Guild Wars 2

Good evening,

I recently came back to this game after a very long hiatus I was probably gone for almost a year!

Anyway I had some basic questions about guardians. I like to play support builds, always have and always will and no amount of telling me to play the current meta for best damage will change my mind.

So anyway my first question is as a guardian what weapons do you find good for supporting your team?( Primarily pve) I am currently running with a mace shield / Sword Focus. My reasoning being that I have a trait that gives my allies aegis every time I block an attack (forgot the name I’m not currently on the game) with the mace/ shield I have 1 block, 1 reflect for projectiles, protection and with the sword/ focus I have an additional 2 blinds, regeneration, 3 blocks, and a skill that destroys incoming projectiles. Pretty good in my opinion but as my girlfriend likes to remind me I’m frequently wrong about thing.

On the right side of the action bar I’m running the breath heal ( again sorry about not knowing the names of the skills but I’m not online to check) with “hold the line” , “save yourselves”! And tome of courage these are my mostly permanent skills. The one I switch out depending on the fight is wall of reflection and merciful intervention, but if the fight requires it I’ll get some stability or condition removal in here, sometimes I do switch out the skills I mentioned earlier but that is for some very specific fights.

As for my gear I am currently using power+toughness+vitality because I like to take hits for my allies, yes I am aware that dodging is far better but that isn’t always an option, I tried to get a few pieces of healing power+toughness+vitality but I found that healing power is very very weak and that with all the extra healing power I had acquired my healing wasnt even any stronger.

Anyway I’d just like some critiques on my build maybe some suggestions, thanks!

The best form of (defensive) support in pve is damage mitigation. For that, you can either use passive ( added toughness, protection via hammer specs, healing power to outheal attacks), or active. Passive defense is mostly personal, as toughness/vitality only affects your character, and healing power scales poorly. Protection can be really nice, but most of the time it’s unneeded or you have enough access to it for small fights via your virtue of courage. It then comes down to active defense, and guardians are the king of it. You should have at least 3 points in radiance for the permanent blinds on trash mobs. It’s a really powerful trait, allowing you to fully mitigate the damage of multiple foes. For single bosses, you should rely on aegis to support your teammates. Using retreat ( possibly traited with superior aria in tough fights like fractals) and making good use of your f3/ renewed focus can really save the worst teammates in the toughest fights. Those are the things you should use regardless of your build.

Then, you said you were using mace/shield sword/focus. Even though shield protection is nice, the cast time of the 4th skill and the uselessness of the 5th ( It’s a knockback so it messes up defiance or unstack the mobs) make it a really niche weapon. Mace is also a great support weapon, and you had a good instinct on that, but it offers too low damage for the support it gives in many dungeons. You can use mace/focus, but in most fights it won’t be needed. The go-to weapon for pve guardians is greatsword. The 2 and 4th skills are great damage skill, 3 is an additional blind for trashmobs+ extra vuln if traited, and the 5th skill is really useful to get all mobs stacked together for cleave

. As far as trait goes, investing in virtues allows you to take a great condi clear on f2, absolute resolution, or a quick stability skill on f3. That coupled with protection and regen on virtue of resolve and courage gives you plenty of defensive boons.

For your utilities, you have to switch around when needed; most consecrations skills are really supportive and if you don’t care about maximum dps efficiency you’ll probably have 1 or 2 of them. Wall of reflection is a really great skill for reflects, and then you have either purging flames for additional condi clear, hallowed ground for stability, or shield of the avenger for additional projectile defense. With all of that, you have far enough support to protect all your teammates, wich leaves room for more dps oriented stats as far as gear goes. I really recomend using a mix of berserker and assassin, as toughness and vitality won’t help your teammates. Lastly, Tome of courage and healing breeze, although good on papers, lock you out of your dps rotation/ blind rotation, and your teamates will probably take more damage than what you’ll heal them, making the skill pointless. Use shelter for your personal survivability, and renewed focus to refresh your virtues.

The usual support build for dungeon is 4/5/0/0/5, greatsword/ sword focus. This isn’t the best in every situation, but when you’re unsure, it has decent damage and really great support potential. If you have any question or if my post is too much of a boring wall of text, you can pm me.

Thing with off meta builds and tanky armor in general is, you’re not really getting more support from sacrificing damage compared to 45005 GS/S/F.

The current meta Guardian is actually incredibly supportive without sacrificing dps. You’re bringing tons of damage mitigation in the form of blinds and projectile blocks/reflection. You also give out a good number of other buffs such as Aegis, protection, and might. You can’t take as many hits though with the meta build, so you have to rely more on your active defenses such as shelter, blind, Aegis or renewed focus.

Tl;dr: meta build is supportive, try it out.

The meta build will make you a better guardian because the most important thing to know are the encounters. You may fail at the beginning but thats ok! If you know the fights you don’t need tanky gear because you can dodge/block everything and the boss dies very rapidly. And in reality tanky gear will still not save you from big hits and you not out heal damage (sustained healing, not your heal skill) in this game, its not designed that way.

That way you can use your active defenses to anticipate things such as when you use group blocks, stability, condi clear, reflects, etc. You can do all this while still doing very respectable damage. A guardians support comes in powerful utilities and some traits. A full beserker geared guardian has the same support as a full cleric guardian. The big difference is that you actually contribute to damage geared as berseker.

Hokeypokey.2135:

As for my gear I am currently using power+toughness+vitality because I like to take hits for my allies, yes I am aware that dodging is far better but that isn’t always an option, I tried to get a few pieces of healing power+toughness+vitality but I found that healing power is very very weak and that with all the extra healing power I had acquired my healing wasnt even any stronger.

You can’t take hits for your allies since there is no such thing as a ‘tank’ in this game and the mobs will hit whoever they feel like hitting and for the most part attacks are aoe based. Power/Toughness/Vitality gear is the most selfish gear in the game (not having a go it is just a fact) in the sense that you are contributing towards nothing expect your own survival.

Guardian is the class that benefits the most from healing power mainly due to one trait ‘Selfless Daring’ which increases in healing output at a ratio of 1:1 meaning you stack 800 healing power you get a 900 healing dodge roll.

I play a Zerker Guardian (despite the gear being Zealots for the most part) and not only am I tanky due to the healing but I also consistantly heal my party and deal damage not too far off a full Zerker.

If I take Mace and Shield with a Staff I can provide plenty of support and deal reasonable enough damage. Since staff stacks might also you increase your parties dps also.

A lot of Guardians tend to look at how much healing power improves their heals and think ‘Nah that hasn’t done much’ but you have to remember that most of those heals are per second and quickly add up.

Thing is, the Guardian is the most important defensive support in the current meta, but not for armor, passive defense or selfish defensive traits. The way you can NULLIFY damage with Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Retreat, Shelter, Justice is Blind, Ray of Judgement, Flashing Blades (occasionally), Leap of Faith, Virtue of Courage, Absolute Resolution is the way you defend a team, not being a damage sponge that STILL WILL die after all of your teammates die since you survived, but you end up being a wet noodle.

Guardian is incredibly defensive, but DPS is always good and welcome, since if you can be majorly defensive while doing respectable damage, keeping you and the team alive makes everything faster, more efficient and makes you actually feel like you defended someone.

Or not.

Equip a hammer and start auto attacking. #win