Quick, get behind my Aegis!

The guardian was revealed today, as promised. There is a lot of information about it on a number of other sites and blogs here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (forgive me if I missed one or two or half-dozen reviews). After a dearth of ooey gooey GW2 info goodness, we are blessed with a new profession and lots of answered questions about it. And still, after reading all of the reviews I could find, I (and I’m sure many of you) still have lots of questions about it.

I’m assuming you’ve read at least one article about the guardian by now. I’m also assuming you know what a Blue Mace Lady (BML) or Blue Mace Dude (BMD) is. If none of this is ringing a bell, please click on any of the links above and get better acquainted with the profession of Logan Thackeray.

Blue Mace Lady

I must say I am impressed by this new profession. There was a lot of discussion leading up to what it would ultimately be, but I like the result. I’ve called it paragon 2.0 and monk 2.0 in the past, but it truly has aspects of several GW professions, including ritualist. I am actually very excited about the Spirit Weapons and how much they function like GW1 spirits. A lot of people are comparing them to rit’s weapon spells, but I honestly see them more as spirits or minions, at least as far as functionality is concerned.

I am also very excited about the crowd control capability of this profession. It functions a lot like a necromancer through strategic use of offensive and defensive spells that frequently do little more than upset a foe’s tactics. Wards are great for this. What can I say, I like a tactical profession.

I’m not sure who won the bet on the unique quality of the guardian. Someone was talking about stances and I’d love to give him/her credit for coming the closest (to my knowledge) of predicting it. Virtues are what separate a guardian from others. I think they are great because they are natural buffs that help with solo play and they are party buffs/boons/etc that do not take up a skill slot. I think we will see that, while on paper (on screen?) these appear to be weak or have long cool downs, but in practice they will be more helpful than we think. It’s like carrying a 10% mod on a weapon in GW. You equip it and it helps you in the background.

I plan on making a charr guardian character.

Overall, I’m happy with this new profession. It has aspects of several GW professions that I have had less experience playing, but it is also a strong melee character in its own right. I like the crowd control ability of this profession and its similarities to the GW ele/necro regarding wards, wells, and symbols. I’m also very excited to explore the two-handed melee combat possibilities and like how much this profession is a cross between melee and caster. It is a nice blend for my taste.

I’m curious about how the monk/paragon/ritualist became the guardian as far as lore is concerned. Perhaps I’ll explore this idea in another post.

Vanquishing Kryta in Style

Let me start by saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That being said, let me also say “Variety is the spice of life.” There are hundreds of zones in Guild Wars to vanquish and to undertake a task such as Legendary Vanquisher, one must have a plan. I’ve blogged about vanquishing before and there are many other blogs devoted to the subject (e.g., A Tyrian Odyssey), but I haven’t blogged about it in a while and according to my year in review, that’s what people are reading about.

Now, about variety. Sabway, Discordway, Spiritway, and all of the other team builds ending in -way (see here for all the “great” vetted team builds on PvX wiki) work well. Many of them will allow you to breeze through the majority of areas in hard mode and offer a “let the hero do the work for you” style of play. This is fantastic if you’re going to vanquish the world. In fact, I’ve ctrl+c, spacebar’d my way through gobs of areas while watching reruns of Scrubs and How I Met Your Mother. It works too well and, frankly, makes for boring game play.

I don’t play games to be bored.

So, I decided to do something nice with the remaining areas. I have less than 20 and they’re all in Tyria. I finished the Shiverpeaks over Christmas break, because who could pass up all that snow? What remains are about half-a-dozen areas or so in each of Kryta, Maguuma, and the Crystal Desert. Why not have some fun with it?

I intend to use the same group of 3 heroes for the remainder of Kryta (more on that in a moment). As for the dozen or so zones remaining in Maguuma and the desert collectively, I think I’m going to work my way through my heroes and try new things. I have many of my heroes equipped, but not all of them. I foresee this costing me a small fortune in runes and weapon mods (yes, I know I can recycle to keep the costs down). I’ll post about them as I vanquish with them.

As for Kryta, I have the Shining Blade Dream Team. I am a N/X running my traditional SS PvE build consisting of Spiteful Spirit, Pain Inverter, EV Assassin, EV Sniper, Enfeebling Blood, Weaken Armor, Barbs, & Mark of Pain. I am also decked out in my Shining Blade Uniform.

Left to Right: Belzan, Livia, Gwen, Kieran Thackeray

For my heroes, I tried to cover my bases. Livia has always been my N/Rt, but for this case I specced her as a bomber/prot hybrid (Jagged Bones, Bone Minions, Death Nova, Masochism, Reversal of Fortune, Prot. Spirit, Aegis, & Renew Life).

Gwennie has always been my interrupter, and that hasn’t really changed. I’m essentially running a Keystone Mesmer build with her and have enjoyed running signet heavy builds in the past on my own mesmer (though I haven’t played her since this build became popular). Her exact build is Keystone Sig, Sig of Clumsiness, Unatural Sig, Sig of Disruption, Sig of Distraction, Mantra of Inscriptions, Symbolic Celerity, and Sig of Return. I am a big fan of Symbolic Celerity and love the guilty pleasure that comes from maxing out my Fast Casting and getting the bonus to my Sig of Return.

As for Keiran (hooray for a new hero!!!), I saw no sense in putting a spear in his hand, so he will forever be a P/R. I’m running a modified Motigon build that emphasizes using a shortbow and zealous string to recoup some of the energy loss from the build. His skillbar is as follows: Volley, “Go For The Eyes!”, Song of Restoration, Aria of Resto, Ballad of Resto, Aria of Zeal, Aggressive Refrain, & Signet of Return.

The way I see it, I can’t split up Gwennie and Keiran. They’re married afterall. Livia is a member of the Shining Blade and I’m vanquishing in Kryta. Based on my Shining Blade logic, however, I should prolly switch Gwen out for Hayda and run a Command Hero build. How funny would it be that I’d be running 2 necroes and 2 paragons though?

So that’s that. I’m not sure what order I’ll vanquish in, but I’ll be sure to blog about it. I’ll post my builds and (hopefully) my success stories. I am happy to indulge any hero combination ideas. I plan to take triplets out for some of the zones (i.e., all 3 warriors, all 3 rangers, monks, eles, dervs, and paras). In fact, I think I might make it my initial goal to find a successful team build for each trio of like-professioned heroes (clearly that has been done to death, pun intended, with necroes). To be continued…