Guild Wars 2

I’m currently level 44 with my Guardian and so far it’s all gone very well, leveling has been a breeze. As I progress though and as I start doing the Dungeons I get the feeling that my attributes need some work, only I’m not sure where to go with them. My gear is made up of both Power and Precision which has served me well while leveling but, when it comes to Dungeons I think a change may be needed, especially as I level higher.

I’m using a Hammer as my main weapon with no offset yet (I wasn’t sure which to go for) which I’m told is very strong. What would you recommend as the offset and what stats should I be concentrating on? As a role I’m after more of a front line support that’s capable of heavy DPS. I’ll be going for AH too.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I recommend keeping both scepter and staff in your bag for secondary weapons. Based on how my party performs and the dungeon I switch between. Scepter for when we could use some ranged damage. I use the shield a lot as my off hand. I can give protection boons to my group and shield against ranged enemies. I can also pop the dome and give a small group heal. Some guardians ignore the staff, don’t be one of them. It’s a great weapon for kitting (protect Hodgin from gravelings) and not many would turn down extra stacks of might. The symbol of swift also does modest aoe damage and give speed boost to those that step inside. I personally think it’s better than the retreat skill since it has a shorter cool down. For you elite use Renewed Focus.

I highly recommend Hold the Line and Stand Your Ground shouts for nice synergy with your hammer and AH. I would also suggest Purging Flames consecration skill. An aoe that burns foes removes conditions and combos with you MB from the hammer. Others can also use the field to make their own combos.

You can use 6x superior runes of the soldier for extra condition removal. You could also use 2x superior monk runes, 2x superior water runes, and 2x superior runes of the earth to get 50% protection boon duration and 30% duration to everything else.

While I’m currently running a full zerk DPS guardian, there was a time when I ran a build very similar to what you are wanting. I went with P/V/T armor (bought with AC tokens, so that’s something you can already be working toward) and berzerker trinkets. I had swapped the jewels in the trinkets for beryl jewels (P/V/Crit) and used Runes of Lyssa to push up my precision to get more VP procs. Now that that’s been nerfed, you could probably leave the default jewels and use Runes of the Soldier to add some extra survivability and add utility to your shouts.

For the offset, I’m a big fan of using scepter/focus. The scepter is one of our most damaging weapons, especially against single, stationary targets. And let’s be honest, most bosses in PvE either don’t move much or have a phase in their rotation where they are standing still while winding up for a big attack.

While the shield is a great group weapon, I feel the cool downs are way too long to be really useful. The focus’ blind, while useless against bosses, can be helpful against trash mobs, and the #5 can be used in all sorts of creative ways.

There are only two times that I use a staff, and those are hitting through doors in WvW and kiting the wraiths at the end of Arah path 3. If they fix the bug with Symbol of Swiftness cutting the duration of other running skills, I may use it more often.

For utilities I used all shouts. I went with “Hold the Line!”, “Stand Your Ground!”, and “Save Yourselves!”, swapping “Hold the Line!” with “Retreat!” when running around (mostly for WvW. I swapped “Hold the Line!” instead of “Save Yourselves!” so that I still had two stun breaks if I got ganked). Tyber’s suggestion of using Purging Flames is solid, and would replace “Save Yourselves” in my build.