120 replies to this topic

[JaxSilven]

jeddahwe, on 02 November 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

DOH!  I had the wrong Accessorizes, 6% crit is bad :/

What do you think of this:

I applaud you on your fights but I gather you know they were terribly under geared and didn't see to know what they were doing. Especially never ever corrupting SY boons. If your build works for you then sure go for it, but you could've done more damage with sacrificing non-essentials. You can take 20 out of  Honour and have 15 in Rad and 5 in virtues, or go 10 0 30 10 20. There really is no point spec'ing too much into Honour sorry!

[jeddahwe]

Shout Vs Meditation, I seem to get the feeling that you prefer Meditation over Shouts and rather use Valor traits for Meditation is this correct?

Is it because Meditation utility and healing is better than Shouts utility and healing with AH?  The reason I went with Shouts is other than all that they provide I have Swiftness up just about whenever I need it.

On a slightly different topic, do you see any build that puts out competitive burst/dps/mobility/mitigation that actually uses 2 hand traits and Might trait at all?

[jeddahwe]

JaxSilven, on 03 November 2012 - 09:21 AM, said:

I applaud you on your fights but I gather you know they were terribly under geared and didn't see to know what they were doing. Especially never ever corrupting SY boons. If your build works for you then sure go for it, but you could've done more damage with sacrificing non-essentials. You can take 20 out of  Honour and have 15 in Rad and 5 in virtues, or go 10 0 30 10 20. There really is no point spec'ing too much into Honour sorry!

I guess what I am asking is it mandatory to have Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing assuming playing against the best/hardest teams and players?  Or can a Guardian play without Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing and be the best she can be?

[indure]

Drekor, on 03 November 2012 - 08:50 AM, said:

You clearly aren't wearing high damage gear so you really care about doing lots of damage then?

I'm wearing standard split Knight/Valkyrie. I could go full glass canon with Berserker set, but it seems unwise when I spend 90% of my time on the front line.

[Akza86]

wandering vagabond, on 09 September 2012 - 07:24 AM, said:

Ugh, I had hoped dearly Anet would do this class some justice, but it's just the crummy War Priest from Warhammer Online all over again. Never good at doing damage, barely good at buffing and healing, people question why you're on the battlefield at all.

lol. No wp in war was never good for nothing. Clear u played the game loads

[Serris]

wandering vagabond, on 10 September 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

I will ignore your petty and childish insults. No, i did not get hit by siege weapons. This was 1v1 in open field combat, there was not another person around. This Asuran warrior plinked me with arrows hitting me for 5-6k each time. I actually died mid-flight doing a leap of faith in an attempt to engage him.

It is people like you who keep classes from being properly balanced. You probably roll with a mindless zerg 24/7 in WvW or you do sPvP where other classes mask your flaws and then you assume the guardian is just fine. I dare you to try dueling with this class, that is what will show you the real balances. I know the game is not balanced around 1v1, but it is the best scenario to compare damage output and survivability.

Kid, I have been playing MMOs since you were in 1st grade. I was an old school UO vet starting in 1998, I have played everything from EQ to DAOC to WoW to WAR. The paladin archetype class is ALWAYS weak in any game which is class based. The devs never have any friggin clue what to do with this archetype, so it always ends up being mediocre in every aspect.

Go and duel, find a straggler 1v1 in WvW and hope he is competent. Or better yet make a friend in another realm and meet up with him 1v1 when he is in your WvW group. You may beat him once in a while and it will require blowing EVERY single ability you have. When you equate that to real combat, it means you are useless. When you need to blow every ability at your disposable to handle one person, it means you will struggle immensely in sPvP and WvW.

Look at the game itself. Guardian is the least played class at higher levels. Just walk around any capital cities, any zones, look around in WvW...you will not see many Guardians at all. You will see a BOATLOAD of warriors and thieves and a mish-mash of necros, eles and mesmers. Engineers seem to currently suffer from underpopulation as well, but I do not play one so I can not comment.

I know my way around these games. GW2 has very simplistic PvP compared to many games I've played in the past. You are the type of person who likes to be intentionally be contrarian in any given situation because it strokes your ego, I understand that, you're obviously between the ages of 18 and 25, so you're a young arrogant kiddo who doesn't know his butt from his nose. You can delude yourself all you want or you can take the advice of someone much wiser than you: Guardian is a broken class right now and is useless in most PvP situations.

It does not matter if we stack toughness or HP or go pure offense. It does not matter if we use 2H weapons or sword/torch or anything, we lack PvP offense, PvP defense and PvP utility. For the minor ability we have to mitigate damage slightly better than some classes, it means nothing, because we can be kited and toyed with so easily like a cat playing with a mouse. Use your leap or faith or blink, you will just get knocked back and kited again, use your binding blades to drag him back to you, the CC lasts about half a second and he will continue to kite you while laughing all the way to the bank.

This class is shelved for a long time for me. I will be rolling a Warrior or Elementalist and I will giggle every time I obliterate a poor sap who still thinks Guardian is a worthwhile class. Class is broken, you can delude yourself like the immature child that you are or you can wise up to reality and understand Guardian is the single weakest class in the game. The choice is yours.

game is not balanced around 1v1 in wvw. if you don't want to play guardian, then don't play it and don't come whine on the forums.

[B3aT]

Depends on what do you want, if you expect to be a warrior yes, if you want to be a guardian WvW is fun.

I make just 5% of the kills that my grenadier engineer, but is not about this when I play guardian, is about "Protect my own" like Logan said.

Permanent swiftness to allies, aegis them, block incoming projectiles and mights (empower) is what give us power.
True people will not see/appreciate you, doesn't matter, we have a trait named "altruistic" )

As main weapon I always use Staff being a healer/tank , secondary :
- for small combat encounters when I need to make some damage too GS
- for defending walls at big zergs scepter (to score some kills too) And for its root
- when need to protect from heavy incoming projectiles/players use any wp with a shield
- when tanking in small zergs using Hamme (good for root and holding down fugitive enemies)

Utility skills
- wall of reflection - pur fun, esspecially combined with Line of Warding in the correct scenario you can change the battles heading.
- Stand your ground - usually when players get pulled they die, is our job to stop this
- Retreat or Sylvary root

Last example of pure fun (too bad I didn't record it) : Heavy attack on our castle, drop down to front gate, hit wall of reflection, run inside, eating popcorn while watching lots of white numbers on screen
Wall of reflection is again best used when the visibility is poor or to protect the a flank.

[Agiond]

wandering vagabond, on 09 September 2012 - 07:24 AM, said:

Ugh, I had hoped dearly Anet would do this class some justice, but it's just the crummy War Priest from Warhammer Online all over again. Never good at doing damage, barely good at buffing and healing, people question why you're on the battlefield at all.

It's clear that you've never used him properly. WP could do some good damage (not burst) while being godlike.

The Guardian is like a WP, but better. More tanky, more damage, more survavility, and MUCH more supportive.


If you want damage 1v1, take a 1h sword. That deals shitloads of damage. You can also do melee AoE damage with GS, and some ranged damage with scepter and staff.

Is that you need more? You can play suportive with shouts, consecrations and such. Or you can play as a godlike dps with meditations build


On 1v1 a guardian with the triple meditation build is nearly impossible to beat (pro players say it, like Lowell in his Thief guide that you can find in this forum).



So as a Guardian you have 1001 different roles to play. Just check them out and find wich one you like the most.

[Piteous]

wandering vagabond, on 09 September 2012 - 07:24 AM, said:

I may not be an expert on the guardian or WvW yet...but a warrior kiting me with a bow just killed me in literally 3 arrows. Each of them took a chunk of my head off for about 6k damage each.

I chose this class to be defensive and tactical. I'm quickly realizing we have the survivability of a bag of wet toilet paper. At higher levels, every other class goes leaps and bounds ahead of us in damage output, meanwhile ours stays crappy and our defense remains mediocre. Oh a few aegis blocks here and there...so what? Everyone else can heal, everyone else can stack HP and toughness.

What the hell *IS* the role of this class at the end of the day? We're only half as good as a warrior in any given role. Warriors can defend and heal just as much as we can.

Over the last few days I went from enjoying this class and learning all I could about it to the harsh reality that this class serves absolutely zero purpose. A warrior can literally do anything better in any given situation. And I love supporting my team, it's why I rolled this class, but we barely have any support abilities that make a difference in REAL combat. Oh, empower...oh, tiny little orb that heals for next to nothing...oh, 180 second CD with a nice big heal that you will 90% of the time get killed before you even get the spell off. And don't get me started on that dumb swiftness that nobody bothers to use. Pub players don't even know what your symbol does and avoid it 99% of the time, on the offchance some people in sPvP use it, the swiftness is freaking pointless anyway while they're engaged in close combat!

It should raise A LOT of red flags when you see all the high level competitive guardian PvP videos doing nothing but offense. They're just trying to act like the warrior's little brother and completely ignoring what was SUPPOSED to be the intended role of this class.

If all we have to look forward to is doing minor buffing that NOBODY NOTICES and that barely effects the tide of a battle, then this class is in dire need of an overhaul. Either that or play half-assed warrior in which case you should have rolled warrior to begin with.

Ugh, I had hoped dearly Anet would do this class some justice, but it's just the crummy War Priest from Warhammer Online all over again. Never good at doing damage, barely good at buffing and healing, people question why you're on the battlefield at all.

I understand Anet wanted to break the holy trinity, but in doing they've left one huge question mark on the guardian class. WHAT do we even do that other classes can't already do better in some form? Again, EVERYONE can buff, EVERYONE can heal, EVERYONE can dps...except the guardian! The guardian has the worst dps in the game! What's the point of spending 5+ minutes long in a 1v1 duel when I could have played a thief or elementalist that could have finished the fight in about 40 seconds or less...and they can still be defensive and healing on top of it!

Useless shouts, useless meditations, useless consecrations. Useless class, survivability of toilet paper.

We're stuck with the same old problem WoW had. In WoW, Warrior, Rogue and the spellcasters were all overpowered and all other classes were left in the dust for YEARS. Same thing is happening right now. Warrior is a juggernaut on the battlefield with almost no flaws, thieves can drop nearly any class in about 2.5 seconds spamming heartseeker. Sigh. Why did I bother with this class?

I agree with this completely. I leveled a guardian to level 72 and I feel I have completely wasted my time with it. I should have kept leveling a warrior. It is useless in wvw in my opinion, I know people out there think it is a great class, and that is your opinion.

[Agiond]

Piteous, on 08 December 2012 - 09:25 PM, said:

I agree with this completely. I leveled a guardian to level 72 and I feel I have completely wasted my time with it. I should have kept leveling a warrior. It is useless in wvw in my opinion, I know people out there think it is a great class, and that is your opinion.

It's not our opinion, it's a fact. If you wanna go zerging around, brainlessly using your skills, then no, the guardian is not for you.


Who let's the whole team run faster between camps? The guardian. Who reflects arrows/spells with one skill while absorving them with another? The guardian. Who grants stability to the whole party making CC skills useless? The guardian. Who keeps the people on the ram alive? The guardian.

That's just some things he can do for the team. He can also go the meditations build and be unkillable while bringing hell upon you.


Have you ever realized why your team is loosing all the supply camps, dolyaks and sentinels? An enemy guardian is around.

[Dasryn]

i watched a vid that was basically complaining that PVP in GW2 relied too heavily on guardians and mesmers.

that tells me guards (especially bunker guards) are very effective.

[JaxSilven]

Rickter, on 09 December 2012 - 12:21 AM, said:

i watched a vid that was basically complaining that PVP in GW2 relied too heavily on guardians and mesmers.

that tells me guards (especially bunker guards) are very effective.

Support, not bunker =P

[Piteous]

Agiond, on 09 December 2012 - 12:15 AM, said:

It's not our opinion, it's a fact. If you wanna go zerging around, brainlessly using your skills, then no, the guardian is not for you.


Who let's the whole team run faster between camps? The guardian. Who reflects arrows/spells with one skill while absorving them with another? The guardian. Who grants stability to the whole party making CC skills useless? The guardian. Who keeps the people on the ram alive? The guardian.

That's just some things he can do for the team. He can also go the meditations build and be unkillable while bringing hell upon you.


Have you ever realized why your team is loosing all the supply camps, dolyaks and sentinels? An enemy guardian is around.

Then teach me what I am doing wrong then.

[Agiond]

Piteous, on 09 December 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

Then teach me what I am doing wrong then.

First, you need to decide what role do you wanna play. You wanna turn the tides in a fight? Then go mace+shield and take the shouts/consecrations you need at that time. I'm not going to explain every shout/consecration, playstyle, etc. because Master Eriko has already done it in his guide (http://www.guildwars...tive-pvp-guide/), and I could not explain it better.

Basically, it's all about what role you want to play. Suportive guardian, offensive guardian, bunker guardian, ...


Personally, I run an offensive guardian with meditations build (explained in the guide i linked), so I can kill almost anyone on 1v1 and taking down camps really fast with just 2 guys.
This way you are tanky and offensive the same time. But I'll not be able to turn the tides in a big fight, I'll be just a pain in the ass on skirimishes.

[Piteous]

Very good guide goes into a lot of detail. I had this other one in my favorites it is like this one.

http://www.guildwars...uide-pve-wvwvw/

[Agiond]

That's a great support guide. If you wanna suport, listen to that guy.

[The Shadow]

Agiond, on 09 December 2012 - 12:15 AM, said:

Have you ever realized why your team is loosing all the supply camps, dolyaks and sentinels? An enemy Thief is around.

I fixed your post.

Don't steal our jobs pl0x. We have limited uses in WvW as it is, many thanks.

[Agiond]

The Shadow, on 04 January 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

I fixed your post.

Don't steal our jobs pl0x. We have limited uses in WvW as it is, many thanks.

I'm not stealing your job. Thiefs can solo them, but a guardian can speed up a group of 5 between camps, taking them faster than a single thief.
It's like enabling the nitro in a car.

[The Shadow]

Agiond, on 04 January 2013 - 09:49 AM, said:

I'm not stealing your job. Thiefs can solo them, but a guardian can speed up a group of 5 between camps, taking them faster than a single thief.
It's like enabling the nitro in a car.

Not sure this is so true anymore. Most classes have 25% movement speed signets (Ranger, Necro) or access to permanent-swiftness (Engie, Warrior) or can give group swiftness with around 75% up-time (Mesmer, Guardian) or have a mixture of all three of these abilities paired with long distance gap-closers (Ele, Thief).

As for actually killing the mobs at supply-camps, Guardians don't do much either... the classes that stack loads of vulnerability (Engie, Necro) are far more useful (when the buff is up).

I don't see a Guardian as being that useful in a small 5 man-unit in WvW. I'd much rather have a party of 5 Thieves to snipe dollys, keep waypoints contested, take supply camps and kill stragglers in dribs and drabs.

Guardians are far more valuable with the zerg. Guardians are also the slowest class in the game but arguably the most vital.

Edited by The Shadow, 04 January 2013 - 02:41 PM.

[Clockwise]

Hi,

I see a lot of lost souls here,

Guardian is an awesome class we can do almost everything (Jack-of-all-thread), we have indeed lots of weakness ! I'm playing Guardian a lot cause I found my way on soloing/small scale and heavy scale.

You'll always useful for you team and if you want be useful for yourself it's also possible.

Few exemples:
- Last time I did theorycraft for my Guild I discovered Guardians are the only able to share a lot of Protection, we can put (up to 5 allies) Prot for >30s on your mates on starting a fight. It's pretty heavy.
- Specced on consecration, 3 Guardians can keep a Wall of Reflection forever (= immune to projectiles, reflect dmg and light field for cleansing bolt).
- Again on consecration 4-5 Guardians can keep forever Stability with HG on a AoE zone up to anyone inside the ring. That's pretty huge on funneling or into a Time Wrap.

You'll always find use for your team with a Guardian.

Now it depend of your playstyle, mine is more to break the zerg.
I made few videos to show the build and to show his potential, maybe that could help the lost souls here to find a way



It's solo video, but when I play with guild the result is the same.

Edited by Clockwise, 05 January 2013 - 03:11 PM.

[B3aT]

Recorded some of everday wvw battles here http://www.youtube.c...lLE9D1Pbwus0p4h

In all of them I`m support guardian, keeping the first line, trying to get all the enemies to target me, and then waste their damage/skills.  When the battle is ranged I protect them from projectiles and buff them., you can even pair up with golems

[Alaroxr]

jeddahwe, on 03 November 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

On a slightly different topic, do you see any build that puts out competitive burst/dps/mobility/mitigation that actually uses 2 hand traits and Might trait at all?

I use Two-Handed Mastery in every 2h build and do just fine. About 940 Guardian hours and it hasn't failed me. Currently I have 10/15/15/25/5.

A cool and overlooked trait in Honor is Elusive Power. It's +10% damage as long as you have <99% endurance. I already take two-handed mastery, so why not use 5 more points for +10% damage?

Elusive Daring is also overlooked. It's about 300-400 healing per dodge and you'll have constant Vigor. Meaning, you'll be able to dodge once every 5s during a fight. In a 30s fight, that's 2400-3200 healing to you and all nearbly allies. With +250 healing power (25 points in Honor) I heal for 387 per dodge.

JaxSilven, on 03 November 2012 - 09:21 AM, said:

There really is no point spec'ing too much into Honour sorry!

Why do you say that? I don't see much point in 30, but the Minor Traits are all very good, and the Major Traits are almost all useful.

Edited by Alaroxr, 06 January 2013 - 02:47 AM.

[JaxSilven]

Alaroxr, on 06 January 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:

I use Two-Handed Mastery in every 2h build and do just fine. About 940 Guardian hours and it hasn't failed me. Currently I have 10/15/15/25/5.

A cool and overlooked trait in Honor is Elusive Power. It's +10% damage as long as you have <99% endurance. I already take two-handed mastery, so why not use 5 more points for +10% damage?

Elusive Daring is also overlooked. It's about 300-400 healing per dodge and you'll have constant Vigor. Meaning, you'll be able to dodge once every 5s during a fight. In a 30s fight, that's 2400-3200 healing to you and all nearbly allies. With +250 healing power (25 points in Honor) I heal for 387 per dodge.



Why do you say that? I don't see much point in 30, but the Minor Traits are all very good, and the Major Traits are almost all useful.

Look, you've quoted a line from me ages ago. So 2 things; meta shifts, I don't remember the context entirely. From what I do remember he wanted a DPS build, thus don't run high honour unless you're Symbol damage or playing point holder. But maybe I don't remember completely and I was referencing a different meta, I don't know.

[Alaroxr]

JaxSilven, on 06 January 2013 - 05:04 AM, said:

Look, you've quoted a line from me ages ago. So 2 things; meta shifts, I don't remember the context entirely. From what I do remember he wanted a DPS build, thus don't run high honour unless you're Symbol damage or playing point holder. But maybe I don't remember completely and I was referencing a different meta, I don't know.

My bad, didn't see the date on it. You don't have to reply if you don't want to.

In any case, 'meta' is irrelevant. What I just posted above is the same it was 2 months ago. Whether or not 20 Honor works for a DPS build in WvW has nothing to do with meta.

Edited by Alaroxr, 06 January 2013 - 06:47 AM.

[JaxSilven]

Alaroxr, on 06 January 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

My bad, didn't see the date on it. You don't have to reply if you don't want to.

In any case, 'meta' is irrelevant. What I just posted above is the same it was 2 months ago. Whether or not 20 Honor works for a DPS build in WvW has nothing to do with meta.

But what are you doing with 30 in honour? You want pure of voice, that's the only reason. But for a damage build in WvW you generally won't want PoV, if you're going hybrid or defensive then yeah sure, run trip shout. But mainly damage builds you want to JI, with the recharge, and RHS. If you wanna go copy paste some context from previously I'll be happy to comment on it.

[Alaroxr]

JaxSilven, on 06 January 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

But what are you doing with 30 in honour? You want pure of voice, that's the only reason. But for a damage build in WvW you generally won't want PoV, if you're going hybrid or defensive then yeah sure, run trip shout. But mainly damage builds you want to JI, with the recharge, and RHS. If you wanna go copy paste some context from previously I'll be happy to comment on it.

I never said 30 in Honor is good. I was only talking about 15 for Elusive Daring, 20 Two-Handed Mastery, and possibly 25 Elusive Power for the +10% damage if you're already in that far. In my build I use the cooldown decrease for JI, and it's a 2h build so I don't need RHS

Alaroxr, on 06 January 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:

I don't see much point in 30

Edited by Alaroxr, 06 January 2013 - 07:16 PM.

[CalmLittleBuddy]

Guardian.

The single most misunderstood, poorly played, least loved and yet most important class in WvW.

All of the folks bashing Guardian are forgetting one simple thing. Top level WvW is not played without thought to group structure and coordination of specific builds for set groups. Give me ten players in Team Speak with the correct Guardian build and I will cause you problems you have no answer for.

Is Guardian a great solo class? Not great, but there's things you can do as a solo Guardian that are very useful for your server. Will you get a lot of badges as a solo Guardian? No. Unless you are a superior player going against an average player.

Is Guardian a great wall defender? Yes. But not if you stand still. Not if you sit around and wait for the counter attack to hit after you've burned off your utility. And not if you dance around on top of the walls. Here's a thought. Go defend a piece of siege. That piece of siege will throw out more DPS than any single player and can turn the tide of a defense IF it stays up.

Is Guardian a great zerg class. Yes. Yes. And lemme see, yes. Swiftness, CC, defense. "But I doesn't has no range an when I run in I get dead quick!!!" Yeap. Then don't run in. Guardians, what is our best ranged weapon? REFLECTION!!! Yay! Stay in the sweet middle spot of the zerg. You want to run up front, go make a warrior. You want to come up in the big second wave and secure that camp, play a Guardian.

You are not a badge farming machine. You are a Guardian. You are NOT a TANK. You are a Guardian.

You can't rely on only two weapons. You need 4. You need to know which ones for which situations, and you need to have a system in place to inventory swap, which means finding a quick route out of combat and then back in, and knowing which weapon to have equiped BEFORE you inventory swap to make swaping back or using the built in weapon swap work right. Nothing is worse than messing up your 1H 1H combination using an inventory swap. Then you get all confused and die quick.

People who think Guardian is useless in WvW or bad at WvW don't have the proper knowledge of the class and the proper training to understand how to be effective as a Guardian in WvW. There's a lot to learn and a lot to practice and a few things to UNLEARN in order to play one well. Once you learn these things, however, you become a magic 'win' button for your group.

I love seeing Guardians in my group. Especially ones that I know. I know I'm not going to die as much with them around.

If you absolutely don't believe me about this, then do a little research about what the top tier WvW servers are using Guardians for. We're doing some really creative stuff with that class. Learn, people. LRN.

[_Belisarius_]

CalmLittleBuddy, on 08 January 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

Guardian.

The single most misunderstood, poorly played, least loved... [snip]

Despite you being from JQ and my obvious animosity towards you as a guardian on SBI , this post is 100% correct.  Couldn't have said it better myself.

[CalmLittleBuddy]

_Belisarius_, on 08 January 2013 - 07:12 PM, said:

Despite you being from JQ and my obvious animosity towards you as a guardian on SBI , this post is 100% correct.  Couldn't have said it better myself.

Much thanks, my despicable enemy!

[BlasBlas]

CalmLittleBuddy, on 08 January 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

snip

Spot on.  I changed from a thief to a guardian.  Can't beat it, the class just feels so powerful.