Guild Wars 2

Today I was messing around with my new guardian in PvP, killing random AI-controlled professions, when I noticed something weird. When I was killing a necro, he suddenly blocked me for multiple attacks. I don’t recall the necro having any blocking ablities, and I’ve played necro for over a year. Is there actually a way for necros to block?

Also, because I just made this character recently, could someone please tell me some good guardian builds for PvE (especially fractals/dungeons)?

they don’t have a block per se. They do have Lifeforce which can double as a block type effect. But it doesn’t actually block attacks so much as gives them a second life bar.

The only way I can think of that they could get blocks, is if they actually through the random number generator were deflecting your attacks based on their armor rating being significantly higher than your attack rolls. That is the only way.

As for a PvE build for the Guardian, this is what I am using: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUMQJASWlUgyC33RMEf4ERWBRi9AjwvjXPcIFZIA-jQCBYgDRjgII0HRL7sIasVRFRjVrETDjIq2ebIamcpGA-e

PVE Guard build: Full zerk

cranked.3812:

PVE Guard build: Full zerk

Um… yeah…. do that only if you want to be absolutely useless in your Dungeons and Fractals.

The build I provided will provide you with a great deal more survivability, and it will allow you to support your team a great deal better than you would be capable of doing if you went full zerk.

The only thing going Full Zerk as a Guardian is good for is if you want to play a Spirit Weapons DPS build. Otherwise your better off in Knights Gear.

Plus Cranked told you absolutely nothing about what skills or traits to use when going full zerk, so other than the armor his build is completely useless.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

cranked.3812:

PVE Guard build: Full zerk

Um… yeah…. do that only if you want to be absolutely useless in your Dungeons and Fractals.

The build I provided will provide you with a great deal more survivability, and it will allow you to support your team a great deal better than you would be capable of doing if you went full zerk.

The only thing going Full Zerk as a Guardian is good for is if you want to play a Spirit Weapons DPS build. Otherwise your better off in Knights Gear.

Plus Cranked told you absolutely nothing about what skills or traits to use when going full zerk, so other than the armor his build is completely useless.

Totally agree…I may not have played guardian that long, but seriously? Full Zerk??? Ok, first of all “zerk” isn’t even a build—it’s an armor type. Plus, considering that the guardian has pretty insane defense capabilites, I’m probably going to end up going for a boon support build.

Hey Tharian—I looked at that build you showed me. Seems pretty good, but I noticed all of the armor is soldier’s. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but wouldn’t you also want some healing power?

Stacked boon support builds for guardians are paradoxically bad because symbols tend to apply boons for multiple ticks of 1 second, which repeatedly round down the boon duration – so only shouts like Save Yourselves are buffed properly. While it might be a lag effect thing, I’ve found that while the tooltip calculates boon duration to the nearest 1/4 second, the actual game system in my experience seems to tick boon duration by whole seconds, as my 20 second might procs as an ele on 190% BD give 38 seconds of might, but my 5 second swiftness, regen and protection gets multiplied to only 9 seconds, not 9.5. At lower values like 175% before the food buff, the 5 second swift only actually lasts 8 seconds, though I would expect it to last 8.75 seconds. The game system also deals with condition duration in an identical way – Burning damage for instance will always be calculated according to the nearest 0.25 second threshold, but the number of burn damage ticks I see on the target corresponds to the nearest second instead.

By all means, if you want to boon your allies you can take symbol-based traits that help out in this regard, but don’t buff boon duration carelessly or it may not even work.

On the same time boosting healing power doesn’t really power up Altruistic Healing as a trait much because of its low Healing Power multiplier – with 1000 healing power you only add 10 additional healing, or about 14% more healing. Given that AH only heals yourself anyway, stacking toughness/vitality, which is exactly what Tharian did, is the best option for this type of build.

His build centers around applying boons to as many characters as possible, and using those boon applications to proc Altruistic healing. In a way it’s actually more a solo build as the only way it helps other players is through booning – there isn’t any party healing being done aside from dodge heals, which makes it good for lower-level fractals and dungeon content, but the lack of party heal may make it a bit of an issue at lvl 30+ fractals.

Stacking healing power only really makes sense for symbol heal/battle presence based group heal traits, where 1000 healing power would add about 75% additional AoE heal. The one I’m running emphasises party support and stacks healing power, but losing the ability to use AH makes it less survivable for me as the price to pay for making it better at making everyone else survive. Most dungeons don’t require this level of support; mine was built with WvW in mind.

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

Hey Tharian—I looked at that build you showed me. Seems pretty good, but I noticed all of the armor is soldier’s. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but wouldn’t you also want some healing power?

The Armor is all “Knights” Armor, not “Soldiers”. There is a reason for this. While yes, Soldiers provides an insane boost to both Vitality and Toughness, a Guardian using the Altruistic Healing + Empowering Might Build does not really need to boost their Vitality all that much.

What they really need to boost is their Critical Hit Rate, which is where the Knight’s Armor with it’s precision bonuses comes into play. Knight’s Armor boosts Power, Precision, and Toughness. Meaning that you will be hard to kill, you will hit hard, and that you will have a really good chance of taking down the enemy with critical hits.

Hayashi.3416:

The one I’m running emphasises party support and stacks healing power, but losing the ability to use AH makes it less survivable for me as the price to pay for making it better at making everyone else survive. Most dungeons don’t require this level of support; mine was built with WvW in mind.

I don’t suppose you would be willing to share your build with the rest of us?

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

Today I was messing around with my new guardian in PvP, killing random AI-controlled professions, when I noticed something weird. When I was killing a necro, he suddenly blocked me for multiple attacks. I don’t recall the necro having any blocking ablities, and I’ve played necro for over a year. Is there actually a way for necros to block?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Power

You were probably burning him, and he used this to convert that condition to the boon Aegis.

Winespring Brother.2970:

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

Today I was messing around with my new guardian in PvP, killing random AI-controlled professions, when I noticed something weird. When I was killing a necro, he suddenly blocked me for multiple attacks. I don’t recall the necro having any blocking ablities, and I’ve played necro for over a year. Is there actually a way for necros to block?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Power

You were probably burning him, and he used this to convert that condition to the boon Aegis.

oh, wow… I didn’t know that well could do that. Ya, that probably explains it. With all the burns that Guardian causes, that particular Well could be potentially catastrophic for a Guardian to come up against.

Full damage builds are pretty much the only way to go in PvE. Guardian has enough support without defensive traits and armor. You can still use Wall of Reflection, Hold the Line, Stand Your Ground, Retreat, etc.

Full damage Guardians can potentially out DPS Warriors.

I run 10/25/0/25/10 taking traits to maximize damage and lower my WoR cool down. Not sure if it’s the best one though

edit: You’ll want Sword/Focus and Greatsword. Vulnerability on blind trait will let you stack tons of Vulnerability to help increase the party’s DPS

Grok Krog.9581:

Full damage builds are pretty much the only way to go in PvE. Guardian has enough support without defensive traits and armor. You can still use Wall of Reflection, Hold the Line, Stand Your Ground, Retreat, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whAcKsXHvxw

Full damage Guardians can potentially out DPS Warriors.

I run 10/25/0/25/10 taking traits to maximize damage and lower my WoR cool down. Not sure if it’s the best one though

edit: You’ll want Sword/Focus and Greatsword. Vulnerability on blind trait will let you stack tons of Vulnerability to help increase the party’s DPS

Agree, as a guardian, one must learn to prevent dmg, not soak it and heal over it.

Yep. A Guardian has tons of support with blinds, aegis, reflection, and depending on whats needed at the time protection/stability.

Also has access to some nice fire fields, either clearing conditions/reducing their duration or granting long stability and added boon duration for longer lasting might stacks

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

cranked.3812:

PVE Guard build: Full zerk

Um… yeah…. do that only if you want to be absolutely useless in your Dungeons and Fractals.

The build I provided will provide you with a great deal more survivability, and it will allow you to support your team a great deal better than you would be capable of doing if you went full zerk.

The only thing going Full Zerk as a Guardian is good for is if you want to play a Spirit Weapons DPS build. Otherwise your better off in Knights Gear.

Plus Cranked told you absolutely nothing about what skills or traits to use when going full zerk, so other than the armor his build is completely useless.

Totally agree…I may not have played guardian that long, but seriously? Full Zerk??? Ok, first of all “zerk” isn’t even a build—it’s an armor type. Plus, considering that the guardian has pretty insane defense capabilites, I’m probably going to end up going for a boon support build.

Have you met the elitists in the dungeon subforum? Grok is right, berserker gear is the way to go in PvE, but you have to know how to play it. There’s a guide by Obal of DnT in the Guardian subforum that will tell you how to build a DPS guard.

If you’re not used to it I would definitley ease into berserker armor one piece at a time. Find groups that don’t require berserker gear. Or if you want just jump right into it and kill all the things!

A well played full berserker Guardian will support your group even better as that build posted by An Siorai Tharian AND deal 3x the damage.

On the other hand max dps is much harder to play. Thats probably not suited for everyone.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

I don’t suppose you would be willing to share your build with the rest of us?

Linked it in the sig, together with the other finalised builds. Bear in mind its survivability is too high for it to be efficient in PvE, it’s meant specifically as a WvW commander build.

I haven’t decided on endgame builds for the other 5 classes yet.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

cranked.3812:

PVE Guard build: Full zerk

Um… yeah…. do that only if you want to be absolutely useless in your Dungeons and Fractals.

The build I provided will provide you with a great deal more survivability, and it will allow you to support your team a great deal better than you would be capable of doing if you went full zerk.

The only thing going Full Zerk as a Guardian is good for is if you want to play a Spirit Weapons DPS build. Otherwise your better off in Knights Gear.

Plus Cranked told you absolutely nothing about what skills or traits to use when going full zerk, so other than the armor his build is completely useless.

You are correct, I didn’t give him a full build, but I gave him the most important part: The stats to use. You can already find good builds for PVE as noted above, follow Obal’s guide.

If you think playing Zerk is being totally useless in PVE, please never join my group for dungeons runs. Your terrible support build will only slow us down and probably make every fight last 15 times longer than it needs to.

cranked.3812:

If you think playing Zerk is being totally useless in PVE, please never join my group for dungeons runs. Your terrible support build will only slow us down and probably make every fight last 15 times longer than it needs to.