GW2 Random Class Discussion: Shiyo Knows Best edition

[Kachiko]

The issue is that there's an argument, on the intwerbs, and it is serious business.

[ronin sparthos]

For such a casual game, there sure is alot of elitist blustering in here.

[Kuishen]

For the record, Thief with an Initiative regen build has amazing Daze and Combo utility and my group loves me for dungeons. I also do 8-15k damage (depending on mob hp) every 3 seconds on mobs where we need neither of those things, as well as having a full toughness build. My build allows me to do tons of damage, never run out of initiative, go through 4-5 stacks of defiant in a row to daze something and when paired with an Elementalist give everybody ridiculous amounts of Might and Healing.

0/30/0/20/20

Furious Retaliation, Critical Haste, Executioner
Power of Inertia, Quick Recovery
Thrill of the Crime, Initial Strike

Dagger/Pistol and Dagger/Dagger + Shortbow. It requires you to actually remember what you're going to be fighting and remember to switch between Dagger/Dagger and Dagger/Pistol before you walk into a fight but if you run any dungeon long enough you know when to do that.

Slot Skills are: Haste, Signet of Agility (Condition Removal) or Shadow Refuge (If we need extra healing, also great for battle rezzing/doing timed activation puzzles in dungeons, between this and haste I can do almost any puzzle like that in complete stealth), and Infiltrator's Signet (For even more Initiative regen and a stun break).

I have all my bases covered. Does the job need a lot of work? Sure. It's far from useless though, being able to go through tons of stacks of defiant instantly is amazing for things you need stunned (Dredge Power Suit boss in Fractals is one of the more recent examples). My main source of damage is of course Dagger/Dagger. I can do CnD/Backstab combo infinitely without ever running out of initiative, doing it every single time Revealed effect wears off (3 seconds).

My gear is full Knights Set, Berserkers Weapons, 4 Berserkers accessories and 2 Knights Accessories. I'll prolly end up switching some of those to vitality based things eventually, but overall been pretty happy with my build.

This is just for PvE though, PvP I run silly bullshit backstab build like everybody else.

[Cjskater]

Regarding Thief in dungeons: they are the blast finisher. In comparison to just that, I can think of worse classes (or a class in particular ) to have in your dungeon. Being a wells build sucks sometimes.

Edit: UNLESS! you're underwater, hell yeah trident and epidemic

[ClarkSammich]

Did they ever fix chilling darkness or w/e it is to work with plague form? The one where you chill enemies every time you blind them.

[Cjskater]

Nope

Honestly though I could see that being kind of overpowered haha

[niwaar]

Title is funny. What's the issue? I want my own title though, Rhyis knows nothing edition.

I could get behind that... but I would rather see a "Rhyis is an ugly Charr" as a title

For the record, Thief with an Initiative regen build has amazing Daze and Combo utility and my group loves me for dungeons. I also do 8-15k damage (depending on mob hp) every 3 seconds on mobs where we need neither of those things, as well as having a full toughness build. My build allows me to do tons of damage, never run out of initiative, go through 4-5 stacks of defiant in a row to daze something and when paired with an Elementalist give everybody ridiculous amounts of Might and Healing.

That's the real kicker. Every profession has the ability to give something in terms of utility and support. Some are more straight forward like the condition removal and healing that warriors, elementalists, engineers and guardians can bring. Some are more prevention like a Pistol Whip thief can bring. The biggest advantage in terms of support a thief can bring though is intelligently used shadow refuge.

Edit: UNLESS! you're underwater, hell yeah trident and epidemic

Bah, everything underwater is painful.

[Celeras]

A+ title.

On topic, thf can be amazing with blast finishers and one of the best defiance removal skills in the game. Some people like to forget that you can CC most bosses pretty effectively if you keep stacks down till you need the control.

[Prothescar]

Fuck Thief. Guardian time! Update on my boons build 2012 super ultra omega vehicle booster power suit 101 200 over 8000. Any Guardians who are lost on how to build, I encourage you to try this out.

I. The Build:

0 Zeal
0 Radiance
30 Valor
20 Honor
20 Virtues




II. Traits:
Valor - Purity, Retributive Armor, and Altruistic Healing are the best you can do, can switch to Meditation Mastery and Monk's Focus over Purity and Altruistic Healing when solo, but any time you're around 2+ other people, Altruistic Healing will be more healing over time provided you're using your skills properly.

Honor - Superior Aria and Two-Handed Mastery are mandatory. You'll find out why later. Depending on how many combo fields your team is throwing down, you may find it beneficial to swap out Two-Handed Mastery with Empowering Might for some extra AH heals and some might stacks for your team.

Virtues - Master of Concecrations is moslty mandatory, however if you end up dropping your consecration(s) for a Meditation when solo, you can switch it to something infinitely less useful like Vengeful or Unscathed Contender. The second greater trait slot for Virtues can see some variation, as both Indomitable Courage and Absolute Resolution are very very nice traits. I generally stick to Absolute Resolution for a handy 3 condition removal on top of a moderately potent team heal, especially if I'm using Renewed Focus (more on that later), however Indomitable Courage can be equally as useful for its stability if you're fighting something that likes to be a dick and spam stuns. Generally, the extra 10s shaved off of passive Aegis and the bonus to Resolve's regen will be better depending on how many targets you're fighting and how hard they hit. They could average out to be the same DR, an extra 10s off of Aegis could be superior to the extra few HP per tic on the regen, or the regen could far surpass the aegis due to aegis being removed very quickly or absorbing a low damage hit.




III. Gear:
Hammer and Staff, carry around a Greatsword and a Scepter/Torch/Focus for situations where you'll need them.

Hammer - In my opinion, this is the most well rounded, balanced weapon that Guardian possess. Fair damage, tons of CC, an interrupt, powerful support on the autoattack, and an incredibly low cooldown Blast finisher that leads to your most powerful source of support. Through self combos and comboing off of your team mate's fields, you'll be pumping out boons like no one's business. More on that later.

Staff - Fantastic support and healing with moderate to minimal ranged damage. Empower is one of the most powerful support abilities in the game, doling out a huge amount of might stacks along with a moderately potent AoE heal. Orb of Light is a decent way of dealing ranged damage if you need to, having only a 3s recast timer if you do not detonate it and packing a wallop if it lands. On that note, detonating the orb gives way to a second AoE heal, much less potent than Empower and much more difficult to use effectively due to it being tied to the projectile and not your character, but it's still useful if you can aim it into a clump of allies who may be clustered around an enemy or summat. Worth noting that, if you do not have a target, the orb will fire to the center of your camera, so you can use your characters shoulder as a faux-iron sights to aim the orb at allies and detonate it right on them. Aside from these two abilities, Symbol of Swiftness is very useful for mobility and a small amount of extra damage while you're waiting for weapon swap to become available after an Empower.

Greatsword - I typically only use this if I don't feel that the support from my hammer will be applicable or necessary. I'd also switch to it if there's a trash pull where the monsters tend to spread apart, as Binding Blade can clump them together nice and snug for some AoE bombs. Other than that there isn't much to say, as the greatsword offers very minimal support through the pull, and in turn interrupt, on Binding Blade and the Blind on Leap of Faith. It's an AoE DPS weapon, something that Guardian doesn't excel at.

Scepter - Very, very limited use in this one. While it's effectively your most potent single target DPS weapon when traited, that doesn't say very much. It requires a massive point investment into Radiance, and will still leave you wondering if you tickled the mob's fancy or actually hurt it. I use Scepter in situations where meleeing simply isn't an option, or I get more efficient damage out of the scepter as a result of the monster being kited or unfriendly to melees. A good example would be the boss phase of the Dredge Fractal, where you're kiting both the Ice Elemental and the Dredge Mining Suit 24/7 to get him under the lava vats. Very limited applications, but always keep one in your bag.

Torch and Focus - These two are basically night and day. Torch is your offensive offhand while Focus is your defensive offhand. Zealot's Flame is a very potent ranged ability to go in conjunction with Scepter's autoattacks and Cleansing Flame offers a bit of support through its condition removal while providing a decent boost to DPS through its channeled fury. Focus gives you a faux-AoE blind/regen through Ray of Judgement and what is essentially a three charge Aegis that explodes for fairly significant close range AoE damage if all three charges aren't used via Shield of Wrath. It's also worth noting that Shield of Wrath is a Blast finisher on its creation, not on explosion.


Weapon Stats - I use all Knight's weapons with the exception of Staff, which is Cleric's, and Greatsword, which is Berserker's. I tend to choose stats that benefit the weapon's role rather than treat them purely as a DPS slot.

Sigils - I use Superior Sigil of Fire in my Hammer, Staff and Greatsword for some extra AoE damage every few seconds. I've got a Superior Sigil of Earth in my scepter for some extra single target damage and Superior Sigils of Accuracy in my Torch and Focus to compliment the sigil of Earth. Superior Sigil of Purity is worthy of mention, and in my opinion is very underrated. It has a 60% chance to remove one condition when you crit with an ICD of 10 seconds, making it very useful for PvP and slightly useful for PvE. Stacking sigils are pretty nice too, and I tend to roll with an extra Staff fitted with a superior sigil of perception for clearing zones or the like, only using it in a dungeon like AC where there's a room or two full of weak monsters to easily build some charges up before a boss or somesuch.


Armor Stats - There's a couple of options here. Personally I use 4 pieces of Knight's armor[Toughness/Power/Precision] (Head, Shoulders, Body, Hands) and 2 pieces of Magi's armor[Healing Power/Vitality/Precision] (Legs, Feet). Guardian has immensely low HP, the lowest HP bracket in the game, a staggeringly small 10,805 base (12,805 with this build's traits). This leads to the allowance of certain monster abilities or player builds to one shot you, which is never fun, and in higher tiers of Fractals it makes managing the damage you're taking from Agony in combination with normal hits and monster abilities much more difficult. The extra boost to HP from a bit of vitality is more than worth losing a few pieces of armor, in my opinion, and is well within the bounds of efficient eHP for this class. You may also choose to go with all Knight's armor, but I do encourage giving a couple of pieces of Magi a try.

Runes - This build is heavily focused around providing support through heals and boons, and as such you'd do best to enhance those fields. Instead of slotting in berserker gems or something of the like, take a look at runes such as Superior Rune of Water and Superior Rune of the Monk. Two of these will give you an extra 15% boon duration, two sets giving 30%. Couple that with the 20% from traits and another 14~20% from food, and you've got yourself some very efficient, long lasting boons. My current rune set is 3/6 Superior Monk + 3/6 Superior Water which ends up giving me +30% Boon Duration and +150 Healing Power. Variations exist, such as 2/6 Superior Monk, 2/6 Superior Water, and 2/6 Major Water/Monk for another 10% boon duation at the expense of 85 healing power. You may also wish to use 2/6 Superior Monk and 4/6 Superior Water, however a 5% chance to remove a condition when you get hit, every 30 seconds, is in my opinion a very, very small bonus and does not at all outweigh the extra 50 healing power that you'd be getting from a third Monk rune. In any case, these runes synergize extraordinarily well with this build, an extra 30% duration on all boons applied to yourself and others along with a decent boost in healing potency being quite nice.


Accessory Stats - Full Cleric's accessories[Healing Power/Power/Toughness] is really the best option here. You could mix in a Magi's piece or two, but those do not come in exotic rarity and are mostly unnecessary if you're investing a couple of pieces of armor into Vitality. You could also choose to stick in a couple of Knight's accessories for some extra crit rate, however you'd be forgoing some healing power in the process (which isn't horrible, mind you, as a majority of heals do not scale very well with healing power, however Virtue of Recolve scales very well with it).

Accessory Gems - You can get pretty creative here instead of just sticking with the vanilla gems that come with the Accessory. Maybe you want to put some Crests of the Magi into your accessories for a bit more HP and crit rate while sacrificing only a little armor, or maybe you want to mix and match some Knight's and Cleric's stats by sticking the opposite gem into the opposite accessory. While mixing and matching is generally not a very effective practice, trying it out isn't very expensive and is easily reversible.




IV. Skills

Your utility slots are pretty malleable depending on the situation. Most of the time you'll want to stick to Shouts and Consecrations, as that's what this build focuses around, however when you're solo you may want to switch over to Meditations for some more efficient healing. I'll outline some of your potential skills while giving some examples of their use:

Shouts
Hold the Line - This one is very useful, as it has a low cooldown and some pretty potent boons attached. Every 28 seconds, you'll be getting a decent burst of healing from Altruistic Healing as well as imparting a 6~8s Protection and 8~11s, fairly potent (2,300~2,550HP) Regeneration on yourself and nearby allies. Useful in most any situation that you'll be taking damage in.

Stand Your Ground - Another low cooldown shout with powerful boons attached to it. Every 24 seconds, not only will you be getting that delicious Altruistic Healing burst, but you'll also be imparting a 6~9s Stability and 6~9s Retaliation effect on yourself and all nearby allies. Once again, this one has a lot of potential applications, however it's definitely more limited than Hold the Line. You wouldn't want to use this in situations where you won't be getting stunned very often (or at all), as the boons and effects from other abilities may be much more useful to you. This one is very nice in places like Ascalonian Catacombs, however, where there's a multitude of monsters with knockdowns, pulls, dazes, and even lots of small, weak, low HP mobs for Retaliation to do some work on. Very powerful ability.

Retreat - This one's got a moderately high recast on it, but it's still manageable. With a 48 second recast time, you'll want to use this more contextually in combat than the others for its Aegis effect, however with a 30~35s duration Swiftness effect it will have a very high uptime for mobility enhancement along with the usual Altruistic Healing burst. I don't use this one as often as the other two, however it definitely has its uses if you're fighting a monster that you know has a powerful attack or two that you can mitigate on yourself and your team mates by using Aegis. The Swiftness is very nice for general mobility and time sensitive events such as the Swamp fractal. More situational than others, but still a very useful ability to keep in mind.

Save Yourselves - Forenote: You should never be thinking about this as a self use ability only. Its primary function in a group is to draw harmful conditions off of your allies. While the immense amount of 14~17s boons is a very nice addition to this, never use it only for yourself, as the gains you'll see from it will very rarely outweigh the support that you could be giving to your team through condition removal or other shouts.

Battle Roar (Charr Only) - I love my race, this is probably the best racial ability in the game. To tie in with your other offensive support opportunities (more on that later!), you can unleash a powerful shout to enhance your team's stopping power even further once every 35 seconds. For starters, you've got an 8~11s Fury effect, which would be nice on its own, but coupled with a 21~25s 2 stack Might effect, this shout is one of the best abilities that you can stick onto your bar. I feel bad for the non-charrs out there.


Consecrations
Purging Flames - As a preface for this section, your Consecrations are going to be just as situational as your Shouts. Never assume that one will always be better than the others. That aside, we'll start off with this one. Purging Flames is a simple ability. Every 32 seconds, you put down a moderately sized ring of flame that lasts for 5 seconds and will remove the conditions of allies standing within it (as well as your own) and burn any foes that stand within it for five seconds. The benefits of this ability are obvious, a moderately low cooldown team condition removal, with a little bit of damage on the side, is a very nice tool to have, especially since it also comes with the highly prized Fire Combo Field. use it in any situation where you know your team is gonna get hit by tons of conditions and where the Stability of Hallowed Ground won't be very useful.

Hallowed Ground - This is one of the best utilities in the game. Every 64 seconds, you can put down a very large ring that lasts for 10 seconds which imparts a 14~18s Stability effect to all allies that stand within it. To get the full duration of the Stability, you'll have to stay in the circle since it pulses a stack each second (with an additional stack at its creation), however it's well worth it and not very difficult to stay inside as the circle is huge. On top of that powerful boon, you also get a Fire Combo Field for some great combo action. Use this one in any situation where you're going to be getting stunned a lot, like AC.

Wall of Reflection - This consecration is the most situational of all, but it's also arguably the most powerful. It has an immensely low cooldown of only 32 seconds, and on use it will generate a moderately large wall in front of you for 10 seconds that will reflect all projectiles back at their source. Ready for the cool part? It works on lots of things that you wouldn't even think were projectiles! You know those Graveling Breeders who spit up hatchlings in AC? Put a wall of reflection in front of their face and prepare to be amazed at all of the bleed stacks that you didn't know you had. The dredge mining suit boss of the Dredge Fractal? Shoot his bombs back at him for massive damage! The possibilities are endless, and it is tons of fun to use. Experiment with it and see what you can knock back at mobs and bosses, and prepare to be amazed... by the main effect anyway. Needless to say, the light combo field is pretty underwhelming, you've got plenty of those already.


Meditations
Smite Condition - As a preface, I'd usually only recommend these for solo only. That isn't to say that a couple of them don't have uses in a group, but this build is centered around group support, not self indulgence, and only one meditation will have any direct effect on your team mates, a poor, uncontrollable effect at that... but more on that later. For now, let's take a look at Smite Condition. Fantastic ability, every 20(16)s, you'll be able to remove one condition and deal a decent amount of AoE damage. While those effects would be nice on their own, when coupled with Monk's Focus you'll be able to turn it into a moderately potent (2000~2200HP) self heal every 16 seconds as well.

Contemplation of Purity - Roughly in the same vein as Smite Condition, this one is a status conversion ability. What I mean by that is, every 60(48 )s it'll take three of your conditions and convert them into boons. You'll always get the boon opposite the condition, so for instance it will turn bleeding and burning into regeneration, vulnerability into protection, and chill into swiftness. This is one of the only meditations that I'd consider using in a group setting since it synergizes so well with Save Yourselves, but other than that it's best left for solo play if you need some condition removal and a moderately high recast 2000~2200HP heal to go with it.

Judge's Intervention - This one's admittedly fantastic, even without traits. Every 45(36)s, you'll be able to break your stuns, teleport directly to any target within a range of 1200, deal a small amount of damage, and set them on fire. Neat, huh? With Monk's Focus you get your 2,000~2,200HP heal to go with all of that, too. Handy.

Merciful Intervention - I wasn't going to put this one down for the same reason that I didn't mention Sanctuary: it sucks. But I feel the need to explain why, no matter how readily apparent it may be. First off, let's look at the recast: 80(64)s. Okay, you say, the same recast as Hallowed Ground, what of it? Well, gentle reader, there's a major difference between these two abilities: Hallowed Ground provides two extended duration boons to yourself and your entire team (if they're nearby). This one heals a single person (or pet. or npc. or NOTHING.) for only a moderate amount of HP (1,400~1,650). Yes, it's bad. It's horrible. Monk's Focus doesn't even work with it if you end up getting targeted yourself. Never use it. Ever. Ever. Ever. EVER.


Elites
Tome of Courage - This is a powerful elite. Every 180 seconds, you can call on the power of the Pagemaster for 30s to provide a variety of support abilities and heals to yourself and allies and give yourself a Protection effect for as long as you stay in the transformation. The first skill for this transform is a basic targeted area heal that scales fairly well with Healing Power. The second is a pseudo-AoE condition removal and blind, it releases a ray of light that bounces between nearby allies and enemies, erasing a condition from any ally that's hit and blinding any foe that it hits. The third skill is a wide, long range conal protection and regeneration blast that is currently bugged and does not take into account Boon Duration for its effect durations, despite listing immensely high durations in the tooltip. Sorry, no 16~19s Protection and Regeneration for now. The fourth ability is an AoE 3s duration daze, useful if not for the fact that it has a huge casting time, allowing ample opportunity for human players to run away or interrupt you, or monsters to interrupt you or maim you mercilessly as you channel it. The fifth and final ability is a very powerful AoE full heal that targets yourself and four nearby allies. Note, I say allies. Not team mates. No. This ability suffers from the same as any other ability that has a cap on the number of people that may be affected. In a party with a mesmer or a ranger? Want to heal the mesmer and the ranger? Too bad son, you're likely going to hit one of their pets instead. In a party with people during a big event and want to heal them? That's unfortunate for you, because you'll probably hit someone else instead. Hopefully this is fixed, but in the meantime it's still a very powerful skill that can turn the tide of battle if you can get it off before being interrupted, or before people run away from its radius and proceed to blame the bad guardian for their deaths. Pff.

Tome of Wrath - Not quite as good as the Tome of Courage, but it definitely has its uses. It's the same exact idea as Courage, but offensive rather than defensive: for 30s every 180s, you will channel the power of Librarawr as you lay siege to your opponents and bolster the stopping power of your allies. Skill one is an AoE nuke that deals moderate damage and burns anything that it hits. Skill two is a powerful enfeeble that cripples and weakens up to five enemies including and nearby your target. Skill three provides yourself and allies in a large, long cone in front of you with 5 stacks Might and Swiftness for a moderately long duration. Skill four is your main reason for using this elite, though, and should be the very first thing that you use as soon as your skill bar comes up: it provides a long duration Fury as well as a 3s Quickness effect to up to 5 nearby allies, including yourself. If you time it properly, you'll be able to use this skill once as the tome is used, and again just as the 30s duration ends, bringing the elite up to a grand total of 6s Quickness along with the other boons that you'll be giving to your team. Skill five is a very large AoE knockdown with moderate damage attached, best used right after quickness as it has a very long casting time.

Renewed Focus - This one's situationally very useful, and is the most underrated Elite that Guardian has. Every 90s, it will give you invulnerability to all damage and effects (besides DoTs that you already had active prior to use) for the entire 3s channel. At the end of the channel, all of your virtues will be recharged. Essentially, this ability has two purposes: one, it allows you to proffer lots of boons, some healing, and some extra damage by allowing you to use all three of your virtues in one short burst, and it also lets you absorb big attacks and effects such as Agony and massive attacks like the Legendary Archdiviner's backbreaker attack, all with half the recast time of the tomes. Never underestimate this ability, and always remember that you may have a situation where it is incredibly useful to have on your bar.


Other Abilities
You're never really going to want to use your utility slot signets or Spirit Weapons in a group setting, nor will you want to use most racials as none of them provide any benefit that you can't get out of your own skills, except better. The only exception would be underwater, where I tend to use Sword of Justice in one of my utility slots since Guardian Underwater sucks dick.




V. Combos
Now for the second half of the build, you didn't think that your support ability came only from shouts and consecrations did you? Absolutely not! Along with your normal weapon skills and utilities, you're going to be putting out a huge amount of support via combo boons. Your hammer has a 4s recast Blast finisher attached if you have Two-Handed Mastery traited, which you should. That means that every 4s, you have the opportunity to throw out an AoE boon based on the fields available. Let's take a look at the ones that will give you the most benefit:

Fire Field: This is the best one, really. When you blast a fire field, you'll be giving everyone around you three stacks of Might for 30~34s. That's fucking huge. Considering that you'll almost always have one or two of your own fire fields set on your bar at any given time, you should always have several stacks of this up on you and your nearby allies. Purging Flames is more efficient at providing this combo, as over a 64s time period (you can use purging flames every 32s and Hallowed Ground every 64) you will be able to get off four Area Might combos if you blast right at the start of each Purging Flame, and right as Mighty Blow comes off of cooldown for the second of each Purging Flame. You should have a nearly 100% uptime on 3~6 stacks of might this way. Hallowed Ground can provide up to three Area Mights during its duration if you, again, use Mighty Blow as soon as you lay down the circle and as soon as it comes off of cooldown twice after that. This will lead to might being down for 30s or more, however you will have 9 stacks of might at a time rather than 6 to help compensate. Area Might in combination with Empower makes Guardian incredible effective at offensive support along with its adept defensive support capabilities. Being a Charr increases this even further by allowing you to maintain a ~31% uptime on Fury. Other classes that may lay down a fire field would be Ranger, Engineer, Elementalist, or of course, other Guardians.

Ethereal Field: If you're running around with a mesmer or two, then you're in pretty good shape for combos. When you're not blasting a fire field, you should be watching for some ethereal fields to make their way onto the battlefield. When you blast an ethereal field, you'll give all nearby allies as well as yourself Chaos Armor for 3s, which provides anyone with the effect active random boons for its duration and all targets who strike them with random conditions. Very powerful, always look to combo off of it. In addition to Mesmers, Necromancers may occasionally put down an Ethereal Field in the form of Spectral Wall, so keep an eye out for that.

Water Field: This is another potent, albeit somewhat rare, field. Rangers and Elementalists may occasionally put down a water field in the form of Healing Rain, Geyser, or Healing Spring, and when you blast it you will heal all nearby allies for around 1,500HP. This heal scales rather poorly with healing power, only 20% of your healing power going toward the base heal of 1320 [1320 + 0.2 * (Healing power)]. Always try to burst a water field if your team needs some patching up, and make sure to tell them to stand nearby if they need some love.

Poison Field: A powerful field that will hit all nearby foes with Area Weakness. Weakness is a very powerful condition that effectively halves damage done by those affected by it. When you're with a necromancer (which has myriad skills that provide the field), a Ranger (whose pets may have an ability that puts down a poison field), or when you're with an Asura (whose racial ability Radiation Field is a poison field), look out for these fields and Blast 'em!

Light Field: Not as potent a combo field as some others, but Light is still nice if you don't have other options. Blasting a light field will provide Area Retaliation for 4~5s. While not as nice as Area Might, Retaliation is still a fairly potent passive offensive boon and should not be ignored, especially if no other fields are present at the time. Engineers, Mesmers, and Necromancers may also put down light fields, but you shouldn't really need to utilize any of them since you'll almost always have your own light field down via Symbol of Protection.

*A Note on Mighty Blow: Mighty Blow may seem like a powerful ability on its own, but in reality its DPS increase is miniscule when compared to chaining together autoattacks. Never put it on cooldown unless you're blasting a field, or you may find yourself missing a combo for just a very small amount of extra damage.




VI. Conclusion
That's it. Way longer than I expected it to be, and no one really cares, but I was bored. New Guardians may get something out of it, so there's that I suppose.

[ClarkSammich]

goddamn
tolstoy up in here

that's a good build though, it can be adjusted a lot depending on what you're doing, too.
0/15/30/20/5 is a great variant for easy content

[Lucavi]

For such a casual game, there sure is alot of elitist blustering in here.

Agreed.

[Prothescar]

Yeah was gonna mention putting some into radiance for solo along with switching to meditations, but it was long already and I didn't want to add spoilers and shit. But yeah definitely, 15 into Radiance for Justice Blind and Burn spam and stuff is very nice to have for solo and easier dungeons/PvE stuff.

[Tagus]

Can you solo dungeons on Guardian? Great guide btw.

[Prothescar]

Presumably you'd be able to solo a couple of the easier ones like CM, but I don't see why you would bother really. Would take quite a while.

[niwaar]

what? lol

Imagination aside... Why are three of your characters naked?

[Tagus]

It's just that kind of party.

[Shiyo]

They're naked cause I don't wanna log in and instantly die at the rich orich to a stupid champion that randomly 1 shots! Every other hairstyle/color looks horrible so I want all my chars to look the same! ;D Which worked out well since I ended up changing my main anyways...since ele is the worst class in the UNIVERSE, and I want my main to look like my favorite model!

[Kiarax]

For the record, Thief with an Initiative regen build has amazing Daze and Combo utility and my group loves me for dungeons. I also do 8-15k damage (depending on mob hp) every 3 seconds on mobs where we need neither of those things, as well as having a full toughness build. My build allows me to do tons of damage, never run out of initiative, go through 4-5 stacks of defiant in a row to daze something and when paired with an Elementalist give everybody ridiculous amounts of Might and Healing.

0/30/0/20/20

Furious Retaliation, Critical Haste, Executioner
Power of Inertia, Quick Recovery
Thrill of the Crime, Initial Strike

Dagger/Pistol and Dagger/Dagger + Shortbow. It requires you to actually remember what you're going to be fighting and remember to switch between Dagger/Dagger and Dagger/Pistol before you walk into a fight but if you run any dungeon long enough you know when to do that.

Slot Skills are: Haste, Signet of Agility (Condition Removal) or Shadow Refuge (If we need extra healing, also great for battle rezzing/doing timed activation puzzles in dungeons, between this and haste I can do almost any puzzle like that in complete stealth), and Infiltrator's Signet (For even more Initiative regen and a stun break).

I have all my bases covered. Does the job need a lot of work? Sure. It's far from useless though, being able to go through tons of stacks of defiant instantly is amazing for things you need stunned (Dredge Power Suit boss in Fractals is one of the more recent examples). My main source of damage is of course Dagger/Dagger. I can do CnD/Backstab combo infinitely without ever running out of initiative, doing it every single time Revealed effect wears off (3 seconds).

My gear is full Knights Set, Berserkers Weapons, 4 Berserkers accessories and 2 Knights Accessories. I'll prolly end up switching some of those to vitality based things eventually, but overall been pretty happy with my build.

This is just for PvE though, PvP I run silly bullshit backstab build like everybody else.

Surprised you can get away with such little HP, doesn't that setup have 12k? I get hit harder than that by AoE stuff on my Guardian sometimes with 3.2k~ armour, lol. This is pretty much how I'd use my Thief if I actually had any desire to play it for dungeons though. I guess the main issue I have with it though is that SB is incredibly unfun and you're forced to use it far too frequently. Mesmer also has just as much control over mobs (well, far more really. I can remove 4 defiant stacks just by hitting F3), superior support, tons of cool situational shit like stealing and spreading buffs and reflecting shit all whilst being able to put out comparable damage to a Thief, with a lot of it being AoE rather than single target burst like thieves. Did I mention the retarded survivability? Yeah, kinda hard to go from one to the other. I have no issues with thief and would gladly take them to any dungeon (actually, our most enjoyable Fractal runs have been with Silverbreeze on her Thief, so whatevs), but there's no doubt in my mind they're pretty low-rung as far as classes go. Let's face it though, unless you're a Guardian or Warrior you're always gonna be a waste of a slot because Anet can't balance for shit.

As for the title and the elitism, she changed it again after I called her out on it and... this is BG, I don't know why you wouldn't expect elitism, no matter how "casual" a game might be.

[Rhyis.]

I would rather see a "Rhyis is an ugly Charr" as a title

Hey. Fuck you.

[Shiyo]

THF is garbage no matter what shitty spec you try to come up with, and that spec sounds like negative damage. Want CC? Invite a necro - insane dmg and FEAR IGNORES DEFIANT., don't need to fuck around with spamming 0 dps headshots and other dumb shit.

Like seriously..dagger/pistol? Come the fuck on, if you want to spam headshot at least MH sword, a fucking warriors autoattack will outdps a dagger/pistol THF LOL. Complete GARBAGE weapon combo.