[Discussion|PvE] Guardian Balance Discussion

A thread for us all to talk about balance, builds, suggestions or questions about the master class Guardian in the most elitist varied side of Guild Wars 2, from Open World to Raids.Really eager to see if we're getting the PoF beta Firebrand or if ArenaNet is changing something about it. Also, loved the buffs to Power DH.

If we are on the topic of the last balance patch I have to mention the staff 1 nerf. I feel like the range was decreased to make tomes more unique.Since each tome 1 skill is essentially staff auto + an additional effect. I think it's a short term solution. If core Guardian's loss has to be Firebrand's gain it would be better to completly rework staff 1.

I have never been a fan of staff outside the WvW so it doesn't hurt me that much. Besides that Guardian looks really strong.

My guess is they felt it was too much reward for too little effort on Staff 1. Haven't used much Staff either.

I had used staff regularly until the past couple years (mostly WvW but some Story), and now favoring GS, Hammer and Scepter/Focus. But I do see why staff had its shaft shortened (pardon the pun).

Everyone I've spoken to about staff' use always saw it in terms of DPS or 'tagging,' which IMO has never been the core concept behind it. It is a utility and support weapon - one that is very powerful when used to its full ability. As an example, its my go-to weapon during the blighting tower phase in DS, using 3-5 exclusively and 1/2 rarely. And it works very well at that. But the AA of Staff-1 had its own utility due to its range, originally at a middle distance (which we didn't have much of). And with an ascended staff its quite powerful (as I learned recently on a casual WvW roam). So they decided to change its range to be effectively melee, which is still useful, but a lot more situational than before.

Staff is still useful in DS and similar situations; so to me there was not much of a nerf involved - just nudging the weapon closer to where they feel it 'belonged.'

I'm a new Guardian, after playing 5 classes to 80 I decided to boost my Guardian to 80 because I'm a sucker for Greatsword and apparently that's a very strong weapon on this class.

Has anyone done some experiments with GS Firebrand, or is the new spec only viable as condi? I have no problems playing as Dragon Hunter in the expansion, but I'm interested if someone already tried it.

@Ceta.7245 Greatsword used to be good for Condi because you could put down Purging Flames and spin inside it with Whirling Wrath for Burning Bolts, but considering so many people spam fields it gets difficult to combo. It might be viable for Power with Aegis spam from Firebrand + Shattered Aegis from Zeal, but it'd be very unstable damage imo, although Mace/Shield gives some Aegis for that purpose. I'm probably going to play Power Dragonhunter because I can explode mobs in Open World.

@Sungak Alkandenes.1369 They could give Staff 1 some healing to give it more Support, but since I don't use it I can't talk much about it.

@Velho.7123 said:@Ceta.7245 Greatsword used to be good for Condi because you could put down Purging Flames and spin inside it with Whirling Wrath for Burning Bolts, but considering so many people spam fields it gets difficult to combo. It might be viable for Power with Aegis spam from Firebrand + Shattered Aegis from Zeal, but it'd be very unstable damage imo, although Mace/Shield gives some Aegis for that purpose. I'm probably going to play Power Dragonhunter because I can explode mobs in Open World.

That's what I'm planning to do in Open World, do you happen to have an up-to-date build for it? I have a general idea but since I'm new on Guardian, I'm glad for every input.

@"Ceta.7245" I use this build, Power DH, for Open World, using an opening rotation to destroy mobs and Save Yourselves for a stunbreak/Fury/Retaliation source.

@Ceta.7245 said:That's what I'm planning to do in Open World, do you happen to have an up-to-date build for it? I have a general idea but since I'm new on Guardian, I'm glad for every input.

I actually think Burst-Bow Dragonhunter is going to continue to be one of the best open world exploration builds in PoF.

All you do is fire a normal shot, throw Spear of Justice, and that sets up a base damage multiplier above 230%, 100% crit chance, and a crit multipler above 250% for Trueshot. 3 buttons and you reliably kill every non-veteran/elite/champ on the map. And because of Renewed Justice, you can turn around and immediately do it again. Absolutely no cooldowns to rely on.

Retreat and Save Yourselves pull double duty. You can use them just for the swiftness when you're running around the map, or you can use them to re-apply aegis and retaliation to maintain your burst buffs against veterans/champions (since they are the only ones that survive that initial burst).

I take mace/focus as the secondary because there are always times when you want to get into an area that's guarded by a bunch of mobs you don't want to spend time killing. In those cases you just swap to Mace/Focus and use Protector's Strike and Shield of Wrath as you're running through, then you can jump ahead with Wings of Resolve, hit Renewed Focus, then jump ahead even further with another Wings to drop aggro. Works really well in open world PvE.

If you need to break a break bar, you've got cripple/vuln/blind, the knockdown from Bane Signet, the Pull from Spear of Justice, and Hunter's Ward.

During events you can stay at range against the Champions, which makes it way easier to avoid getting downed.

2 more years of DH for me.

Guardian will always be my story/exploration main, but I will switch to a support class for fractals/raids.

Firebrand using Radiance will be able to spam Tome F1 #1 in PvE and WvW. So there's that.

Firebrand and Dragonhunter looking great in PvE :smile: never thought we'd have a great Condi build.