Guild Wars 2

My main in WoW was a prot pally and I loved playing and leveling that toon.
While going through the professions’ descriptions I find Guardian to be near-comparable to a prot pally.

I will be using a 1 Hander and a Shield (as anything else does not give me that ..“tank”..feel : ) )
I do not care how long it takes me to kill a mob as long as I stay alive.
Also I am in no rush to reach the max cap..just want to enjoy my questing with a 1H/Shield.

How durable is this profession for solo leveling/questing ?.
Which spec in this profession is the most tankiest ?

The Guardian is one of the best tanks in the game if you are going PvE. Mace/shield should do you very well. Problem is there is very little call for tanks except in Raids. Most people don’t go guard tank, they do zerker or more rarely condi.

It can also do a lot of good damage with a hammer or greatsword for group work, especially when combined with Dragonhunter traps and bow.

Take a staff too, useful for when in a large group and you need to tag everything rather than do damage.

Mostly my Guard is used in dungeons, fractals and raids.

I use a condi warrior for farming Orr, it is very unlikely to die at all.

Hi

having played guard a lot i can tel you that most of your survivability lies in your skills.

You stay alive in this game by dodging(available for all classes) and utility or weapon skills that let you block, evade or interrupt an incomming attack. Outhealing damage is not so much a thing in this game as everybody as some skills that heal, and other classes are better suited for a dedicated healer use in raids or WvW. Guardian offers lots of blocks, some blinds and good projectile defence but you need to adapt to the given situation. Wall of reflection is a great skill, better even if traited, but only if there are projectiles to reflect. If there are not it’s better to use another skill that gives you stability for example. I’d say guardians have high survivability if you know what you’re doing. They still have rather low HP, and can feel squishy if you don’t time your heals and bocks and whatnot.
Concerning the gear you wear. The better you put your skills to use the less defensive stats you need on your gear. That’s true at least for the PvE side of things. I started with knights stats(Pow, Prec, Tough) but made my way to full berserkers gear now.

Mace/Shield gives you one block, a heal field, some projectile defence and a heal as part of your AA. Focus however is more tanky in most ppls oppinion since it offers you an additional block that will also damage foes if not broken and a bouncing projectile that blinds foes, making their next attack miss.
I never really got used to guardians one-hand sword so i might be a bit biased about it. I personnaly prefer hammer as melee weapon of choice. It provides a protection field, has good CC skills and a low CD blast finisher.

Your other weaponset should be a ranged option for general PvE. Scepter and Longbow(Elite spec available once you reach Lvl80) are more DPS oriented while staff is not as good in regards of support/tankyness as one might wish. However, staff provides you with near permanent swiftness which makes it faster to get around. Skill 2 hits quite hard and has a low CD, line of warding is a very sitational skill and empower may give you the temporary burst needed for some situations but also has a long casting time that roots you. Every now and then it comes in handy that the AA is an AoE cone in front of you that passes through walls. I’d still go for staff for leveling.

For traits, you want to find something that suits your playstyle and that’s fun for you to play with. I liked shouts and there’s a traitline to improve them, shorten CD’s, make them remove condis. I went with that and virtues to improve my F1-F3 skills. Since shouts, and a lot of other things a guard does, grants boons to myself and allies I went for the trait with Altruistic Healing. Topped that with Runes of the Trooper to further improve shouts and stack a little bit of Tough/Vita. That’s it. But you can go for what you most enjoy doing and go from there if you really don’t care how fast a mob dies or long something will take.

gl and hf

1) How Durable is Guardian for Leveling?
– Very Durable, but at a steeper learning curve than Warrior or Necromancer. Guardian requires intricate knowledge of your utility skills and specializations; because of their low HP Pool (It’s the lowest in-game alongside Thief and Elementalist) they can’t properly facetank everything with a shrug of their shoulders. Guardians rely heavily on Aegis (The Boon), Healing and other Active Defenses in order to sustain themselves in Combat.

2) Which Spec is the Tankiest?
– First things first, in GW2 the idea of Tanky Gear is generally that it acts as a buffer while you’re learning the Profession. As you gain better and better at managing your Endurance, Cooldowns, Boons, Healing and Active Defenses, you’ll be able to progress away from typically “Tanky” stats to full DPS. Outside of Raids, there are no clear-cut Tanking mechanics, meaning that the only way you’ll keep the attention of foes is by Out-DPSing the other players around you. But that’s really only a matter when you reach Lvl 80, up until that point just about any gear will do the trick, so run with whatever you want.

As for Specializations (First Tree available at Lvl 20, second at 45, third at 71), the first one you’ll want to max out is Virtues. It’s the most versatile tree and it enhances your 3 Virtues, meaning that it’s useful regardless of your weapon choices and Utility skills.

After that, Zeal is the best option. As a Guardian, you pretty much have Defense in the bag from the Get-go, so boosting your defense won’t be a necessity until later.

Third in line should be either Radiance or Honor, depending on wether you want to sustain yourself through Blinding and Controlling enemies, or Healing yourself consistently. Valor can be saved for last, but if you find yourself struggling you can go with it earlier since its got a lot of good Defensive traits for Solo Play.

When it comes to Utility Skills, the Guardian is pretty much swamped in nothing but good choices. The only exception being Spirit Weapons, which are ridiculously sub-par in comparison to their other options. It’s important that you keep in mind, though, that Utility Skills can and should be swapped out as the situation demands.

• Shouts are always a good option because they pump out important Defensive Boons at short Cooldowns, and with no cast-time meaning you don’t have to interrupt your other skills.
• Meditations are also good. Less team- and Boon-oriented than Shouts but they have a bigger effect on the Guardian. If you choose to go with Meditations, look into maxing out the Valor tree early to make the absolute most out of them.
• Consecrations are very strong AoE Skills that can just about save you from harm completely. They’re long-duration and have long cooldowns, however, making them more useful for longer, tougher fights than mobile combat.
• Signets are basically Passive Boosts that can be activated for a bigger effect. They’re good for what they do, but rather boring and simple. The right Signet for your build will never be out-of-place, but often cannot fill the void from other Utility Skills.

When it comes to Weapons, then the Tankiest weapon by far for Guardian is the 2-handed Hammer, if only because it leaves behind a Symbol that grants Protection to yourself and nearby allies whenever you finish an Auto Chain combo. The fact that Protection reduced incoming damage by 33% grossly outshines any Damage Mitigation from Toughness.

You could probably still do pretty well with Mace and Shield. The Mace is a Healing Weapon, sustaining the Guardian through the Healing it grants from the Auto Chain combo and Symbol, along with the Block from Protector’s Strike. Shield adds an Aegis source on relatively low CD, as well as more healing and projectile defense.

For moving around through the Open World however, I suggest keeping a Staff handy. It comes with a Symbol of Swiftness, which is the Guardian’s only reliable source of the Boon aside from the “Retreat!” shout. Also comes with Empower, allowing you to channel Might to yourself before swapping weapons in a fight to finish it faster.

Funny thing is that all 3 of these Weapons synergize particularily well with the Honor Spec Tree, while Mace and Hammer also Synergize well with the Zeal Spec Tree.

In the end, GW2 is a very casual game however, and you’ll prolly do pretty well in Core Tyria no matter how you build and run it. So don’t worry too much about that kinda stuff right now and focus on enjoying yourself.

As unintuitive as it may seem, Shield is not as good as Focus or Hammer for tanking, and 1h-sword is the Guardian’s DPS weapon.

Also, leveling is VERRRRY easy in this game.