Author: Crow
Published underauthorization of Crow.
"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.
-Sun Tzu "The Art of War"
Read This Disclaimer First!
Firstly, I don't claim to be the master of all things guardian. This writing is simply intended to be a general guide to leveling a Guardian; not the end-all-be-all bible of dominating as one. This guide is a result of my experiences thus far and I am writing it to provide a compiled database of answers to a lot of the questions I see here on the guardian forums. This guide also assumes that you have some basic knowledge of the guardian class, such as what most combos and abilities do. If you are looking for that type of information keep this wonderful guide here open in a separate tab for reference. With that said, lets get to it.
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Update/Change Log:
6-6-2008: The initial guide (v1.0) was completed and posted.
6-7-2008: Updated to (v1.1). Added the Advanced Tactics section as well as tweaked (v1.0) with various adjustments, grammar and spelling fixes.
6-10-2008: Updated to (v2.0). Made several adjustments and tweaks to the entire guide in response to the recent overreach nerf. Added new feats and combos as well as a template level 60 and 70 build. Added a "Gear" section under "The Basics".
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Table of Contents:
Ctrl+f is your friend!
1. The Basics
1a. Why Sword and Shield over Polearm?
1b. Combat Theory
1b.A. Primary Combos
1b.B. Secondary Combos
1b.C. Stances
1b.D. Manuevers
1b.E. Stratagems 1c. Feats
1c.A. Juggernaut Feats
2c.B. Soldier Feats 1d. Skills
1e. Gear 2. Solo Tactics
2a. General Combat
2b. Multi-Mob Combat 3. Advanced Tactics
3a. Weapon Swapping
3b. Stance Dancing and Advanced Combat Tactics __________________________________________________
1. The Basics
In the beggining, God created the Sword and the Shield.
Playing a Guardian is a very fun and very rewarding experience. There's nothing like standing toe to toe with a group of mobs 4-5 levels higher than you and watching them chip away at your massive health pool hopelessly. We will be taking advantage of the fact that you are an unstoppable mountain of steel when wielding the sword and the shield and augmenting that with damage the best we can. To get started, lets cover the basics that you will need to know for leveling a guardian.
1a. Why Sword and Shield over Polearm?
There is really no contest here, for solo questing/grinding/general owning its sword and board all the way. I have played on both sides of the feat tree and I can honestly tell you it is a huge difference. The negligible loss in damage capability is more than made up for in the survivability and utility of the juggernaut tree. With the sword and shield I have found that I am able to take on multiple mobs that are upwards of (and sometimes exceeding) 5 levels higher than me; and survive with plenty of breathing room to boot. The Tempest tree just doesn't offer much in terms of survivability and will not be able to survive a clash with a group of mobs that collectively has 15 levels on you. Not only does the sword and board spec offer the best survivability and sustained damage capability, it also brings some pretty nice burst damage to the table. The only thing I can think of that a Tempest guardian has over a Juggernaut guardian (remember that this is a leveling guide) is a substantial reach advantage; but what good is that when your dead? Trust me on this one, pick up a sword and a shield and you won't be looking back at your polearm spec because the only thing you will see is a massive trail of bloodied corpses and a whole crap ton of EXP.
1b. Combat Theory
Here I will break down very generally how combat should be done as a juggernaut guardian; dividing combo usage into primary and secondary priorities as well as covering the self buffs (stances, maneuvers and stratagems). Basically you are a porcupine; a giant, menacing porcupine with the unquenchable desire to kill things.
1b.A. Primary Combos
These are combos that should be used just about every single fight.
1. Counterstrike
This is your staple ability as a Juggernaut guardian, allowing you to immediately and automatically counter the attacks of enemies struck by the combo. It is your main source of damage and should almost without question be the opening combo of every fight. Most 1v1 fights will end before the duration expires but clashes with multiple mobs may require a second application. It is important to understand that you will only counterstrike mobs that are PHYSICALLY STRUCK by the final swing of this combo, meaning just because you have the personal buff up DOES NOT mean you are counterstriking everyone who hits you.
2. Dulling Blow
This is another staple combo that should be used almost every fight following your opening counterstrike. It deals nice damage as well as noticeably reduce the amount of damage dealt by the mobs struck by it. Its effectiveness really shines in multi-mob combat where fights last much longer. We will also be powering this up through feats, making it one of your best damage and utility combos.
3. Directional Attacks
No this is not a joke. There will be plenty of times during your career where all that is needed to down a mob is to follow up a counterstrike with dulling blow and spammed directional attacks. When doing this, always attack undefended directions and keep in mind that your left attack (default 1) is your quickest directional attack. When your enemies shielding favors it, always spam it as it pumps out the most DPS.
4. Strike and Guard (Post 60 only!)
In the wake of the catastrophic nerf to overreach (6/9/08), many guardians have been left searching for a way to fill the now gaping burst damage void. Look no further my friends, "Strike and Guard" is the new Overreach (kind of). Though not nearly as powerful as its once great distant cousin was, strike and guard will be a mainstay ability for this build for the foreseeable future. Its opening strike stuns, it deals excellent damage and it buffs your survivability for a short duration after; making it the perfect replacement for the now mediocre overreach. You do have to wait quite awhile before you can get it but it will be well worth the effort by the time you do. 1b.B. Secondary Combos
These are filler combos used for damage or for other various effects that support your primary combos.
1. Brutal Enraging Strike/Overreach(or insert other damage oriented combo)
This is a basic damage combo. Its nothing too spectacular but, if need be, it can be used to pump out some extra damage when your stamina reserves are high. Generally, you will only need to use this when fighting multiple mobs.
Since "Overreach" was nerfed into the ground on 6/9/08, it is no longer a primary combo for guardian leveling. It still deals decent damage but its steep stamina cost and resulting damage debuff make it much less useful. However, it can still be used at the end of a fight for extra burst damage and it can still be used with the advanced tactics later on in the guide (just don't expect too much from it). Until you get ˇ®Strike and Guard" at 60, you will still want to be using this for leveling.
2. Plexus Strike
This is great combo to use when you need to gain stamina in a pinch. Its damage is next to nothing but it will allow you to pull off a last second damage combo during a "last stand" situation. Keep in mind that you receive stamina for each target struck by the combo, so make sure to get yourself into a position where you can strike all engaged mobs when you need to use it.
3. Shield Sweep
I shouldn't have to point this out but you obviously always want to have this ability on your hot bar. It is a great knock back and can hit multiple targets. Use it to escape undesirable situations or set up attack combos (more on this in the Advanced Tactics section).
4. A second Counterstrike
Ever screwed up your counterstrike combo and then felt like a DPS-less wimp until it finished cooling down? Avoid this disaster by always keeping a second rank of counterstrike on your hot bar. Each rank is on a separate cooldown so you can quickly recover from a botched initial application with a lower rank if need be.
Side Note: As of the time of this writing it is possible to stack multiple ranks of counterstrike, meaning that you will actually deal the counterstrike damage multiple times (one strike for each rank you have active) when struck. Please note that this has "unintended effect" written all over it and it should not be relied upon as it will likely soon be changed. Feel free to utilize it until then however.
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