Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow guardians,

I have been drawned to the class after I fell in love with GS. Tried the hammer but it is not for me. My guardian is 80 but I just started to purchase exotic equipment. So before I invest a lot of time and virtual money in this, I’d like to discuss builds.

Until now, I have been more or less berserker 3.0 with meditations. As I play solo most of time, it seems fitting. Fun and dynamic but not that dps as you all know. If we assume guardians were meant to be mostly team support oriented, is it possible to build an AH build without Hammer? Can we do without the protection symbol?

Thanks!

AH is perfectly doable with hammer, I did it for a while. Utilize shouts and the reduced shout cooldown trait in honor. You’ll need empowered might and preferably above 44% crit.

0/15/30/20/5 works best with hammer IMO, but 0/5/30/30/5 and 0/10/30/30 also work. Try pairing the hammer with either greatsword or with sword and focus. If you need more survival, mace and focus or shield is good, but you’ll lose mobility on that setup.

Edit – btw, if you primarily run solo, try a meditations build as well. The same trait choices work with it (but different major traits), it’s just more solo healing and condition removal instead of group support. You’ll choose meditations instead of shouts though.

Thx Tomkatt, but you misread my question. I was wondering if we could run an AH build WITHOUT hammer :-)

Oh, my bad, yeah. Any fast weapon works well with Empowered Might and shouts. Sword and GS especially with over 40% crit.

BTW, I find AH works best with 0/15/30/20/5, Meditation build works best for me with 0/10/30/30, but your results may vary. Everything else I posted before still applies, but if you have specific questions feel free to ask. I’ve been running AH variations ever since I hit 80.

I forgot to mention too that mace pairs very well with greatsword. GS 5 to pull in mobs, then focus 5 if you have it and mace 3 for an AoE block/counter on everything you pulled in.

I am assuming this is for PvE and yes you can so without the hammer.

Traits:
The 0/15/30/20/5 is just fine. Even though EM trait does shine in groups it still grants you might boons which does helps your damage output and helps support your natural regen. Always remember to pop VoJ for the blinds and extra might boons from the 5 points in Virtues. I don’t remember the name but take the honor trait that shortens shouts CD by 20%.

Gear:
If you’re soloing go Knights gear. If you’re grouping a lot go with Berserker. Both boost your crit chances. Knight gear gives your extra toughness, Berserker gives you extra damage for your crits. For runes I suggest the standard 2x monk, 2x water, 2x major (not superior) sanctuary to give you 45% uptime on your boons. You could swap out the sanctuary runes for your choice of 2x fire, hoelbrack, or strength for 55% uptime on the might boons. Whichever is the easiest for you to acquire. Lots of options for a Sigil. Sigil of Fire for extra aoe damage provided you have the coin. Sigil of Air if you’re on a budget. Sigil of Blood from some life steal works too. Whatever you want really.

Skills:
Stand Your Ground, Purging Flames, and Hold the Line. Yes I know shouts work better in groups. But you still benefit from the regen, protection, stability, and retaliation boons solo or not. Remember you can create a fire shield with the great swords leap. Or use WW for flaming projectiles. For your elite Renewed Focus. If you get in over your head pop all your virtues for extra boons form the 5pts in Virtues. Then pop RF for seconds of God mode and fully charge your virtues. Which you can pop again if you’re really in trouble.

Weapons:
I highly recommend the staff. The default attack is a mid-ranged aoe that can cause a lot of crits granting might boons and healing from AH. This attack also hits targets through objects. The 2nd attack passes through multiple foes and has a relatively short CD. Just remember that the orb can get stuck in terrain so you will to detonate to trigger the cd which increases to 11 seconds. Really wish they would fix this but I guess they had more important things to work on. Like baby quaggan backpacks. The 3rd skill is handy for just getting around with the swiftness boon. But it also deal damage (not a lot) which can increase your number of crits. Which in turn grants you might boons. Which in turn gives you some healing from AH. It also creats a light field you can leap into to grant retaliation. The 4th skill Empower gives a nice stack of might boons (which you get a heal from AH) and heal at the end of the channel. The catch is you can’t move so use wisely. The 5th skill Line of Warding is situational but it can have its uses.

If you feel more comfortable with the scpeter and off hands then use them . Only give the staff a chance. I think you will be surprised just how useful it can be in a damage build.

You can use other trait combos like the 0/5/30/30/5 for greater utility for a more support build but less on damage. If you do this trait for symbols.

Thanks Tomkatt for the Mace suggestion. It might do the trick, although I suspect I’ll go with shield instead of focus when I try the AH build. Love Focus with 1h sword though. A shame the 1h sword does not have a symbol skill…

Tyber, can’t thank you enough for the lenghty explanation. I suspected Staff was a good secondary weapon, and I’ll have to give it a real try in combat. Alone surrounded by 3-5 mobs, unsure how I’ll do with Staff. Anyway, the crit logic is there: might, heal and regular burns all at once. Gear and runes, I hear you. As for sigils, lots of good choice, I could list half of the On Crit Hit list :-)

Now, have to pay a visit to the Trait Trainer guy.

Hope it helps. Just remember that staff is just there to use while your GS skills are on coold down. Your primary weapon is the GS.

Do please post how the builds work for you. I hate giving advice to someone only to never hear how they did.

You should be able to tank anything in a group with 5/30/30/5

AH, healing symbols, VoR’s effect, regen pie and dolyak rune set.
Even legendary class bosses will take a while to bring you down.

Best part is that you still got sustained dps.

Tyber: Noted, but be patient with me! I’ll test 1-2 builds with greens. If I go your route, it’ll take me a good while to purchase all exotic gear/runes/trinkets/weapons and have a perfect feel of your build.

Firegoth: Just to make sure I understand your build well, is your armor full Knight and your trinkets a mix of Berserk/Knight? Or are you investing more in life/healing?

To all: How do you cope with conditions besides Purging Flames? Are you using SoR, Purity, other means? I thought I’d give a try to Lyssa runes if I invested 15 or less in Radiance, but it is worth it in your opinion? The condition purge + extra boons (hence extra healing) on Renewed Focus are appealing to me.

I go full knight’s armor and berserker everything else. I run 0/15/30/20/5 and that is a perfect build imo. That build runs AH incredibly. Plus I use runes of lyssa so when I use renewed focus I get a 600ish heal and all boons for 5 seconds. The greatsword is far superior to the hammer (imo) because it is much more mobile and you don’t have to sit still for the protection procs to get the AH healing and protection from it. I run GS and scepter/focus.

And as somebody already said, with this build you can change the major traits (don’t even have to reset points) and get a great meditation healing build.

To answer your questions about conditions, I use the meditations and the two meditation major traits in Valor and then I have a meditation that converts all conditions to boons and one skill that removes one condition and does aoe damage. Not perfect condition removal but it is quite a bit of help.

Daedalus: Yeah love meditations in my berserker build. And I assume you are using those meditation skills and traits in your meditation healing build.

But if you are using those in your AH build, please explain further. I am at a lost.

The Show Must Go On.3415:

To all: How do you cope with conditions besides Purging Flames? Are you using SoR, Purity, other means? I thought I’d give a try to Lyssa runes if I invested 15 or less in Radiance, but it is worth it in your opinion? The condition purge + extra boons (hence extra healing) on Renewed Focus are appealing to me.

Meditations build covers the conditions issue. With AH you just have to hope you heal through it via boons and your main heal. Spamming all your virtues and hitting Renewed Focus can make a big difference.

Also, dunno about Lyssa runes. I’d recommend soldier runes if you absolutely need a bunch of toughness and vitality, or Soldier crests if you would prefer to balance toughness and vitality with additional damage. IMO, knight’s gear with some carrion gear and soldier crests are pretty pimp.

The Show Must Go On.3415:

Daedalus: Yeah love meditations in my berserker build. And I assume you are using those meditation skills and traits in your meditation healing build.

But if you are using those in your AH build, please explain further. I am at a lost.

I’m using them on my AH build because shouts didn’t really do anything special and my meditations can easily be set up to heal if I start soloing, they remove conditions, they have more utility, and I still have 2 stun breakers. The healing you get from using the shouts is incredibly small and only matters if you use all of them at once. I have on average 8 stacks of might on everyone in my party which results in a lot of smaller heals all of the time. My survivability is amazing in group fights. In fights with lots of mobs I stay at full health with anywhere between 10 and 20 stacks of might on the entire party by spamming virtue of justice whenever an enemy dies. This also mitigates a LOT of damage as it blinds the enemies around me.

The runes of lyssa are important mostly because it gives precision and it fits into the theme of the build with a lot more boons. It really isn’t all that important and can be changed out if somebody wants more survivability.

Tomkatt.1684:

The Show Must Go On.3415:

To all: How do you cope with conditions besides Purging Flames? Are you using SoR, Purity, other means? I thought I’d give a try to Lyssa runes if I invested 15 or less in Radiance, but it is worth it in your opinion? The condition purge + extra boons (hence extra healing) on Renewed Focus are appealing to me.

Meditations build covers the conditions issue. With AH you just have to hope you heal through it via boons and your main heal. Spamming all your virtues and hitting Renewed Focus can make a big difference.

Also, dunno about Lyssa runes. I’d recommend soldier runes if you absolutely need a bunch of toughness and vitality, or Soldier crests if you would prefer to balance toughness and vitality with additional damage. IMO, knight’s gear with some carrion gear and soldier crests are pretty pimp.

Knight’s gear good. Carrion gear bad. Condition damage is not good for guardians.

The Show Must Go On.3415:

Tyber: Noted, but be patient with me! I’ll test 1-2 builds with greens. If I go your route, it’ll take me a good while to purchase all exotic gear/runes/trinkets/weapons and have a perfect feel of your build…

Oh I wasn’t expecting and immediate response. Sorry for the confusion.

6x Superior Soldier Runes and you lose a conditon each time you use shout. Timeing is everything. For example Risen Hylek have an attack the shoots poison darts. Wait for them finish such an attack then use condition removal. You could also use Pure of Voice instead of the runes. It does have some bugs with it so use with care http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pure_of_Voice

fishergrip.4082:

Tomkatt.1684:

The Show Must Go On.3415:

To all: How do you cope with conditions besides Purging Flames? Are you using SoR, Purity, other means? I thought I’d give a try to Lyssa runes if I invested 15 or less in Radiance, but it is worth it in your opinion? The condition purge + extra boons (hence extra healing) on Renewed Focus are appealing to me.

Meditations build covers the conditions issue. With AH you just have to hope you heal through it via boons and your main heal. Spamming all your virtues and hitting Renewed Focus can make a big difference.

Also, dunno about Lyssa runes. I’d recommend soldier runes if you absolutely need a bunch of toughness and vitality, or Soldier crests if you would prefer to balance toughness and vitality with additional damage. IMO, knight’s gear with some carrion gear and soldier crests are pretty pimp.

Knight’s gear good. Carrion gear bad. Condition damage is not good for guardians.

You’re right, we don’t need cond dmg. Pow Vit Tough would be better, but I forget what the moniker on that is.

Personally I run with the Altruism runes and P/V/T gear, traited 0/0/30/30/10. Renewed focus and all shouts. I never run out of health, and no one has conditions. Its awesome.

Really any weapon will work with this. GS and staff are my favorite, but Mace / Focus and Scepter / Shield are good options too. Sword just plain falls short.

Looks like there are a few good options in terms of runes! Longer boon duration, more healing, condition removal…

Roachsrealm: With altruism runes, your only means to get your team rid of conditions are to convert them into boons with Honour 30 and/or to transfer them to you with shout. If the latter, how do you manage? The number of conditions might be impressive some times.

Can’t speak for Roachsrealm, but for me with a good AH bunker build, I will tend to eat conditions and let the signet take care of them every 10 secs. You can use AH and dodge to heal through just about anything but a high stack of bleeding. I pretty much laugh at poison and burning.

With the healing signet and 6x soldier runes you get condition removal every 10 seconds and whenever you shout.

If you run a meditation build conditions are an afterthought, you’ll never have to worry about them since several meditations either remove conditions or convert them to boons.

Just going to leave this here

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70142-after-100s-of-hours-my-final-guardian-build/

I use both GS and Hammer.

I run both the 0/15/30/20/5 and 0/5/30/30/5 builds. I have gone back to the 2nd build after a long hiatus because of the change to Battle Presence. I can run BP, Empowering Might and AH and thus give myself and my team some essential support. The extra health and healing power is nice too. I do miss the 15 in Radiance but feel BP is worth it for the group.

I run both AH and MF, depending on what I am doing.

I usually equip both the GS and Hammer. Hold the Line, JI, and either SY or SYG depending on the situations.

If I had to choose between GS and Hammer, I often stick with the hammer if I am running AH. MB does not miss, WW misses quite a lot of hits. Comboing the Ring of Warding and Judges Intervention is essential to what I want to accomplish.

This is primarily a WvW perspective.

When it comes to build I use for now 0/0/30/30/10. Dunno what you think about this. Before I used 0/15/30/20/5. Both work well to me.
I use usually both GS and hammer, but I have every weapons on me.
I have 4 parts of the knight armor, no money yet to make the last two parts. No rune on the armor yet, as I said, no money, nothing on the weapons as well as most are just rare weapons, not my ultimate exotic weapons.

I do only pve for now…

Hello guys,

Back after a few days of testing. AH build suits me and is viable even when I am soloing. I used 3 shouts for more heals but I’ll try Purging flames soon. The damage and condition cleansing might be better.

After reading more topics, I now realize most suggestions are Paladin 2.0 or 2.5. From Berserker 3.0 to Paladin, all I can say is thanks to Silentstorm for investing a lot of time developing those builds!

Now my question of the day is the following: before I purchase more exotics, I need to know what is the minimal amount of healing and boon duration I should aim at to make the investment worthwhile. It’s a balancing act and since I don’t want to go under 40% crit chance, I’ll have to sacrifice crit damage, I am afraid…

Thanks!