Guardian Weapon Chapter One: Sword, Torch

Needless to say from what the community has already seen, the sword will offer some of the most diverse weapon combinations in the game.

As previously mentioned, the sword will offer a balance between offense and defense capabilities. It is a one handed weapon, enabling the player to use an offhand item at the same time. These include the shield, focus, and torch. Each of these have their own skills and traits that will add on top of what the sword already has to offer.

But let's not just dip our toe in the water. A guardian that uses a sword in combat will have several skills and traits at their disposal. Described below are each with a detailed hypothetical situation in which you can use them.

• Sword
• Skills
• Sword of Wrath
• As suggested, this skill makes the enemy suffer from your offensive strikes. The skill essentially gives you two damaging strikes in the space of a swing. It strikes the enemy once when you swing, and then again on the back-swing. Sword of Wrath will bring to the table a steady flow of damage. As it's an offensive ability, best to use it when you need your opponent disposed of efficiently.
• Flashing Blade
• Flashing Blade will blind opponents. Blind means the chance of them to hit you in combat is severely reduced. Handy if you or a targeted ally are getting low on health. Using this skill could be the difference between you or your enemy having to fight for life. Suggestion would be to use it wisely.
• Zealot's Defense
• This is a quite defensive skill but can also dish up some delicious damage. It blocks incoming ranged projectiles. It then can send out magical ranged attacks. Fantastic ability to use against, obviously, ranged enemies you can't get at fast enough.
• Traits
• Courageous Speed
• A fantastic trait of the sword if a guardian has some precision in his attributes. Courageous Speed grants swiftness on critical hits. Swiftness increases your run speed. This will definitely help you run circles around your opponents, or close the distance between a ranged foe after scoring a critical hit on another target.
• Flashing Quickness
• This trait reduces the cooldown on the use of Flashing Blade. This means you will be able to use it more often.
• Perfected Form
• This trait increases the chance to score a critical hit with the Sword of Wrath skill. Perfected Form will have combo use with Courageous Speed. Sword of Wrath will help you score a critical hit, which will then in turn activate Courageous Speed, increasing your run speed.
• Protectors Form
• Protectors Form allows Zealot's Defense to reflect, instead of block, incoming projectiles from enemy attacks. Another trait that corresponds with a skill.
• Sword Mastery
• This traits only comes to a player that defeats several sword masters that are scattered across the Guild Wars 2 universe. It increases the damage dealt with swords by 10%.

As you can see, the sword will offer a quite diverse and versatile range of skills that will help the guardian in many situations.

Personally, the sword will be my weapon of choice. I love supporting my allies and still being able to finish off an opponent if I need to, and I think the sword really offers something in terms of my play style.

Along with the sword, the guardian will be able to use one of three offhand utility items. We'll start with the...

• Torch
• Skills
• Cleansing Flame
• A double-fold skill that shoots out in a cone direction the guardian is facing. Cleansing Flame causes damage to opponents and removes conditions (debuffs) from allies. Has multiple uses: Causing area-of-effect damage to enemies in large scale contact, and providing support to your nearby friends and allies.
• Zealot's Flame
• This skill sets the guardian on fire, burning up to three nearby enemies. I know, sounds awesome. Again, a torch ability that causes damage to multiple foes.
• Zealot's Fire
• I have a sense that the acronym ZF will not get very far. Zealot's Fire launches a ball of fire at one enemy and makes it burn. Burning is a condition that deals damage over time.
• Traits
• Mending Burns
• A trait that is used in conjunction with Cleansing Flame. Cleansing Flame now removes two conditions from allies when used. Excellent for support.
• Zealot's Swiftness
• When combined with Zealot's Fire, this trait grants the guardian swiftness when Zealot's Fire is cast. Great for increasing your run speed in dire situations.

All in all, the torch offers fantastic offensive utility along with a cleansing touch for your team. Combined with the sword, it would be safe to say the combo would offer the guardian class a more offensive play style for those inclined that way.

I hope this has given you some insight to the skills and traits offered by the sword and the torch. Join me next post as we explore the skills and traits that are affiliated with the mace and shield.

Stay tuned!

Guardian Skills Overview

The Guardian currently has over 40 different skills. This list is not yet complete with several blank spaces as found on the Guild Wars 2 wiki.


Players that choose to go with the Guardian class will be in for some nifty customisation with their traits and skills.


Skills and traits will ultimately assist you in creating an unstoppable force against the enemy.


Let's begin with traits.


There are a couple of different traits that will be used to develop your guardian. Primary (character) traits and weapon traits. Primary traits can be split into two categories: Valor and Honor. Several traits in each tree all have separate names and or distinguished as minor or major, minor giving a small advantage to a skill or attribute, and major obviously giving something with a little more substance.


Listed are a few sample primary traits:

• Honor
• Minor
• Minor Vitality
• +10 Vitality
• Minor Toughness
• +10 Toughness
• Major Precision
• +25 Precision
• Major
• Superior Power
• +75 Power
• Valor
• Minor
• Shielding Hands
• Your allies receive Aegis when you revive them
• Bond of Wrath
• Your allies gain Might and Smite
• Major
• Altruism
• Virtues recharge faster
• Resolution's Renewal
• Gain more health from Virtue of Resolve

Of course, you're probably wondering what all these terms mean. Allow me to explain the attributes briefly (more expanding on these with a later post).

In Guild Wars 2, there are going to be four attributes that all characters will have. It is one layer of the customisable features for you character. The four attributes are Power, Toughness, Vitality and Precision. Boosting an attribute will in some way, shape or form give your character a benefit in a particular area of combat. They do the following:

Power

If you're into blowing your opponent away offensively, this is the attribute that you will want to enhance. Power increases all damage done through melee, ranged and magical means.

Toughness

Toughness is a defensive attribute. Increase your toughness if you want to withstand damage from your character. It is particularly effective against lots of small damage outbursts from an opponent. It will not increase your health as such, that is left for...

Vitality

If you want your character to have a massive health pool, you'll have to in some way stack Vitality. Vitality will help a lot with absorbing large incoming blows, and will help you stay alive a lot longer.

Precision

If you like critical hits, Precision is for you. Up the precision for your character and you will find you will score more critical hits on an opponent, effectively increasing your damage output.

Of course, the way attributes work mechanically and with each other as part of the game are a little more complicated, but that is the essential drift of them.

Jumping back into Traits, the other type of trait you will have to inevitably think about are weapon traits. Each weapon trait is determined by the weapon you wield. The Guardian will be able to use the following weapons (with a recommended use):

• Two-handed
• Hammer
• Close range AoE (Area of Effect) attacks
• Greatsword
• Increase allies movement speed, also known as swiftness, or dictate foes with leaping attacks
• Staff
• Defensive support for allies and AoE warding and controlling of enemies
• Main-hand
• Mace
• A good support weapon, chain attacks
• Scepter
• Effective for single target offensive spellcasting
• Sword
• Provides balance of offense and defense
• Off-hand
• Focus
• Provides balance of offense and defense
• Shield
• Great for defending against AoE attacks
• Torch
• Deals damage to enemies while cleansing allies
• Aquatic
• Spear
• Excels in close range with rapid attacks
• Trident
• Magically provides long range support

Several other traits will be able to be used with each weapon. All of which I'll cover in later posts as this is supposed to be an introduction!

Going on from weapons, the Guardian will have a particular skill set. Although the weapon of choice will dictate to an extent the skills you can use, there will be other core abilities available.

In the next post, I'll start from step one and begin to show you what skills can be used with which weapon, and shed some insight on which situations would be best to use them.

Until then, keep it geeky!

Protector of the Forests

The Story Continues...


The sylvari stood as strong as a redwood; unmovable, unshakable, peering upon


The young sylvari had not always been this way. Born from the Pale almost ten years ago, Tomalmir Oorwedd wandered from his origin. He sought after the meaning of life, what the world outside of The Grove had in store. He hated what he saw; slavery, war, injustice. A burning desire ran through his golden blood to protect the innocence of his race.


The undead continued to attack the children of the towering Pale Tree. By the time Tomalmir had been awakened for five years, he had buried over five hundred skulls.


A turning point for Tomalmir's destiny came when a undead wave entered the Grove and slaughtered two of his closest relatives. His younger brother Remmoy, of the same branch, didn't stand a chance as the undead tore the leaves and bark to the core. He was never found. Tomalmir swore from that day forward to protect those living at the Grove, regardless that his nature encouraged and teased him to adventure the land.


From there sprouted the guardian within him. With the commitment he was blessed with special abilities to allow him to protect the yet-to-awaken sylvari.


As he ventured the Grove and continued to slay undead, he one day came across a human named Julius whom had been badly injured. An incredibly interesting being, Tomalmir nursed Julius' wound back to health.


Julius told Tomalmir the mysteries of the world. It gave Tomalmir a release of the urge to adventure and it wasn't long before the two became close friends.


Soon after, Julius founded the Forest Keeper. It was a small group of beings dedicated to studying and caring for the Grove.


Tomalmir looked at the pathetic human that stood trembling before him. What he had witnessed was treacherous. The world his people had awoken into was tainted and it needed cleansing.


He stepped forward and saw his target's eye widen with what appeared to be horror.


"What do you call yourself, creature?" queried Tomalmir, taking another step forward.




To be continued...



The Blog




The play style of the Guardian in Guild Wars 2 is very appealing to me. I love to play with my friends and as a part of a team. The Guardian screams out support, which was the one thing that put the icing on the cake when choosing a profession to play.


Over the coming posts, I'll be covering the different skills and abilities available to the Guardian. Also covered will be where, when and how each can or will be used, along with the benefits and the conflicts.


Of course, because of the way the skills function, we'll also take a peek into the different options that become available through your choice of weapon.


I really look forward to researching and showing you all the Guardian profession has to offer. The functionality and dynamics of the class are unique and have so much to offer.


Keep it geeky!

Profession of Devotion: Guardian

The Story Begins...

This is a story of legend, birthed from battles of old and tales told from grandfather to grandson over the camp fire.

The fog had set in thick and heavy. The moon could barely keep it's light shining through the ominous clouds. It was already cold; the ground was damned to frost the entire night. The sounds of armour chinking and hooves clapping and the scraping of wooden wheels on the dusty road rang throughout the surrounding meadows. In the distance a farm house stood, light from the fire dimly shone through the windows, smoke puffing out of the chimney.

It was almost pitch black now. All torches snuffed to prevent the small raid group from being seen. They all dismounted and tied their stallions to the nearby fence, already moist from the on-setting dew.

Very slowly and crouched as close to the ground as possible, they crept along the ground to a small embankment three-hundred yards from the lone house. The captain, a human by the name of Rufus Carrion, signalled to his team silent charge instructions, ensuring his movements didn't make too much noise. The aim was to breach the house doors and take the family inside alive. They really only needed their target, a man by the name of Julius Grover. They would use the rest of the family as leverage. Threatening loved ones of captives usually ensued immediate obedience to orders.

The house backed onto a forest. Unsure of what was in the forest, the aim was to bring the prisoners out they way the party went in. All they had to do was bundle the family into the wagon and take them to their boss. Rufus was unsure what his boss needed Julius for, but that wasn't his concern, he was getting a handsome wage from this job.

Carrion gave the final signal and the group of five stood and sprinted to the house. Once to the front door, Carrion waited for two of his team to get to the backdoor.

"Five, four..." Carrion whispered under his breath.


It happened in slow motion. The door flung open wide and slammed hard against the wall. The elementalist in the group put down a wall of fire to prevent escapees. Screams of despair echoed through the hallway as the family of five was dragged out into the living room. Smoke now thick from the fire, Rufus' eye caught more light coming through the window facing the forest. It was not a light of natural origin, it was mystic.


Rufus ordered the group out of the house to start towards the horses and wagon. The light from the forest filtered through the trees. Rufus stayed behind to check it out. The light had now piqued his interest, he had to know what it was.


He stooped toward the great forest, lined firstly with small shrubs and bushes then backed by ominous trees that sent shivers down one's spine. The ground  now laden with dew and frost, glistened with unfathomed beauty.


All of a sudden, a figure stepped out of the overgrowth. Light shone from the shield it was carrying. Rufus froze in awe. No-one had come face to face with the defender of the forest and returned to tell the tale.


"Wh-Who are you?!" Rufus demanded the figure.


Although he still appeared quite young, and his body was not yet fully developed, the figure answered with great authority. "I am protector of the forests, devoted conqueror of evil, champion of the sylvari, and guardian of the forest keeper. I am your fate, your mediator, your nightmare."


To be continued...




The Blog


I hope you like the beginning of my character's back-story and you find it entertaining as the story and blog evolves. More information will be revealed about my character's past and his adventures in the near future.


Welcome to Hammer of Wisdom, my name is Michael Fox. This blog is dedicated to the gameplay of the Guardian profession in Guild Wars 2, specifically but not limited to PvP (player versus player) combat.


I'm going to cover the ups and downs of the Guardian, explore it's limits and show you exactly what can be done. Whether you plan to play a Guardian on the release of Guild Wars 2, there may be something to learn about the profession as you come up against it, or group with it, when you play the game.


Topics of discussion of the Guardian profession will include the abilities and traits, PvP tactics and scenarios, types of play style, attributes and more!


I'm huge on community, so feel free to leave comments and feedback. I'd love to hear from you.


Live long and prosper!