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!