Guild Wars 2

[Extra Floof Taur]

This is embarrassing.

After such a long time, I thought my main class is Guardian, but for some reason I seriously struggle with the class now. I could not find any proper build to have good damage and also decent self-healing to keep myself alive. Warrior gains health from Soldier's Focus with burst, gaining Might, or landing critical hits (dual-wield) ; Necromancer can siphon health, easy enough ; recently I found the trait "Carnivore" that lets Ranger gain health from crowd-controlling the target, and Soulbeast (when merging with the pet) makes it even easier because I can actively choose the pet skills to crowd-control the enemy.

But, I seriously struggle with Guardian. I've tried Soldier, Berserker (not a good idea, very low health and defense), Carrion, Cleric, but none of them really works out like I want. I end up lacking a lot of damage output or a lot of self-support to keep myself alive for long.

I just now learned of the trait "Altruistic Healing", which makes me gain health whenever I apply boons to allies and/or myself, which I thought would be a game changer. However, the heal doesn't feel as good as I thought it'd be.

I also see people using spears for Guardian a lot, but I just can't get the hang of it. I'm already struggling with damage, I really can't think of how to do damage with a weapon that is meant for healing.

Update : I tried out Virtuoso spear (strike dmg) and axe/torch (cond dmg). Still not really good for surviving long fights like Warrior and Necromancer that I mentioned above, but I still managed to do fairly decent damage.

Meanwhile, I just cannot get anything to work with Guardian. My son gave me a cond dmg build that he can use consistently to solo champions in Janthir, and very detailed instructions on how to combo and rotate... but I failed flat at every single step.

I already blew up too much money on different equipment for my Guardian, but at this point the only build I am KIND OF decent with is cond dmg, with axe/torch and pistol/pistol. I guess strike damage is not for me with this class.

 

[Icepaw]

Yeah it's rather hard to figure out how to hurt foes with a healing oriented weapon, mesmers must be dreading the rifle outside of support roles for that very reason. I think the willbender has a trait that whenever you burn foes with your second virtue..the flaming line it heals you but I think there's a skill that refreshes the first one and causes that to heal you too. Been a bit but my guardian has no issue with dmg and self heal but I've kinda swapped to dual pistols for a while now. Been meaning to get back to my reaper as I need to finish learning that spec's powers so i can work on the one from EoD.

Oh and I swallowed my pride and dipped my toes into Maguuma again to complete some dragon stand events.... even with flying that zone is a nightmare and the mastery takes forever to build up as events and such give you barely any exp for it. I level path of fire to current masteries leagues faster than HoT masteries... which sucks as I've considered going back into that hellish forest to finish mastery of my glider so I don't got a stamina bar for it anymore. Dragon Stand events are painful though as there's one that forces you into a room full of lethal gas that I'm guessing means I need the immunity to poison mastery or whatever for.

 

[Extra Floof Taur]

But, I seriously struggle with Guardian.

Well, I decided that my Guardian isn't going to be Almorra anymore. I'd rather not disrespect her legacy and legend with my horrible performance. So, instead, in my head canon, she changed class to Warrior. Even got a proper name for her too, Goldkeeper (lol).




I have a MUCH better time with Warrior and the 3 elite specs, a lot more than Guardian, especially with my Might-based build and Berserker gear. So, here she is, ready to reclaim her name.

Heck, even with Warrior spear/rifle, I can survive better than Guardian (and Warrior is very melee-oriented). That says a lot about my struggle with Guardian, as embarrassing as it sounds.

 

[Icepaw]

Hmm Paragon has been shown wielding a spear a bunch, wonder how that plays out. I've quietly decided my reaper will use pistol and dagger alongside the greatsword...but I feel I need to test out the pistol idea first before i settle on such. My Weaver uses spear alongside sword/dagger but the sword dagger might swap to hammer for all i know...lot of testing to do. My ranger is now SoulBeast and has daggers for one weapon set but retains the long bow. My mesmer...idk yet..I know I wanna keep greatsword but the other weapon set... idk yet. Dagger for sure as my mesmer was going to be Virtuoso but...what works with dagger? I sadly got a fair bit of testing to do it would seem... My revenant is doing well but I've still gotta finish EoD with them among other things. Hopefully I'll figure out a character I'd feel comfortable using well enough to farm maguuma as I need to work on my glider and thanks to that bit of living world I did I unlocked the ancient magic mastery line so...an extra down skill would be nice to get too...at some point

 

[Extra Floof Taur]

I've quietly decided my reaper will use pistol and dagger alongside the greatsword...but I feel I need to test out the pistol idea first before i settle on such.

Pistol for Necromancer is more condition damage than strike, whereas Reaper focuses more on strike than condition. Pistol 2 is multiple shots, and 3 daze. Though, you can make pistol work for strike damage ; I use the specialization Death Magic to have as many Carapace stack as possible with every condition I cause.

My ranger is now SoulBeast and has daggers for one weapon set but retains the long bow.

My Soulbeast uses a hammer, and has a warclaw and lightning wyvern pet. I always merge with them to gain access to their skills. Hammer 3 dazes the target twice, and 5 stuns them. The beast skills of warclaw and wyvern also have a lot of crowd control. Combine all of them with the trait "Carnivore" from the Survival specialization, and I have a ton of health steal. I use Berserker equipment and I can survive a lot of the titanspawn in Janthir thanks to the crowd-control and health steal.

Dagger for sure as my mesmer was going to be Virtuoso but...what works with dagger?

I might suggest pistol with dagger, to keep the long range. Pistol 4 has good burst damage, and 5 has crowd control (stun and daze). Though, I find spear a lot better at stacking up blades and pressing damage. Use 2 first to get the Clarity buff and stock a blade, then 5 to stun and get close (which also fully recharges 2) ; use 2 again to get the buff again and stock another blade, then 4 to have 2 phantasms (which would be 2 blades). Combine this with the trait "Infinite Forge" and you'll constantly have blades to spam.

But, I seriously struggle with Guardian.

Update (yet again) : I finally figured out how to do this, with Willbender condition damage.

So, after reading up on wiki, I finally understood how Willbender virtues work : the passive is only enabled WHILE they're active.

For example, normally F1 would automatically trigger after every 5 attacks, to cause burning. However, with Willbender, you have to activate F1 first ; DURING the time F1 is active, the passive burn triggers every 5 attacks.

So, what I do is... spam as much as I can while F1, F2 or F3 is active. For this, I use axe/pistol, with AOE skills with multiple hits and cause burning, like the consecration "Purging Flame", the spirit weapon "Sword of Justice", and the physical skill "Whirling Light". After activating F1, F2 or F3, my combo is to put down the AOE attacks, then spam like hell.

• Purging Flame
• Sword of Justice
• axe 2 (symbol)
• Whirling Light
• pistol 4 (multiple shots)
• axe 3 or pistol 5
• repeat

 

[Extra Floof Taur]

I might suggest pistol with dagger, to keep the long range. Pistol 4 has good burst damage, and 5 has crowd control (stun and daze). Though, I find spear a lot better at stacking up blades and pressing damage. Use 2 first to get the Clarity buff and stock a blade, then 5 to stun and get close (which also fully recharges 2) ; use 2 again to get the buff again and stock another blade, then 4 to have 2 phantasms (which would be 2 blades). Combine this with the trait "Infinite Forge" and you'll constantly have blades to spam.

I had to switch out the spec Domination for Inspiration for some self-healing, and equip the signet in the healing slot. Less damage, obviously, but better survivability : I heal myself whenever I stock a blade or use a Shatter skill, and Virtuoso with spear and the trait "Infinite Forge" is just spamming non-stop. Otherwise, I'd get killed really quick.

On that note, I also got my Guardian full crowd-control, with Berserker gear and the trait "Glacial Heart" (heal whenever I crowd-control an enemy). So, what's my setup ?

• Dragonhunter : F1 (pull)
• Axe 3 (pull)
• Pistol 5 (stun)
• Longbow 3 (knock back)
• Longbow 5 (a hard crowd-control version of immobilize)
• Bane Signet (knock down)
• Hammer of Wisdom (knock down)
• Sanctuary (heal me and knock back if the enemy tries to get close)

This build has... sub-optimal damage, but it has a lot of crowd-control for me to keep the enemies off me, and/or to break the boss' defiance bar, and with good range too. Otherwise, solo, I'm sticking to Willbender cond dmg.