Anyone play a guardian during the beta events?

I'm really trying to decide what I'm going to play once the game goes live.  Anyone have any experience with the Guardian?  I like the fact that they can do a little bit of everything in terms of defensive, offensive, and healing skills.  I just didn't get to try it out enough to know how effective it was.

Thanks!

I played a guardian to 15 and will admit I have struggled with weather or not to make it my main (the Elementalist is a close second). I love the way it uses it's buffs to either save for myself or pass them onto others. Once you figure out the different weapon skills you'll know what to use and when to use it. (2H'rs for the win!) If I don't end up choosing the Guardian as my main it's defiantly my #1 alt.

I've played guardian to about 15ish and I love them, but like the warriors range option better. I will probably make a warrior first.

I spent some time looking through the traits and skills for both warrior and guardian, and hitting some training dummies. I leveled a warrior to 28 or so, too. My impressions -- warrior does more DOS with much higher burst, and has more/better ranged DPS options. Both doing buffing/support. Guardian is more tanky. Guardian also has more/better team healing options. The Tome of Healing elite (not the exact name) seems like it could pump out a lot of heals. In other games it might be called a Paladin, but to be honest, I don't think the classes are as distinct from one another in GW2 as in other games ('cause of the no holy trinity thing). So, Paladin-ish.

» Edited on: 2012-07-26 04:47:34

I played the guardian to lv 10 in the beta. I'll definitely have at least 1 guardian character. My impression was overall good, very tankish/defense oriented feel. They don't have any really aggressive abilities, most are focused on protection or defense. So overall i felt they were the defense to the warriors offense. Engineer is still going to be my main though. Can't beat the fun of dropping grenades off the walls in WvW.

Played to level 13 or so. Very nice class, will have my 2nd character a Guardian.

I got a guardian into her 30's since they did not wipe characters from BWE1 through the last stress test prior to the Final BWE. I really enjoy it and I'm not usually the more tanky playing type of gal, but this I enjoyed. Lakshmi is right in that it has a paladin feel, but not entirely. I find that the combo I have most often is great sword and staff, but the hammer as well as the mace and shield aren't bad either. What WvW I did get into I found what I did most of the time was play guard while we banged on doors and walls keeping guards and enemy players off the siege and doing buffing and healing to help keep people alive. Definitely need to really play around with it more, but Briseadh is going to be a guardian in the game. I played a thief this past weekend and I'm thinking my Asura named Cliste will be in live as well. I had fun with her.

Guardians along with heal spec water elementalists are probably going to be one the better professions adept at keeping others alive. I played one awhile and it was quite difficult to kill me. Granted I didn't do a ton of damage, but I liked that I lasted quite awhile.

Interesting. So it seems like the guardians do exactly what they were intended to do. ;) I guess I just have to make the decision as to what I want to do. DPS or support.

Hi, This is my first real post, but I have a Guardian that got up to a decent level in the beta so I thought I should go ahead and jump in. DPS wise the Guardians do pretty good in melee as they get to run around with greatswords. Leap in to battle and lay waste to all around you. If they start to run, drag them back with Binding Blade. Just make sure you have an exit strategy or don't bite off more than you can chew if you're in WvW. :) They can deliver decent damage at range, enough to kite veteran mobs and pick off targets in WvW at least. The problem is it's primarily single target and only mid-range. Either way the key is their ability to apply burning damage. Frequently and lots of it. You can also get in there with your spirit weapons. That's the route I went. The hammer and greatsword can put out a lot of damage. I think the hammer has an AOE as part of it's attack chain. I know it has a wicked knock back. The greatsword is an AOE for sure. The build I was using also had the spirit weapons causing burning with every strike. It was good for PvE and not bad for WvW skirmishes. That tied up a lot of trait points focusing on the spirit weapons though as well as taking up two utility skills. I traded a lot of support for damage. The nice thing about those weapons is once they aggro, they'll hunt your enemies down. No direction needed. Summon your sword and hammer, tag an enemy with your scepter, then watch the weapons tag team your target. Knock downs, knock backs, and fire everywhere. Considering they have access to lots of Light field skills they can also excel at condition removal via combos. I'll admit I didn't experiment with that much myself though. I've only started doing research on that recently via the official Wiki due to getting melted in WvW one time too many where I burned my target to the ground, but then ended up bleeding to death or collapsing from poison. I mainly focused on trying to remove conditions via single skills. Now I think I was going about it the wrong way. Actually now that I think about it with the right build a guardian might be able to help strip conditions with combos while keeping their spirit weapon buddies. Something to think about anyway. Oh and it doesn't hurt that they're the only other heavy armor class besides warriors. So hey...there's a wall of text on Guardians. :)

» Edited on: 2012-07-30 15:28:48

I played a guardian to 15ish for BWE2 and BWE3. It's hard to tell with limited play experience and really only having seen the low level part of the game (well and some lvl 80 WvW). I'm hoping I'll continue to enjoy 'em. I'm not sure if the limited options for range will become off-putting in WvW. I very much like it for PvE and am planning to put my "best" name on a guardian character. (have to confess, I've often been wrong about which character will become my main in a new MMO).

I played a Guardian in BWE3. Only made it to lvl 11 and was not totally sure what I was doing but stuff was dieing and I was living. It was fun setting everything on fire! After researching the class and different builds I am planning to go Scepter/shield and greatsword. Jump in, light em up and then turtle till they die. I think if you like playing defensive you will enjoy Guardian.

» Edited on: 2012-08-12 12:11:03

here's a really good overview of the class from team legacy:

» Edited on: 2012-08-06 15:48:45

My first main was my Guardian. I picked it for the healing and wasn't disappointed. I made it to level 20 and found the mace option to be perfect to support the groups was in and for that reason I'll probably put Urakh on a Guardian. BTW Really good link Denji. :)

I, too, am looking at Guardian as a "main." I expect to be pairing up with my better half and he tends to go warrior but I have not got him pinned down on that, yet. Thanks for the information posted here.

If you are wanting to heal, I also recommend trying Sylvari for their ground targeted racial AoE healing. It may not be alot, but with your other healing abilities it adds up :) They had it for the last BWE anyways hehe

Back in first BWE I initially started with Guardian and tested warrior. Every BWE since I have played Guardian. I love the class, survivability, and adaptability. I loved the Norn as a Guardian as well. At first I stuck to sword/mace and shield and then moved to scepter/torch. In the last BWE I found the power of the Great Sword. I raged through enemies faster it felt to me. I know I will have a Norn Guardian. I can't predict if it will be my main. My second love is the Engineer class. Don't tell my wife she already thinks I am disturbed.

I had a Sylvari guardian in beta up to level 40, found that guardians were very survivable especially with 1hd sword and focus. 2hd sword was great for dps and staff was awesome for heals.