Guild Wars 2

I was looking for a build that would allow me to level efficiently for PvE was thinking about making a Guardian and am new to melee type archetypes in MMOs.

I recently hit 80 with a guardian, but my focus was generally on support not specifically efficiency in solo PvE. Either way, killing things in PvE, a greatsword is going to be your friend, and valor traits will help you out in that regard as well, giving you more damage, and allowing your greatsword to heal you.

While we do burning damage I think for the most part condition damage is one of the least desirable stats.

The power of the greatsword is in AoE, so you need to be able to survive about 3 targets at once, so you can’t skimp on your defensive abilities. For defense I’d say either focus on Toughness/Vitality if you’re going full out offensive, or Toughness/Healing if you’re mixing in some healing utility. You’re almost always going to find power on some kind of gear, even Cleric’s gear is Power/Toughness/Healing, but you can mix it up to suit your play style.

Don’t worry too much about your trait choices, each time you buy a new book they reset for free, so at 40/60 you can re-evaluate with what you’ve learned.

As a disclaimer, you’ll see everywhere that almost everything is opinion/playstyle based, and it’s true, though if you aim for a certain goal there are going to be better choices, but with a little thought, most are obvious. Stacking healing isn’t going to make you kill things faster, etc.

I agree, there’s a variety of viable builds.

I’m going to share a few tips I learned during my leveling and the build I found most effective (I switched alot though):

Greatsword as Main Weapon
Scepter/Focus/Torch or Staff as secondary for ranged, Staff if you want to play a more “safe” support during big events.

With the Staff your attack is AoE so you can get credit for huge mobs, while still dealing AoE damage and buffing/healing others. Use it if you don’t think you can survive getting in melee range of # number of monsters at once.
Scepter and Focus/Torch is an alternative range with AoE for champions and hard monsters.

Go for +Power and +Precision trait first, then +Vitality. Killing fast and AoE is key.
At 40, you can choose to go get +Power and +Precision or just +Power and +Vitality.
At 60, you can choose whatever you want since you’ll be doing pretty good with any build.

Greatsword’s 5th skill can be used to interrupt monsters, USE it to survive! After you cast the chains, you can pull them to you even if they’re close, making them fall. To get credit killing hordes of monsters in events, get inside the horde (after they started attacking others, not before), use 5, 2 (Symbol), 5 again to pull and 3 for Whirlwind finisher.

Don’t stay still taking hits and dealing damage against monsters, most monsters’ attacks can be avoided simply by walking to the side or backwards, use this to kill harder monsters.

After level 20 or 30, monsters will really start stacking conditions on you. Use “Smite Condition” (clear a condition and deals AoE damage) since the damage is quite nice and it’s AoE also.
For really hard fights, “Save Yourself” grants not only nice damage boons but also protective and heals, it can really save you in some moments.
“Wall of Reflection” is awesome, learn to use it. Though I don’t think you’ll need till later levels, when you’re facing multiple ranged and melee, throw this one while you fight the melee so the ranged damage themselves. It can also be used against ranged attacks from champion monsters and it’s good for running away too.

There’s other skills too, all of them are useful, check them to see which suits best your situation.

And for equip, this is really important to kill and survive effectively, but BUY gear according to your level!
If you just keep waiting for drops, it might take you really long to switch all of your pieces to current gear with the desired stats, so use the Trading Post (since it’s almost always up now) for gear with the stats you want, since they’re cheap anyways! (don’t spend more than 1s/2s on each piece, otherwise it’s expensive)

Learn the armor’s predicates to buy every few levels a decent gear, like Valkyrie having +Power, +Vitality and +Critical Damage, or Carrion for +Condition Damage, +Power and +Vitality, etc

Abarcine.7189:

I was looking for a build that would allow me to level efficiently for PvE was thinking about making a Guardian and am new to melee type archetypes in MMOs.

Try this build

See if it works for you. It’s up and running by Level 25, and you can move in any direction you like. It’s pretty flexible, and it supports solo and group PVE. The kicker is constant refreshes of a beefed up Virtue of Justice.

Something else to keep in mind w/ Greatsword and Condition effects is your combos. If you use 2, your symbol creates a field of light, and your 3 whirl will remove conditions. As long as you get used to symbol before whirl, you’ll just naturally drop conditions.

I am a solo leveling guardian that’s been roaming the world in search of shiny objects and things to destroy. My current setup is Scepter/Focus and Sword/Shield. My ability stack is Vit/Toughness for survivability, with traits into survivability and power, and condition damage to help with sword burn. I’m finding that I have a little bit better luck facing multiple mobs with a scepter and focus, using my 2 ability along with my auto-cast 1. When it comes to vet mobs, I’m using my sword and board for more survivability for their harder hitting attacks.

I’m at work, so I can’t log in and tell you exactly what my build, stats, etc are. I’m level 71 though, and it honestly doesn’t matter where I go. I rarely go down unless I clearly bite off more than I can chew. A Bloodlust rune in both the sword and scepter also helps add that extra ummph needed to push over mobs to oblivion.

Keep an eye on what the monster does. Bleeds, poisons, burning, etc is a joke to me and I’ll shrug it off, but any type of CC ability, I keep an eye on because knocking me down, back can drastically change my situation for the worse. For my utility, it’s kind of up for grabs, but my 7 and 8 are a meditation fire/port and a consecration fire. Immobilization is also no problem to me because the teleport from the meditation ability breaks immobilize.

I’m on Blackgate. I’m not sure if you’re able to send tells to someone else, but I’m always willing to provide some tips based on experience. My guards name is Freshfruit.