Guild Wars 2

Has anyone found any viable and competitive DPS Guardian builds since the meta has flipped?

I would really appreciate some feedback.

Here is a calculator:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7E

kito.1827:

Jasher.6580:

I WANT competitive DPS Guardian DO IT FOR ME THERE http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7E
NOW!

well… use brain… and stuff…

If you don’t want to provide feedback or contribute to the thread, then that’s fine. Nevertheless, your comment was unnecessary, and brought nothing to the discussion other than hostility and tactlessness.

I wouldn’t be asking for feedback if hadn’t spent prior hours fiddling around with builds of my own… alas to no avail. I’m looking for fresh suggestions and data which wont be contaminated with my own theories and failed devices.

i know there have been a lot of changes rencetly.. hope you don’t mind me asking.. what is the meta exactly? i’ll go look around too now : ))

i played Guardian in s/tPvP quite a bit before the big balance patch. what did you play as a viable DPS Guard before the patch? and has it not been performing lately?

akamon.2769:

i know there have been a lot of changes rencetly.. hope you don’t mind me asking.. what is the meta exactly? i’ll go look around too now : ))

i played Guardian in s/tPvP quite a bit before the big balance patch. what did you play as a viable DPS Guard before the patch? and has it not been performing lately?

Standard meditations build. Current meta, is heavy condi. Even with the meditation cleanses. I just melt like butter.

DPS Guardians don’t exist at high end PvP (EU). You may see the odd one every month and I roll it if I’m bored but it isn’t viable. The recent patch to Guardians were a joke and achieved absolutely nothing. Typical builds are meditation or shouts and the patch tried to make spirit weapons useful but the truth is when you start speccing 30 into zeal it’s suicide. Basically you want a full zerker guardian and a greatsword with 10 in zeal and the other 60 you can just trait however you want to survive.

To be frank, the best training area for practicing a D.P.S guardian would be maps that only have 3 vs 3 or 4 vs 4. Anything larger than that and all melee classes due to their single target nature find it infuriating difficult to manage the situation. The standard D.P.S guardians would be meditations. I would recommend sword/torch-scepter/focus,..however that is not to say that Great sword and hammer also wouldn’t work well.

Your trait allocation will probably 10/30/30 rather than 30/30/10.

Your biggest barrier when being full D.P.S guardian is that you will now have one of the lower HP pools in game which means your ability to hold some conditions for a period before cleansing will not be that great.

Your next challenge I’m afraid to say is a problem that will never be fixed or addressed. As a guardian dueling up close the camera angle changes slightly and this can make particle effects a true blind. You just can’t see what is going on. In the overt display of red circles, squiggly lines, flames, aura’s, mauling bears and everything else you just won’t be able to see your target. You can’t really hurt what you can’t see.

Don’t get me wrong, the D.P.S guardian can be awesome given the right circumstances, but those circumstances present themselves rarely in spvp, instead you’ll contribute to overall scatter damage and pick up kills you didn’t start or finish, you just contributed a lot somewhere in between.

In 1 vs 1 node defense the D.P.S guardian can be a power house of useful gap closers for a melee based class to have. There is also other variants that include spirit hammer for a truly amazing amount of timed knock downs when used with Great sword and hammer..but again it comes down to picking area’s where you have lined a single target up and have enough room to not be too interfered with.

DPS Guardian can be viable. just noone plays it anymore, so ppl think it’s not viable.
There are some really good hybrid-dps-builds around with GS and meditiations.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Fkg;1RFk40P3NG-90;9;49T-9J1;0168;14;018-53X0;2ZF18ZF186y

Your best bet is to not ask people if something is viable but to instead ask for a build. Everyone has their own opinion on viability and this game is still in its infancy with regards to meta-game development and players deviating from the set path that has plagued this game for a while (i.e. bunker guardians are boring).

That being said, DPS guards are completely baller. With one of the lowest HP pools in the game, we don’t give a kitten, we walk right up to people and smack them around.

Anyone who puts points into Zeal doesn’t play guardian regularly or against decent players – even with the patch. Going full radiance and right-handed strength? Better spike someone to zero with your opening burst or get rolled.

I have seen and/or developed only two, maybe three, DPS guardian builds worth their salt. Keep in mind that what you are about to see is just a general outline of each build – and remember to tweak a build to your play style and comfort level.

Right-handed Strength: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V7kitten;0NFk30G3RG-90;9;5TT44;159A04B;4LNV45;1sV2DsV2D8BM

Bear’s DPS Guardian: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7g-Bd;0NFF40J3RG-90;9;54TT4;416A27A;1L-V45;1F-03F-035Bl

The third build had a similar trait spread to mine, but used staff/(another two-handed weapon) to make use of the two-handed weapon trait. Arken ran a build like this, but I had to force him to run Runes of the Pack, which is awesome because it provides: 1) power, 2) precision, 3) boons, 4) and heals.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Your best bet is to not ask people if something is viable but to instead ask for a build. Everyone has their own opinion on viability and this game is still in its infancy with regards to meta-game development and players deviating from the set path that has plagued this game for a while (i.e. bunker guardians are boring).

That being said, DPS guards are completely baller. With one of the lowest HP pools in the game, we don’t give a kitten, we walk right up to people and smack them around.

Anyone who puts points into Zeal doesn’t play guardian regularly or against decent players – even with the patch. Going full radiance and right-handed strength? Better spike someone to zero with your opening burst or get rolled.

I have seen and/or developed only two, maybe three, DPS guardian builds worth their salt. Keep in mind that what you are about to see is just a general outline of each build – and remember to tweak a build to your play style and comfort level.

Right-handed Strength: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V7kitten;0NFk30G3RG-90;9;5TT44;159A04B;4LNV45;1sV2DsV2D8BM

Bear’s DPS Guardian: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7g-Bd;0NFF40J3RG-90;9;54TT4;416A27A;1L-V45;1F-03F-035Bl

The third build had a similar trait spread to mine, but used staff/(another two-handed weapon) to make use of the two-handed weapon trait. Arken ran a build like this, but I had to force him to run Runes of the Pack, which is awesome because it provides: 1) power, 2) precision, 3) boons, 4) and heals.

Zeal is a perfectly acceptable trait, not sure why everyone thinks its trash.

Any trait is acceptable, but the aim of the build is DPS. The issue, still present after the patch, is that the options in the other trait lines are still significantly more powerful in their effects and that not taking them in favor of zeal traits is a bigger detriment in combat than otherwise.

I’d be hard-pressed to see a build with ten or more points in zeal, while being DPS, do well in any kind of fight.

A tip…don’t use gs, really…don’t there are actually better weapons/traits for dps guardian..

I play with a DPS guardian alot and it is really strong. There are several builds out there I expect. They are viable. Greatsword has very high damage for the guardian so I disagree with the poster above

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7g-s;1RFV40G3ZG-90;9;4T-9T-416;11;0268;1L-V4;2JF04JF0D5BW
idk if this link will work but…. yeah this is the build I run. for some reason its not too glass and it DROPS everyone in team fights. Its kind of focused around symbols :P dps guard is strong but guard is so forced into their role I don’t think many people try it.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I play with a DPS guardian alot and it is really strong. There are several builds out there I expect. They are viable. Greatsword has very high damage for the guardian so I disagree with the poster above

Great damage no dubt…but 15% higher crit chance it’s way better imo and add that to 62% base…ownage, gs probably better for hotjoin mess due to multi pull and whirl…but on a tpvp view i would stick to 1 handed every day

I disagree: aoe cleave, high dmg auto attack, blind/gap closer, aoe retal, and aoe interrupt at will?

That’s stronger than a lot of weapon sets.

To those claiming DPS guardian is dead, or not competitive, lol. I can think of 3 different builds i have run and seen run successfully in tPvP that completely wreck face when played intelligently. L2 to do something other than bunker (easy AF imo).

Are you ready to spend points in Zeal? Are you ready for MASSIVE DAMAGE? Are you ready for…………. wait, Spirit Weapons? …really?

Introducing the Mighty Weapons build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Z-g;1RFF80V3RG-90;9;4T;0JJ59A;428-48-S-F6;2H7l1AoF28BB

Step 1. Summon both Spirit Weapons
Step 2. Empower them (that’s right, spirit weapons can be buffed), yourself, and any nearby allies (and hit F1). Use Stand Your Ground if you might get interrupted.
Step 3. DESTROY EVERYTHING.

Notes:
1. While you could duel certain classes/builds with this, keep in mind that the more targets you hit with your long duration might, the more damage output. So, this build works even better in 2v2 and 3v3.
2. Long duration might AoE simply tears up hotjoins, so be sure to go and have some lulz there with this.
3. Spirit Weapons like other CC synergy in the team to slow down and stun their targets. They also don’t like to go against high amounts of AoE cleave/CC, so if you expect a lot of that, use a different build.
4. Your effectiveness is a bit lower when your weapons are down, so you may have to play a bit more defensive depending on the situation during those times.
5. Haven’t tested this too much in top level games, so try it out and let me know how it goes! Did some 2v2s and 3v3s on private servers a while back and it wrecked havoc (this was before the 6/25 patch so it should be even better now).
6. A good combo is GS 5 4 5 + activate both weapons, then GS 2. Chain CC with the Hammer along with the stab from the Sword as your symbol and spin attack both hit them is a good spike.
7. Empower whenever you can afford to, it’s up every 16s for nearly 100% uptime on 12 might AoE.
8. Tome of Wrath might be interesting to try for teamfight situations… and yes, I’m pretty sure weapons can get quickness. That’d be pretty funny to watch, actually.

To respond to some questions and responses in this thread:

Zeal (just doesn’t work)
Zeal is useless because you either lose Honour and Virtues 5/5 on Burst and Virtues II on DPS. There is literally no reason to spec into Zeal due to this as you will lose tons of survivability, you can only do it with the Binding Jeopardy bunker build.

Viability (a lot of the builds above aren’t close to optimized)
The Greatsword is actually one of the Guardians weaker weapons. All the skills are easy to dodge which means they’re usually used to force the enemy dodge rolls out so that you can hit them with skills on your other weapons. Of course you can have somebody else set up control so that you can land 100% of WW and then chain it will your pull. Outside of res/stomp control the GS isn’t strong unless paired with another player with a snare and is extremely reliant on Judges. A common misconception is that the GS is the highest damaging weapon and it is literally the lowest consistent damaging weapon.

The Sword runs into extremely similar problems, if the enemy knows what they’re doing, ZD is going to never land. It’s EXTREMELY easy to dodge (even when paired with JI) which makes it extremely inconsistent, which is a trait not shared by Mace Burst Guards.
http://tinyurl.com/p9jab6g
You can land all the damage on a Mace burst build at the exact same time (14k minimum if everything is not in your favour and 20k+ if everything is) which effectively puts your burst at under 1 second. Although you lose Flashing blade, you gain a fully AoE burst which completely counters Mesmer builds and any form of summons while the Sword doesn’t.

All Guardian weapons can be used in a DPS/Burst build, of course their are situational ones, but Guardian DPS is definitely viable you just have to think of how you are countered. Running things like II Zeal opens you up to massive vulnerabilities in your play and your damage has to be more compact in burst builds, don’t assume your skills are going to land. Against a good player if you think it’s dodgable it will be dodged.

I have made a build thread before with optimized builds:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Silven-s-PvP-Guardian-Build-Guide/first

Everyone plays the guardian with a bit of survivability. I on the other hand do not care for such weakling ways.

Check this build out;
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAsf7dlYgCBHHyKEfIFRWBWapAgHs6B+2n8uK4QA

And it comes with a video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-yPlw3Ul6IU#t=379s

In the vid I use Sword of Justice in place of Judge’s but don’t worry, judge’s is better for the mobility.

Jax.5261:

To respond to some questions and responses in this thread:

Zeal (just doesn’t work)
Zeal is useless because you either lose Honour and Virtues 5/5 on Burst and Virtues II on DPS. There is literally no reason to spec into Zeal due to this as you will lose tons of survivability, you can only do it with the Binding Jeopardy bunker build.

Viability (a lot of the builds above aren’t close to optimized)
The Greatsword is actually one of the Guardians weaker weapons. All the skills are easy to dodge which means they’re usually used to force the enemy dodge rolls out so that you can hit them with skills on your other weapons. Of course you can have somebody else set up control so that you can land 100% of WW and then chain it will your pull. Outside of res/stomp control the GS isn’t strong unless paired with another player with a snare and is extremely reliant on Judges. A common misconception is that the GS is the highest damaging weapon and it is literally the lowest consistent damaging weapon.

The Sword runs into extremely similar problems, if the enemy knows what they’re doing, ZD is going to never land. It’s EXTREMELY easy to dodge (even when paired with JI) which makes it extremely inconsistent, which is a trait not shared by Mace Burst Guards.
http://tinyurl.com/p9jab6g
You can land all the damage on a Mace burst build at the exact same time (14k minimum if everything is not in your favour and 20k+ if everything is) which effectively puts your burst at under 1 second. Although you lose Flashing blade, you gain a fully AoE burst which completely counters Mesmer builds and any form of summons while the Sword doesn’t.

All Guardian weapons can be used in a DPS/Burst build, of course their are situational ones, but Guardian DPS is definitely viable you just have to think of how you are countered. Running things like II Zeal opens you up to massive vulnerabilities in your play and your damage has to be more compact in burst builds, don’t assume your skills are going to land. Against a good player if you think it’s dodgable it will be dodged.

I have made a build thread before with optimized builds:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Silven-s-PvP-Guardian-Build-Guide/first

Not sure I would go poking into the viability of others’ builds when you’ve got a big list of… interesting builds yourself in that thread. For example: http://tinyurl.com/bg5wm36 I see you take the CD reduction for Meditations when all you have is JI, but no CD reduction for shouts and you have 2, and instead taking the pretty meh trait for symbols healing allies. For an Altruistic Healing build (which this is; a better symbol DPS build would incorporate Zeal since that’s where 2 of the 3 good symbol traits lie), I like Save Yourselves instead of the teleport from JI; it combos better with AH, still stunbreaks, and gives you some great boons such as Fury and Vigor as well as good team utility for conditions. With a build like this, you’re really not going to be bursting someone down too fast, it’s much more of a support DPS build (AH works best in teamfights) and as such you really should tote around the maximum amount of condition removal (Soldier x6) instead of the awkward Mercy runes you have. So, here’s my corrected version of that build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR5dlUgyC33xKEf4ERWhVi9AjasjXPc4DZIA-TwAg0CnIySllLLTWyssZNsYZxGiJBA

That’s just one example.

cymerdown.4103:

Jax.5261:

To respond to some questions and responses in this thread:

Zeal (just doesn’t work)
Zeal is useless because you either lose Honour and Virtues 5/5 on Burst and Virtues II on DPS. There is literally no reason to spec into Zeal due to this as you will lose tons of survivability, you can only do it with the Binding Jeopardy bunker build.

Viability (a lot of the builds above aren’t close to optimized)
The Greatsword is actually one of the Guardians weaker weapons. All the skills are easy to dodge which means they’re usually used to force the enemy dodge rolls out so that you can hit them with skills on your other weapons. Of course you can have somebody else set up control so that you can land 100% of WW and then chain it will your pull. Outside of res/stomp control the GS isn’t strong unless paired with another player with a snare and is extremely reliant on Judges. A common misconception is that the GS is the highest damaging weapon and it is literally the lowest consistent damaging weapon.

The Sword runs into extremely similar problems, if the enemy knows what they’re doing, ZD is going to never land. It’s EXTREMELY easy to dodge (even when paired with JI) which makes it extremely inconsistent, which is a trait not shared by Mace Burst Guards.
http://tinyurl.com/p9jab6g
You can land all the damage on a Mace burst build at the exact same time (14k minimum if everything is not in your favour and 20k+ if everything is) which effectively puts your burst at under 1 second. Although you lose Flashing blade, you gain a fully AoE burst which completely counters Mesmer builds and any form of summons while the Sword doesn’t.

All Guardian weapons can be used in a DPS/Burst build, of course their are situational ones, but Guardian DPS is definitely viable you just have to think of how you are countered. Running things like II Zeal opens you up to massive vulnerabilities in your play and your damage has to be more compact in burst builds, don’t assume your skills are going to land. Against a good player if you think it’s dodgable it will be dodged.

I have made a build thread before with optimized builds:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Silven-s-PvP-Guardian-Build-Guide/first

Not sure I would go poking into the viability of others’ builds when you’ve got a big list of… interesting builds yourself in that thread. I mean, have you even used any of those DPS ones against a serious team? Like >200 LB? For example: http://tinyurl.com/bg5wm36 I see you take the CD reduction for Meditations when all you have is IJ, but no CD reduction for shouts and you have 2, and instead taking the pretty meh trait for symbols healing allies. For an Altruistic Healing build (which this is; a better symbol DPS build would incorporate Zeal since that’s where 2 of the 3 good symbol traits lie), I like Save Yourselves instead of the teleport from IJ; it combos better with AH, still stunbreaks, and gives you some great boons such as Fury and Vigor as well as good team utility for conditions. With a build like this, you’re really not going to be bursting someone down too fast, it’s much more of a support DPS build (AH works best in teamfights) and as such you really should tote around the maximum amount of condition removal (Soldier x6) instead of the awkward Mercy runes you have. So, here’s my corrected version of that build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR5dlUgyC33xKEf4ERWhVi9AjasjXPc4DZIA-TwAg0CnIySllLLTWyssZNsYZxGiJBA

That’s just one example.

I do agree with some of what you’re saying
When your focus is putting the pressure on stomps/reses in team fights you do need the cooldown reduction on JI for it to be consistent enough. You can’t bring II for the shouts due to running symbol DPS an needing PoV for vigor, which Soldier’s does not give you. The reason I linked that build was for roaming between side and mid as a DPS Guardian which would change the usage of the build if you were to run what you posted.

The Mercy runes were part of the build that I was testing a while ago, I got slack with updating builds I was testing so yes that was a mistake. They are also meant to be used in conjunction with a Bunker so I wouldn’t use Soldier’s either way, rather Lyssa (which also means your build should be running accuracy>bloodlust).

You’re also not going to land WW without JI, which is another important thing I was trying to address with the build. On top of that you didn’t incorporate Zeal into the build you posted.

Right, I wasn’t saying you should add Zeal; my argument was in the nomenclature. I’m saying you should focus more on the Altruistic Healing aspect of the build, since the Symbols are alright but not strong enough here to be the central focus of the build IMO. Personally, I find Greatsword attacks not so terribly difficult to land at a reasonable rate in a team fight situation on a node even without a teleport; you typically can stick at least 1 person out of 2-3 with the leash even against good players. In duels it can be nice to have a teleport, but you really should be coordinating better with your team to avoid dueling situations when you’re running an Alt Healing build since you really shine in 2v2 and up. A build like this can work fine as a support roamer, you could even take Retreat over SYS or run staff over mace focus if your team needs them swifties.

Even with a bunker, Soldier runes are still fine. Condi heavy team? You’re a life saver. Condi light team? Still ends up being decent a good amount of the time, with the random Mesmer shatters, Ranger pets, Engi and Warrior immobs… there are just so many random conditions in this game and being able to deal with 2 per cd used is just way too dang good not to run once you’re at 2+ shouts in my experience. The toughness and vit ain’t bad either… Mercy is alright but if your gonna spend part of your build on ressing you may as well drop bigger symbols and take the shield of absorb on res trait instead and keep the soldier runes, the shield will help more for resses than the runes will, and so will the ability to take condis like poison off the downed body using your Soldier runes.

BTW the reduced cd on shouts trait is insane if only for the mere fact that SYG goes from 30 to 24s… best util in the game by far. If you’re taking 2 or more shouts it becomes a must have trait easily, doesn’t matter what build.

As a side note, it’s kinda interesting to think about what the next best ones are after SYG. Probably the new Shadow Trap. Then Illusion of Life, then Portal… then maybe Epidemic? Not sure after that, maybe Grenade Kit.