[Varyn]

Guardians of Tyria Interview with Guild Wars 2 Environmental Artist Tirzah Bauer

Today we get some insight on the guardian profession, specifically for PvP, from Tirzah Bauer. She works as an environment artist for ArenaNet and is part of the team that designed the Battle of Kyhlo PvP map. Tirzah was part of ArenaNet’s PvP team at gamescom and PAX Prime, where she played a female asura guardian.

http://guardiansofty...guardian-in-pvp

[Rakai]

That was a nice read. The part about her combo was very interesting.

[SunRoamer]

Quote

Scepter #3: Chains of Light (immobilize)
Scepter #2: Smite
Weapon swap to Sword/Focus
Focus #5: Shield of Wrath (Creates a shield to block several attacks, if not destroyed it will explode and damage nearby foes)
Sword #2 Flashing Blade: (A ground target mid-range teleport that also blinds any enemies around you) I try to teleport to behind the opponent to confuse them.
Sword #3: Zealot’s Defense (the main damage skill)
Shield of Wrath should explode at this point and if successful you’ve taken off a big chunk of their health

I loved that part :D
And also the one about porting up the roof to knock off pesky ranged enemies ;)

[Nemi]

Interesting read and a nice insight into a profession other than the thief for a change. :D

I really like the Guardian, so having Tirzah tell us about her favourite is always a treat.

[Doctor Overlord]

Terrific interview! Thanks for posting and thanks to Tirzah for all the interesting PvP insights.

Really brilliant idea to interview one of ArenaNet's PvP team and ask specific questions about skills and builds for their favored profession. It really shows the depth and complexity of the combat coming from the players with the most PvP experience at it.

I wouldn't mind seeing this be a series where each of the team was asked similar questions about the profession they played.

[Voidmare]

It is clear that weapon swapping is an important factor.... I mean look at her skill combo!

That.. that's amazing (not to mention, having quick fingers).

[Cloudpiercer]

Great interview man. I like listening to the devs talk about skills, Judges Intervention up to someone on the roof and then send them flying off, that sounds awesome. I want to see this army of spirit weapons she was talking about, all we ever see is the hammer. I actually remember seeing her do that combo a couple times, I didnt realize Shield of Wrath was part of it though, pretty impressive.

[Thyar]

As more and more information comes out from people with longer term hands-on experience getting to play this game, I have less and less doubt that GW2 is indeed going to offer us challenges and very satisfying methods for strategically and tactically overcoming them.

Thanks for sharing this link.

I am really finding myself starting to love what the Guardian can do - which is something, because I have been a caster-at-heart for many years over many MMOs.

[Hyper Hypno Hustler]

Quote

In terms of pure DPS, the ideal weapon sets for guardian would be sword/torch and greatsword or staff.

The staff is an ideal DPS weapon? When did this happen?! I hope she is mistaken or the staff skills are being reevaluated.

The next time you have an interview you should ask about support specifically. It's fairly annoying that an interview about one of the best support professions not only gave top attention to damage but didn't contain a single support specific question.

[Yphex]

Aw crap now I have 4 professions that I can't decide between. Thanks Thirzah well done.

In all seriousness I think so far all of the classes look really interesting well apart from the ranger maybe since I somehow can't stand pet classes/professions.

[Arngrim Einheri]

Hyper Hypno Hustler said:

The staff is an ideal DPS weapon? When did this happen?! I hope she is mistaken or the staff skills are being reevaluated.

The next time you have an interview you should ask about support specifically. It's fairly annoying that an interview about one of the best support professions not only gave top attention to damage but didn't contain a single support specific question.

didn't you watch pvp videos? Staff guardians were able to deal impressive amounts of damage to other players.

[Rilec]

Hyper Hypno Hustler said:

The staff is an ideal DPS weapon? When did this happen?! I hope she is mistaken or the staff skills are being reevaluated.

The next time you have an interview you should ask about support specifically. It's fairly annoying that an interview about one of the best support professions not only gave top attention to damage but didn't contain a single support specific question.

I think the point of that was to get rid of people assuming that the Guardian was only about support and nothing else. A lot of people I've talked to seem to think that the Guardian will have extremely low damage and will be a tank/healer hybrid. This kind of focus shows that the Guardian can and will be a force to be reckoned with, putting out great pressure and burst or lots of team utility and defense depending on setup.

[Xo1o]

Interesting interview!

I think it was a very good design decision to give the guardian a small life pool contrary to the usual paladin-esque archetypes. This allows for many more active defensive skills without the class being way too hard to kill (which would result in having to tone down the damage capabilities for balance).

[Craywulf]

Hyper Hypno Hustler said:

The staff is an ideal DPS weapon? When did this happen?! I hope she is mistaken or the staff skills are being reevaluated.

The next time you have an interview you should ask about support specifically. It's fairly annoying that an interview about one of the best support professions not only gave top attention to damage but didn't contain a single support specific question.

Having read the article, She described her burst tactic, which required weapon-swapping. I can surmise that the staff can be important part of swapping combo for maximum DPS. No one weapon is going be more powerful than the others, instead they bring various aspects of gameplay.

[Hyper Hypno Hustler]

Arngrim Einheri said:

didn't you watch pvp videos? Staff guardians were able to deal impressive amounts of damage to other players.

She didn't say it deals "impressive" damage. She put the staff in her list of the guardians top 3 dps weapons. She actually compared the staff's dps, an objective mathematical concept, to all the other guardian weapons while impressive is a completely vague and arbitrary term. It means you won't find much higher damage on a guardian than on a staff. This is indirectly contradicts all the other instances of anet describing the staff as a support weapon. One would imagine a support weapon would not be a top dps weapon as well for balance reasons.

I see 3 possible conclusions from her statement. First, she or the interviewer was mistaken. Second, anet changed their mind and made the staff a damage weapon which would be terrible. Finally, anet somehow intended a weapon to be supportive but made it deal high damage instead which would make them incompetent.

Rilec said:

I think the point of that was to get rid of people assuming that the Guardian was only about support and nothing else. A lot of people I've talked to seem to think that the Guardian will have extremely low damage and will be a tank/healer hybrid. This kind of focus shows that the Guardian can and will be a force to be reckoned with, putting out great pressure and burst or lots of team utility and defense depending on setup.

Asking one or two questions about support specifically would not get any sane person to think guardians are tanks or whatever. My point was that both damage and support should have gotten attention. Paying more attention to damage is fine but ignoring support almost completely just shouldn't be done.

Plus the interview is from a site dedicated to guardians. Ignoring the part of combat they supposedly do best for the benefit of ignorant people doesn't make any sense. Besides this interview could get someone to think guardians are just damage dealers/tanks which is no better than the other misconception. You should just correct the misconceptions when they arise not purposefully limit your interviews and information just to avoid people drawing wrong conclusions.

Craywulf said:

Having read the article, She described her burst tactic, which required weapon-swapping. I can surmise that the staff can be important part of swapping combo for maximum DPS. No one weapon is going be more powerful than the others, instead they bring various aspects of gameplay.

The weapons won't be objectively better in every possible way but they will be objectively better in certain areas. The shield is objectively better for defense than a torch. The torch is objectively better for damage. She believes the staff is objectively one of the best damage dealing weapons not just that it is a matter style or "aspect of gameplay".

Whether the damage comes from weapon swapping or not doesn't make much of a difference. The base damage of the staff skills has to be high on their own to even be considered for an offensive combo in the first place.

[metalsazz]

Isn't the base line dps for staff good to begin with? It has a ground targeted aoe damage that combine with zealot flame or zealot defense is a lot of damage. So I'm sure it's safe for her to say that.

Anyone who knows the guardian will know it will support, she did mention a few aspects of support as well so it not like they just ignored it. Beside they were asking her questions about her role in those games and she was using more control and damage and using very little support. So of course they won't talk snout that

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Isn't the base line dps for staff good to begin with? It has a ground targeted aoe damage that combine with zealot flame or zealot defense is a lot of damage. So I'm sure it's safe for her to say that.

Anyone who knows the guardian will know it will support, she did mention a few aspects of support as well so it not like they just ignored it. Beside they were asking her questions about her role in those games and she was using more control and damage and using very little support. So of course they won't talk snout that

----------

Isn't the base line dps for staff good to begin with? It has a ground targeted aoe damage that combine with zealot flame or zealot defense is a lot of damage. So I'm sure it's safe for her to say that.

Anyone who knows the guardian will know it will support, she did mention a few aspects of support as well so it not like they just ignored it. Beside they were asking her questions about her role in those games and she was using more control and damage and using very little support. So of course they won't talk snout that

----------

Isn't the base line dps for staff good to begin with? It has a ground targeted aoe damage that combine with zealot flame or zealot defense is a lot of damage. So I'm sure it's safe for her to say that.

Anyone who knows the guardian will know it will support, she did mention a few aspects of support as well so it not like they just ignored it. Beside they were asking her questions about her role in those games and she was using more control and damage and using very little support. So of course they won't talk snout that

[Malchior Devenholm]

Staff AoE is fairly strong, but slow. You'll be wrecked in melee combat, and competent opponents will dodge Wave of Wrath easily.

[bhima]

What's that magic line barrier skill from staff? That just looks like THE way to escape a group of melee on top of you!

[Malchior Devenholm]

bhima said:

What's that magic line barrier skill from staff? That just looks like THE way to escape a group of melee on top of you!

You mean walk around it...a joke...

Line of Warding will only be used to block off choke points.

[Arshay Duskbrow]

This is good news for the Scepter/Staff Guardian concept I'm toying with.

[Guardian of the Light]

Malchior Devenholm said:

You mean walk around it...a joke...

Line of Warding will only be used to block off choke points.

Even if you can walk around it, walking around it will slow enemies down because of the extra travel time.

[Voidmare]

Guardian of the Light said:

Even if you can walk around it, walking around it will slow enemies down because of the extra travel time.

I wonder has anyone tried dodging through it.

As a bug. I know it's not supposed to happen.

[Passive Aggressive]

Quote

In a few PvP games, enemies tried to hit me with ranged attacks from the top of the Clock tower and I used this utility skill to teleport right in front of them, follow up with a shield knockback and send them flying off the building!

Ooooh this makes Guardian sound so fun.

[Hyper Hypno Hustler]

metalsazz said:

Isn't the base line dps for staff good to begin with? It has a ground targeted aoe damage that combine with zealot flame or zealot defense is a lot of damage. So I'm sure it's safe for her to say that.

Anyone who knows the guardian will know it will support, she did mention a few aspects of support as well so it not like they just ignored it. Beside they were asking her questions about her role in those games and she was using more control and damage and using very little support. So of course they won't talk snout that

There is a difference between saying, "the staff deals good damage", and claiming it is the 3rd best dps weapon. A weapon can have "good" dps but still have the lowest dps of all the guardian weapons. It would depend on how much damage a person arbitrarily considers "good". "Good" also doesn't give any indication about how its damage compares to other weapons. She made a claim that the staff is objectively one of the best damage weapons. That is the surprising part not that it can simply deal enough damage to kill enemies in a reasonable amount of time.

Anyone who knows the guardian also knows it can deal damage. Anyone with a cursory knowledge about the game will know professions are malleable. I kinda thought the goal of an interview was get additional in-depth information. Could have gotten more of that with a support specific question.

She just kind of mentioned support as an aside to other questions. The interviewer did not make an active effort in gathering support related information. The interviewee did not ignore support but the interviewer did. If the interviewer had asked about support specifically we could have gotten more detailed answers like with her favorite burst damage chain. Future interviews can only be improved if more responses like that are gathered.

They weren't only talking her role in the game. Some of the questions were hypothetical. One question starts off with a declarative statement that she was playing defensively then shifts to a question about offense. If the intent was to only focus on what she did during the match the question would have been about playing defensively. Other questions were very general and had nothing to do with any specific match. What she specifically used for one convention doesn't matter when you're asking about utility and healing skill recommendations. If the intent was to focus specifically on what she did then that was done poorly as well.

[bhima]

Guardian of the Light said:

Even if you can walk around it, walking around it will slow enemies down because of the extra travel time.

^This. Since we all move at the same speed, even just 2 extra seconds of distance can mean alot of things including: gaining enough distance to continue to run until your heal is off CD, getting to your friends to protect you, your 2h hammer knockback skill is now off cooldown etc. etc. I've played my fair share of WoW pvp and I can tell you that anything that can give you even some distance from the enemies can be huge in the overall fight even if it only was a few extra seconds of breathing room.

[Malchior Devenholm]

Guardian of the Light said:

Even if you can walk around it, walking around it will slow enemies down because of the extra travel time.

Only as a full retreat from combat will this be beneficial. The casting time of the wall seems to negate it's speedy retreat function as well. (1-1.5 seconds from videos)

Think 1st or 2nd level Crystallize on Anivia. (Yay LoL reference!)

[Mr. X]

I'm getting an "Internal Server Error" page. We appear to have crashed their server.

[Jeros]

About the line of warding. I think it was on the A-net vs Booncontrol PvP video but I thought I saw an Elementalist "Ride the Lightning" through a line of warding...So maybe you can't walk through it/dodge through it, but you can use a skill to teleport through it...

[Crusader Coz]

Hyper Hypno Hustler said:

There is a difference between saying, "the staff deals good damage", and claiming it is the 3rd best dps weapon. A weapon can have "good" dps but still have the lowest dps of all the guardian weapons. It would depend on how much damage a person arbitrarily considers "good". "Good" also doesn't give any indication about how its damage compares to other weapons. She made a claim that the staff is objectively one of the best damage weapons. That is the surprising part not that it can simply deal enough damage to kill enemies in a reasonable amount of time.

Anyone who knows the guardian also knows it can deal damage. Anyone with a cursory knowledge about the game will know professions are malleable. I kinda thought the goal of an interview was get additional in-depth information. Could have gotten more of that with a support specific question.

She just kind of mentioned support as an aside to other questions. The interviewer did not make an active effort in gathering support related information. The interviewee did not ignore support but the interviewer did. If the interviewer had asked about support specifically we could have gotten more detailed answers like with her favorite burst damage chain. Future interviews can only be improved if more responses like that are gathered.

They weren't only talking her role in the game. Some of the questions were hypothetical. One question starts off with a declarative statement that she was playing defensively then shifts to a question about offense. If the intent was to only focus on what she did during the match the question would have been about playing defensively. Other questions were very general and had nothing to do with any specific match. What she specifically used for one convention doesn't matter when you're asking about utility and healing skill recommendations. If the intent was to focus specifically on what she did then that was done poorly as well.

Are you serious? Sure there is always the potential to do a better job but let's not troll someone for not getting the best interview ever when they still got a very good one. We know that Guardians do support. Maybe he wanted something else from this interview. It's not like it would be hard to ask how a guardian supports it's team but that would just end up being a rehash of stuff we already knew.

[DerekUrban]

It's strange that nothing was said about Guardian's Virtues. If anything is underwhelming at this point, it's gotta be the virtues. It's the class's mechanic and it's so incredibly "meh."

As for the great Staff debate that popped up in here, I think Tirzah considers the cross-weaponset combinations the most important aspect. It's a good mindset, as using both weapon sets synchronously seems to be important to being a skilled player, so while the Staff is considered a support weapon, combining it with the greatsword/hammer might make your weaponsets incredibly effective. Symbol of Protection the cap point, pop Martyr and switch to Greatsword where you cast Symbol of Swiftness and you go nuts. Depending on the mechanics of Orb of Light that could cast before the weapon switch and detonated when needed first thing after a switch back to the staff. Line of warding doesn't sound to bad to use before the greatsword charge if you want to cut off one of their escape routes.

The staff's "Spamable" attack is pretty slow moving, but everything it does really just ramps you up for a serious smackdowndown if the player chooses to use it that way.