds is 6 points in Valor, taking meditation traits, and 4 in Honor to get the cooldown reduction on your two-handed weapons. This leaves 4 wherever you want them. 0-0-6-4-4 (Virtue variant), 0-1-6-6-1 or 2-0-6-6-0 (Symbol variant) are probably the most common builds for using GS-hammer. You’ll get supremely good crowd control from GS 5 and hammer 3,4,5 pairing with the teleport meditation Judge’s Intervention, can really change the landscape of a fight.

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

If you’re playing with 1hsword it’s a different story since RHS and powerful blades make the damage difference between honor and radiance pretty big. But then we’re talking about gimmicky 1 shot builds without much sustain or utility again. We’re kind of moving in circles here.

Wait what? Sword provides the highest sustained DPS of any of the guardian’s weapons (barring scepter if every hit of smite lands, but that’s pretty much a no-go). It’s much less of a 1 trick pony gimmick than GS is, which is why I don’t recommend GS for small scale WvW roaming.

I personally almost never go anywhere without my scepter these days, especially because of all the rangers and other ranged classes. Not to mention that the immob from the scepter can help you land your burst with GS or sword/X, whatever your secondary set may be. Usually for me, it’s sc/f GS, and rarely sc/t sw/f, traited only one point into Radiance these days.

I used to be a big proponent of sw/f GS 25601, or sw/f sc/t 266, but for my status as a solo roamer they just don’t seem to hold up well in longer fights. Sure, with 25601 I can one-shot someone (as I use rage sigil on that GS), but if they dodge, I’m out of my burst and might have issues staying in melee range the whole time. In addition, I’ve been fighting many more opposing medi guards to get better and… let’s just say that using one of those two doesn’t usually end well against an opponent who knows what he or she is doing.

And the reason I use GS is because I usually solo-roam and that means 1v2 and 1v3 situations are plentiful. I love my sw/f sc/t set on occasion, but that’s almost all single-target burst. In addition, pull for thieves in SR is a big help.

Speaking of that, I do want to fight other medi guards, if anyone’s on BG or TC, shoot me a PM and I’ll be more than down to duel. c:

Overall, I think everyone is going to be a fan of different weapon sets, sigils, builds, and hey, if it gets the job done, I don’t see any reason for them to change. I did recently learn how garbage Strength sigils are, though >.<

Oh, snap, I do actually run scepter/focus. Might have linked the wrong build. I do like going 4 deep in virtues but for some reason the extra health pool even while going full zerker helps me a lot. I can switch around the traits, but basically, strength sigils not worth it, go bursty. Thank you!

Hey all,

For the purposes of WvW roaming and dueling, think a guard vs. guard scenario, I’ve run the basic 0-1-6-6-1 build for a while with strength runes and sigils of strength on both weapon sets. Linky: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNArdRlsApaolDxbI8DRRDRljNYHBHXXe9BkABAA-TlSGABAcKAO4IAAy+DOqSAgq7MkyNiUScnSQy0HYwDAIAACwNbz28mBO6RH6RP6Q7m38m38oHtQAjWAA-w

However, sometimes, even with 15+ might, I don’t really feel like I’m doing a helluva lot of damage compared to when I’m not ramped up. I’m not really a theorycrafting guy in terms of DPS, I usually like to just see what works, but it feels like might stacking’s not doing the trick for me, so if any of you are theorycrafters, probably could be a lot of help to me.

So my question is- Strength or Pack, for highest damage? Pack runes will provide me with more fury and about 8% extra crit chance, but I’d be losing the flat 5% damage bonus whenever I have might (which is of course 100% uptime). I’ve heard them suggested by many friends and opponents, but I wanted to get more opinions on pack vs. strength for a zerker medi guard running Empowering Might.

Secondary question: Are sigils of strength worth it, even with strength runes? Feels like I see a lot more people running Air, I currently run Energy+Strength on scepter/focus and Hydromancy/Strength on greatsword. Wondering if anyone has any other sigils they really like using. I was pondering replacing Strength on the sc/f set with an Air sigil, and replacing it on the Greatsword with a fire sigil.

Thanks for your help, if you read this massive wall of text.

Looks like Omega’s argument got bashed too kitten the unofficial forums, so he has to come crying to the few people who actually agree with him.

I duel in WvW, because it’s fun. However, if I’m not in OS or the windmill, I’m prepared for a 1v2, or 1vX, and to hoof it if I need to. It’s however most entertaining when one other person intervenes and my opponent whispers me something like “Do with him what you will,” and then they get mad.

Basically, what Kaal (Calypso) said. Same stance as her.

Recently (read: post-patch yesterday) I’ve been getting a lot of crying whispers after I killed someone of course using medi-guard, my main playstyle. One even coming from a scepter mesmer.

I honestly don’t know how anyone can consider medis overpowered. We have next to no soft CC, obviously no stealth, and little health. Of course, we do have a good amount of blocks and blinds for the “active defense” playstyle. But that’s beyond the point.

My point is that the changes made in yesterday’s feature patch do not “break” the class in any way, yet I do classify them as buffs and they make it far more fun to play in a group. Let’s take an honest look:

Renewed Focus: Cooldown reduced by 18 seconds, fury and 2k heal at the end. That’s nice, and actually saved my kitten once yesterday. But to think about it, that’s a 2k heal every 72 seconds, which comes out to be less than 30 health per second (and that’s assuming you pop it right off cooldown, too).

Merciful Intervention: ANet finally fixed the bug where you could bug it to give you a triple heal if you successfully teleported- instead, with Monk’s Focus, you should get a solid 4k heal for yourself every time, and that’s a functionality I really like. And don’t forget that this gives us disengage in a teamfight- of course, assuming one of my allies is faster. However, to take this, you have to replace one of your other meditations. No one is going to be replacing Smite Condition- low CD, great damage, sustain. So it’s between replacing your offensive burst set-up in Judge’s Intervention or your stunbreak+condi clear in CoP. I’ve been replacing CoP with MI and having some really fun times- however, I’ve been noticing the effects of losing the condi clear. Still, it’s really fun in a group to create some guardian shadowstep stomps. Just loads of fun, try it if you haven’t.

The biggest changes actually affect all classes, but us more than others:

Retaliation scaling and light aura: I don’t know if this change was needed to buff retaliation, but instead of being an afterthought, I now notice it much more, and it feels like an actual boon as opposed to a side effect of virtues/GS 4. Speaking of GS 4, I really like the light aura as well. You sure don’t want to hit the guardian (or anyone) a lot when they have that up. Gives us a nice extra source of vuln and retal.

Overall, medi guard still has an easy time against some builds, and a terrible time against others. However, these are the first real buffs to medi guardian in… over a year? I’ve lost count. And I can say they’ve really revitalized my desire to play the class both solo roaming and in a group. The shadowstep stomp for show, actually having to pay attention to retal, and the surprise new aura have made me log on the class even more. So thank you for that Anet, you didn’t disappoint me one bit. And to others disappointed by their class changes, I feel for you. Come on over here and roll a guardian for funsies

I main medi guard and since my damage is a lot of small hits as opposed to something like an Eviscerate or Life Blast, I do begin to notice retaliation against me.

However, I also usually spec 4 into Virtues, and I try to time my retaliation properly against other guardians, GS mesmers, axe necros, etc, when I know I will be eating the damage.

In fact, the guardian build I am not great going head-to-head is the one that runs tri-shout, AH, and retal on virtue. Essentially, insanely high protection uptime plus 100% retal uptime (if you time it right) screws my bursty medis up in a 1v1, unless I am just that much better than the opponent.

Retal does win me some fights, but against that build I think is the only time I can really say I lose to it. The shout build is also so insanely simple to play, I can just spam 1 with scepter. However I still prefer medis for speed and burst, as opposed to being passive like the shout build.

OP please learn to play. Your absolute crap posting is all about how your class of choice, the warrior, is underpowered and everything else is overpowered. I have a lot of fun playing med guard and can say that you are bad if you lose to me on:

Ele or mesmer, especially d/d ele and PU anything mesmer
Condi engi, necro or thief

Just because you keep getting rekt by it does not mean it is OP. Stop crying over warrior nerfs, other classes’ buffs, and get better.