Guild Wars 2

When I started out building my Guardian, I went for full zeal/honor with some virtues build because I liked the traits that came with them, focusing on spirit weapons and symbols. I am use a greatsword and a scepter/focus, and my primary utility skills that I use most often are a spirit weapon (sword or hammer), purging flames, and a shout (usually Save yourselves). I am also trying to get a full set of Heavy Arcon armor of Dwayna, but at times I feel like the healing I do is just not enough and I have chosen the wrong build.

Am I wrong? Is my build a good one and I am just not using it correctly? Should I be focusing on different traits/trait lines, using different weapons. I appreciate any advice people can give me.

Spirit weapons are very weak now. Shield of the Avenger has uses still, but they’re few and far between. Zeal is also by far our weakest trait line.

Your weapon choices aren’t wrong, but you may need instruction on how gear works stat-wise. Soldier’s, Knight’s, Cleric’s, etc., and the different sets’ synergy with different builds. I’d like to help more, but I’ve got a splitting headache this morning which prevents me from thinking too much…

Shield of the Avenger is actually very good in dungeons against most projectiles. Other than that I don’t use spirit weapons less I head into PvP. Guards can do a lot of self healing even without healing gear. I run mostly Zerker and usually don’t spend time on the ground. Generally full Zeal is not the strongest option but it all depends on what you want out of your toon.

The 0/x/30/30/x build is quite tanky. 10/30/0/30/0 is more DPS but quite versatile in regards to optimizing to the weapon. Each weapon has its strengths and all are viable depending on what you want. There are tons of viable builds too.

Are you locked into GSword and Scepter/Focus?

What do you really want your guardian to do?

I’m not gonna say whether your build is good or bad. Everyone has different opinions, and depending on what you do, it may be just fine. Plus, you can build whatever you like, really, if it works for you, so be it.

To address your points from my opinion, the only thing I like is the weapon choices.
Utility wise, Symbols are nice, but spirit weapons are, well, kitten. Only exception is shield of the Avenger (as has been stated before) in dungeons. I’m telling you right now, Dredge Fractal and WvW are the greatest places to shine with Shield and Wall of Reflection. Try using shouts. While they are very staple, they are easy, highly effective, and you can be very supportive with them. If you don’t care for shouts, meditations are kinda fun as well. They’re really selfish, only one of them offers any kind of ally help… but dude Judges Intervention is fun as hell.

As far as armor, there’s only a few sets I recommend for Guardians.
Soldiers and Sentinels is staple for tanking, gives a lot of the needed stats, and is all around good. Knights is arguably better for more experienced Guardians. Since we have low health pools, but lots of self heals, toughness, and defense, we can sacrifice on stacking Vitality more than other classes.
Knights is probably my favorite set for Guardians, providing precision and toughness and power.
Berserker. Ok, I’m on the fence about this still I figure, if you wanna go all out damage, just roll a warrior. That said, Zerker gear is hilariously powerful on Guardians with the right build. Low survivability, relying on traits and your knowledge of the class and game in general to survive.
Don’t get clerics. Seriously, healing power is so useless in this game haha. Really, it’s preference, I see no big difference between my 60ish heals from Altruistic Healing and the extra 20-30 you get with a crap tone of healing power.
Getting the P/T/V karma gear from the temples is fine (Heavy Aurora I beleive). Nice starter, relatively easy to get if the temples are open.

Trait wise, the only thing I really really really like is 30 in Valor. Toughness, access to passive condition removal, extra precision, meditation passives, shield, hammer and mace traits… It’s just a really good line. I’m still playing with my build, but I like having a 1 build for multiple things plus solo play.

If you’re doing PvE, dungeons/fractals, wvw, or even spvp, and group events, it’s gonna be different. I feel I know my class well enough that I run whatever the hell I want, and I can not be dead weight to my group, support them in different ways, and not be locked down to the 0/0/30/30/10 type builds. It’s seriously how you want to play.

Kaizz.7306:

I’m not gonna say whether your build is good or bad. Everyone has different opinions, and depending on what you do, it may be just fine. Plus, you can build whatever you like, really, if it works for you, so be it.

To address your points from my opinion, the only thing I like is the weapon choices.
Utility wise, Symbols are nice, but spirit weapons are, well, kitten. Only exception is shield of the Avenger (as has been stated before) in dungeons. I’m telling you right now, Dredge Fractal and WvW are the greatest places to shine with Shield and Wall of Reflection. Try using shouts. While they are very staple, they are easy, highly effective, and you can be very supportive with them. If you don’t care for shouts, meditations are kinda fun as well. They’re really selfish, only one of them offers any kind of ally help… but dude Judges Intervention is fun as hell.

As far as armor, there’s only a few sets I recommend for Guardians.
Soldiers and Sentinels is staple for tanking, gives a lot of the needed stats, and is all around good. Knights is arguably better for more experienced Guardians. Since we have low health pools, but lots of self heals, toughness, and defense, we can sacrifice on stacking Vitality more than other classes.
Knights is probably my favorite set for Guardians, providing precision and toughness and power.
Berserker. Ok, I’m on the fence about this still I figure, if you wanna go all out damage, just roll a warrior. That said, Zerker gear is hilariously powerful on Guardians with the right build. Low survivability, relying on traits and your knowledge of the class and game in general to survive.
Don’t get clerics. Seriously, healing power is so useless in this game haha. Really, it’s preference, I see no big difference between my 60ish heals from Altruistic Healing and the extra 20-30 you get with a crap tone of healing power.
Getting the P/T/V karma gear from the temples is fine (Heavy Aurora I beleive). Nice starter, relatively easy to get if the temples are open.

Trait wise, the only thing I really really really like is 30 in Valor. Toughness, access to passive condition removal, extra precision, meditation passives, shield, hammer and mace traits… It’s just a really good line. I’m still playing with my build, but I like having a 1 build for multiple things plus solo play.

If you’re doing PvE, dungeons/fractals, wvw, or even spvp, and group events, it’s gonna be different. I feel I know my class well enough that I run whatever the hell I want, and I can not be dead weight to my group, support them in different ways, and not be locked down to the 0/0/30/30/10 type builds. It’s seriously how you want to play.

I never understood the “Soldiers, Sentinels, etc.” thing. I’m using the Heavy Dwayna Arcon armor, and I don’t see any “soldiers, sentinels, etc.” things there at all

Item Nomenclature shows the name and stat spread related to it. For example ’Berserker’s’ has Power as the main stat then Precision and Critical Damage as secondary stats.

If you’re looking for a good spec run the 0/0/30/30/10. Grab a mix of Berserker’s and Soldiers gear and go to town. After you master this you can move away from Altruistic Healing and build in more Berserker gear. I’m personally switching in a few more pieces of Soldiers as I progress in Fractals though, but I need to ween myself off it

Altruistic Healing was kinda training wheels for me, I out grew it, no offense to ppl that play it though as its just a monster. Read the Altruistic Hammer guide stickied here for some really great info.

Hammer + Writs + Zerker is quite fun also.

My first post said “your weapon choices are wrong” when I meant to say “aren’t…”

GG mornings.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

My first post said :your weapon choices are wrong" when I meant to say “aren’t…”

GG mornings.

Ah ok thanks for clearing that up.