Core Guardian Roaming?

Hey guys, I returned to roam with core guardian which I find crazy fun and able to dish out tons of damage with the radiance retaliation traitline.

Watching many videos on youtube I see many people run greatsword + sword/shield(focus).

The damage is pretty high and you surprise so many people with the precast of gs2 and g5 with Judge's intervention.

But I dont know why I am having more success using scepter/focus + sword/shield, able even to win some 2vs1, i tried even mace/focus + sword/shield and crit for 9k from mace3 xD.

Greatsword is a good and strong weapon, but maybe I am not good at using it properly, I feel the immobilize on scepter is crazy good and saved me so many times, the blind plus 3block on focus same story.Greatsword feels like a weapon: land all the burst or die. If the enemy blocks the gs burst or the pull, you remain too exposed even if has a blind and leap.

So what do you think guys? Scepter has a great sustained pressure as well,not only a good utility.I even tried a dragonhunter switching the longbow for scepter/focus as well and it works great, people are too used and good at dodging the longbow in my opinion. Even if with test of faith remains one of the strongest surprise burst guardian has.

I tried so many builds, but I feel the most comfortable is just a simple full marauder, i dont wanna switch to valkirye just for core and then being bad on dh. you get almost 20k hp and the damage is crazy high.

So, core users, what do you for SOLO roaming, which gives you the most success?

Core guard has better burst but its lack of survivability will be very apparent in certain situations. I think DH is the superior roamer. A few examples from personal experience:

• You essentially have to run full melee to have decent mobility. If you drop either sword or greatsword for scepter, you lose out on a 600-range mobility skill which is huge for a class that only has a 1200 range teleport and no stealth on long CD for mobility.
• When running full melee (heck, even with scepter), you're very vulnerable to ranged pressure. Just two ranged classes and you bleed out a lot of health forcing you to go all in and get a kill with your bursts, or else you run out of sustain in under 30 seconds.
• You don't have decent gap openers or aoe field control which shorthands you when dealing with warriors.
• Very poor ability to deal with kiters: Scepter is your best bet here and once your target opens a gap more than 600 units, scepter is nearly useless. You overall don't have a good way to keep up with a highly mobile opponent, even if you have +25% ms from traveler's runes.
• Considerably worse 1v1 game: A core guard cannot beat a good spellbreaker/core warrior, power mirage/chrono, soulbeast/druid, power revenant, weaver, scrapper/holosmith or DH in 1v1. DH can either beat or stalemate most of these.

Core guards burst is great if you have a roaming comp, but solo I think it has more drawbacks than DH. I still like to roam with core guard from time to time since it can be more fun. Some of my most fun fights have been on core guard.

Since you seem to like GS, I'll give you a suggestion that made GS really feel good to me when on core guard: For your master trait in radiance, take Wrath of Justice rather than Retribution. You honestly don't lose that much damage from Retribution (10.8k whirling wrath with it vs. 10.4k whirling wrath without it) whereas Wrath of Justice lets you solidly land GS 2 which is key to winning fights when using GS. It's also incredibly satisfying :D

@Arcaedus.7290 said:Since you seem to like GS, I'll give you a suggestion that made GS really feel good to me when on core guard: For your master trait in radiance, take Wrath of Justice rather than Retribution. You honestly don't lose that much damage from Retribution (10.8k whirling wrath with it vs. 10.4k whirling wrath without it) whereas Wrath of Justice lets you solidly land GS 2 which is key to winning fights when using GS. It's also incredibly satisfying :D

I don't know, I tried a lot gs, and against gold rank even platinum rank spellbreakers (so those guys plays wve for years and have so much experience), i was able to kill them using scepter/focus + sword/shield on swap.

All the times I used greatsword it was good against newbie players who just started wvw for the first time, they don't dodge anything and so the gs hit them fully.

Consider i am just rank 220 and all the times i used gs i ended up killed by those professions.

And one thing to consider is, spellbreaker and warrior are natural counter to guardian, ranger as well, so nothing is easy against very skilled players.

Using scepter and sword I feel my survivability is way higher, and not having the 600 range leap get compensated by the other survivability option that focus and scepter offers.

I know dh is superior as a roamer, but I dont wanna play everyday dh, so i switched to core to have some diversity :)

@whoknocks.4935 said:

I don't know, I tried a lot gs, and against gold rank even platinum rank spellbreakers (so those guys plays wve for years and have so much experience), i was able to kill them using scepter/focus + sword/shield on swap.

All the times I used greatsword it was good against newbie players who just started wvw for the first time, they don't dodge anything and so the gs hit them fully.

Consider i am just rank 220 and all the times i used gs i ended up killed by those professions.

And one thing to consider is, spellbreaker and warrior are natural counter to guardian, ranger as well, so nothing is easy against very skilled players.

Using scepter and sword I feel my survivability is way higher, and not having the 600 range leap get compensated by the other survivability option that focus and scepter offers.

I know dh is superior as a roamer, but I dont wanna play everyday dh, so i switched to core to have some diversity :)

DH is much better at fighting spell-breaker than core guard. It can also quite easily take down a druid or a soulbeast and still stands a good chance against them if they're very skilled.

If you're running core guard, I highly recommend either GS or hammer (which is really the only way you'll be out-doing the ToF burst that DH has). They are harder to use effectively since they open you up for damage and are more predictable but the burst makes them worth it imo. Sw/sh & Sc/F works well, but is honestly more of a dueling setup and at that point, you may as well use DH since DH works much better with that weapon-set than core guard/radiance.

I run the PvP version with hammer. Full valk, agility Air on hammer, energy bloodlust on sword focus. I'm also obviously running travelers.

The only issue I run into is multiple rangers with longbows. Other than that, I pretty much win every single 1v1 and 1v2s. DH would definitely be stronger solo though, possibly with trapper runes.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:You honestly don't lose that much damage from Retribution (10.8k whirling wrath with it vs. 10.4k whirling wrath without it) whereas Wrath of Justice lets you solidly land GS 2 which is key to winning fights when using GS. It's also incredibly satisfying :D

Being able to actually land GS 2 is huge and I agree that you should use that if running GS, but you're underplaying the effectiveness of Retribution.

10% flat damage and 250 ferocity is close to 20% bonus damage. I don't see how you would only see a ~4% damage drop.

@Snowjob.7245 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:You honestly don't lose that much damage from Retribution (10.8k whirling wrath with it vs. 10.4k whirling wrath without it) whereas Wrath of Justice lets you solidly land GS 2 which is key to winning fights when using GS. It's also incredibly satisfying :D

That wasn't a statically viable comparison there, just a couple quick tests on an npc gave me those numbers on average. However, with and without Retribution, I certainly didn't see a >20% damage difference on total whirling wrath damage, I'll tell you that.

Did some tests on the golem and I'm seeing a 15% damage drop which seems about right since signet of wrath provides a little bit of extra damage itself.

I agree sword, shield, scepter, focus is a stronger dueller.What it isn't is a good runner, which is pretty important outside of a formal duel.

Plus, it's super satisfying getting a 5 player binding blade/focus5 off.

In general Hammer is > Greatsword for this build with glacial heart trait being so strong. Also easier to pull of the burst combo as it is almost instant compared with gs#2, it has the option of the ring for you to kite with and an immob with what your getting with scepter.

It can be a bit clunky at first but give hammer-Sword/focus a try, imo it has better damage and a lot more utility.

The main bad thing about it though is the mobility, but that is every guardian build.