Guild Wars 2

Hello.
I’ve got ungeared 80lvl guardian and i want to play him as a Tanky DPS with greatsword but i don’t know which gear is the best for him, knight or soldier? or maybe mix them? I was thinking about getting knight’s orr gear with berserker’s flame legion helm, berserker’s greatsword and mix jewelry with berserker’s and knight’s Is it good? Please help me.

In general, knight is mostly used for PvE and soldier’s stats are more for WvW (doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them the other way around but that’s what most people go for). In my opinion you should mix them to get a versatile set.

You generally don’t want to completely ignore vitality and toughness on any build, so putting soldier stats (P/V/T) on your armor will give you a good foundation for anything a guardian can do.

Like others have said above me, you generally want to find a combination of knights/soldier/berserker armour that gives you the stats you want. How you distribute your armour depends heavily on your traits.

Most guardians put 30 points into valor since our main healing traits are there. This would mean you have a base of 300 toughness and 30% critical damage. After that it depends on your build. If you are running AH, you will probably put 30 into honor as well which would give you a base of 300 vitality. Monks focus builds vary but often put 30 into radiance which would give you a base of 300 precision.

Once you have decided on a trait set, you really just experiment with different armour/trinket combinations until you find stats that you like. You dont want to favor one area too heavily as it results in diminishing returns. For example, armour becomes a lot less potent after 3k so you should probably aim for around that.

Heres my setup for an example: I use a 0/5/30/30/5 AH build with soldier runes, plate of orrian steak frittes and quality maintenance oil. The equipment goes like this:

Knights: Helm, leggings, amulet, one ring.
Soldiers: Weapons, boots, one ring.
Berserkers: Chest, shoulders, gloves, backpiece, both accessories.

The resulting stats are 3k attack, 42% critical chance (w/o fury), 58% critical damage, 3.1k armour and about 19k health.

Hope this helps

Just go full DPS spec (zerker, 10/30/0/30/0 traits) and take hammer. The permanent protection you get from the symbol is better than any knight’s gear you can take.

Yet the hammer has its inherent risk of dying of boredom due to its monotonous gameplay :P

Regarding the gear questions stated above, I strongly disagree with the recommendation to use (some) soldier items. In PvE, soldier is completely useless in more than 99% of any cases. Noone needs something like 19k health if he can dodge even a bit. If you want rather defensive gear, take knight’s refined with a bit zerker or, in the worst case, cavalier/valkyrie. But not soldier.

In PvE i’d say berserker, maybe with soldier runes (nice support) and mayyybe with a few knights trinkets. When using AH and beeing able to dodge, everything else is kind of a waste of dps imo.

Dub.1273:

In PvE i’d say berserker, maybe with soldier runes (nice support) and mayyybe with a few knights trinkets. When using AH and beeing able to dodge, everything else is kind of a waste of dps imo.

Using AH and knight’s trinkets is already a waste of dps.

10/30/0/30/0 with Hammer and Zerker works good. Get 2x runes that improve Protection duration and you’re good to go, fill the rest with Ruby Orbs.

0/0/30/30/10 with Hammer and Zerker is very tanky and almost autopilot in most cases. I’d think if you want a tanky GSword setup this is it too but if you don’t run Zerker or Knights your DPS will be low. Start with Knights if you feel the need but move to Zerker as you get comfortable, keep that crit high.

Blood~

*By ‘Tanky’ do you mean holding agro or just survivability?

If you like dodging, 0/5/30/30/5. All zerker. Decent dps with good survivability. I use it for all cases pve/pvp/wvw mostly because I’m too lazy to switch for each so I just made it work.

haviz.1340:

Dub.1273:

In PvE i’d say berserker, maybe with soldier runes (nice support) and mayyybe with a few knights trinkets. When using AH and beeing able to dodge, everything else is kind of a waste of dps imo.

Using AH and knight’s trinkets is already a waste of dps.

He wanted something tanky. Since that automatically implies a certain level of DPS-loss, your comment was not really helpful.

Thx guys for help. By saying tanky i meant survivability I think i will do smth like Mikemad said. I will mix soldier and berserker with some knight and i’m going to use GS. I think 3k armor and 3k power will be good with high HP and some crits Maybe can someone help me to do traits to my build? 0/10/30/30/0 will be good for that?

CptAurellian.9537:

He wanted something tanky. Since that automatically implies a certain level of DPS-loss, your comment was not really helpful.

Guardian is already tankier than most classes by default and a little bit extra toughness doesn’t help at all. If you want to be tankier it’s best to run traited symbols with hammer and signet of judgment for perma 43% protection and once (if) they fix perfect inscriptions for 48%.

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

To some degree, everything works. However, just to pick your little list apart:
Dungeons: Utterly useless, even as a “tank” or whatever goes for that in this game, you don’t need all the defense from PVT. If you have an AH build, it actually cripples your long-term defense since crits are an important source of healing – which you won’t have, just for the sake of useless health bar.
Highlevel-Events: Even worse than dungeons, since outdoor-PvE is ridiculously easy.
WvW and PvP: Finally, some places where it might be useful.

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Gotta partially agree with him. Full zerker guards can’t hold aggro and survive while anchoring enemies, and that’s the main role of a Guardian. A Guardian can have high dps but muss always be able to protect allies and hold off enemies from fragile companions. If not, then why choose Guardian?

Obviously you can get a good PvE build around PVT stats, but I think you can get the best performance mixing things up (soldier and knight stats are my favorite)

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Maybe you’re just playing zerker guard wrong. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Nespinha.3165:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Gotta partially agree with him. Full zerker guards can’t hold aggro and survive while anchoring enemies, and that’s the main role of a Guardian. A Guardian can have high dps but muss always be able to protect allies and hold off enemies from fragile companions. If not, then why choose Guardian?

Obviously you can get a good PvE build around PVT stats, but I think you can get the best performance mixing things up (soldier and knight stats are my favorite)

Hammer prot? Mace regen? Area might? On-demand stability? Projectile reflect and constant condition removal? Being by default the tankiest class in the game, even before traits and equipment? DPS that exceeds warriors when built properly?

All seem like pretty good reasons to run guardian in a dungeon to me.

What I have is full knight armor and then soldier runes and traits to make up for the lost vitality (Vitality is a must for guardians, In my opinion, because they have one of the lowest base hp in the game)

Weapons/trinkets I have Beserker stats to make up for the damage.

Hope this helps.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Maybe you’re just playing zerker guard wrong. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Nespinha.3165:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Gotta partially agree with him. Full zerker guards can’t hold aggro and survive while anchoring enemies, and that’s the main role of a Guardian. A Guardian can have high dps but muss always be able to protect allies and hold off enemies from fragile companions. If not, then why choose Guardian?

Obviously you can get a good PvE build around PVT stats, but I think you can get the best performance mixing things up (soldier and knight stats are my favorite)

Hammer prot? Mace regen? Area might? On-demand stability? Projectile reflect and constant condition removal? Being by default the tankiest class in the game, even before traits and equipment? DPS that exceeds warriors when built properly?

All seem like pretty good reasons to run guardian in a dungeon to me.

Guard outputting more dps then war? Have you played both guard and war? its impossible for a guard to output more damage than a warrior, so why the hell would you even attempt to? guard is NOT for dps, rather for being tanky and providing support. AFTER you are tanky then you start worrying about dps. cant just go all out dps, only relying on traits for support.

Shanger.3172:

Thx guys for help. By saying tanky i meant survivability I think i will do smth like Mikemad said. I will mix soldier and berserker with some knight and i’m going to use GS. I think 3k armor and 3k power will be good with high HP and some crits Maybe can someone help me to do traits to my build? 0/10/30/30/0 will be good for that?

I use the same trait 0/10/30/30/0 w/ my knight armors, all Lyssa runes, all berserker weapons, all berseker trinkets. That set up nets me 2900+ armor, 3K+ power, 15K health, 50+ crit chance, 70+ crit damages.
To achieve high dps for my guard, trait is set up to blind exposure, skill included SY. Weapon skills rotation is optional depending on CD such as focus 4/Sword 2/SY then VOJ to GS3/GS2. With that much of blind/vulnerability applied, I can do damage +7K upward alone.
If you use PVT gear, then you will lose some precision, so you should balance it out by add Sigil of Accuracy to your GS.

Putting all armor as 1 thing and all jewelry as another is a bad way to min/max. Some items give you more value as PVT/Knights others give you more from being zerk.

A good example of this is with jewelry… I often use knight’s jewelry with zerker jewels in them since the extra power/crit damage is far more valuable than the small toughness/pre increase from the knights jewels. Another would be with the low stat items such as boots/gloves… you don’t give up a lot of toughness for that extra crit damage with them being zerker.

I don’t know if that applies to my post above the way I do thing, but I don’t give a freaking care about that little min/max. I can go all the way zerkers considering of my fighting skill but I don’t even care. When I’m bored, I might go naked too.

SkyChef.5432:

I don’t know if that applies to my post above the way I do thing, but I don’t give a freaking care about that little min/max. I can go all the way zerkers considering of my fighting skill but I don’t even care. When I’m bored, I might go naked too.

That’s fine too, but it sounded like the OP was trying to get the most out of the gear from the previous posts. My guard isn’t fully min/maxed either… but I figured I would toss that sort of thought process in here as well ^^

Aberrant.6749:

…
That’s fine too, but it sounded like the OP was trying to get the most out of the gear from the previous posts. My guard isn’t fully min/maxed either… but I figured I would toss that sort of thought process in here as well ^^

Trust me, I was so sick of sitting in front of gw2builcraft.com or similar sites before, trying to figure out which set is best for my playing style at one time. So much of time wasted and never satisfying of anything. The decision of whether to move 5 points off Honor into
Virtue already caused me more agony, so to hell w/ all of them. Laugh of relief.

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Maybe you’re just playing zerker guard wrong. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Nespinha.3165:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Gotta partially agree with him. Full zerker guards can’t hold aggro and survive while anchoring enemies, and that’s the main role of a Guardian. A Guardian can have high dps but muss always be able to protect allies and hold off enemies from fragile companions. If not, then why choose Guardian?

Obviously you can get a good PvE build around PVT stats, but I think you can get the best performance mixing things up (soldier and knight stats are my favorite)

Hammer prot? Mace regen? Area might? On-demand stability? Projectile reflect and constant condition removal? Being by default the tankiest class in the game, even before traits and equipment? DPS that exceeds warriors when built properly?

All seem like pretty good reasons to run guardian in a dungeon to me.

Guard outputting more dps then war? Have you played both guard and war? its impossible for a guard to output more damage than a warrior, so why the hell would you even attempt to? guard is NOT for dps, rather for being tanky and providing support. AFTER you are tanky then you start worrying about dps. cant just go all out dps, only relying on traits for support.

Have you ever actually tried playing DPS guardian? I’m sick of all these clowns who take their AH guardians in cleric gear into a dungeon and go OH MAN I’M NOT DOING AS MUCH DAMAGE AS MY FULL ZERKER WARRIOR GUARDIANS SUCK FOR DPS.

The only substantive difference between a guardian and a warrior in a dungeon is that the warriors provide offensive support (fury, banners) while the guardian provides defensive support (regen, prot, stability, consecrations). Because of that, a warrior putting offensive buffs will do more damage than a guardian putting defensive buffs on himself, but put the two together so they buff each other and the difference totally disappears. In fact, the guardian has a very slight edge over the warrior.

It’s often quite hard to explain rudimentary knowledge.

On equal playing fields, Guardian and Warrior can be within each others damage range. The myth perpetuates because it’s more difficult for the average player to attain the skill needed to play a full zerker Guardian to attain that damage with the same survival that’s intrinsic to a full cleric one. Some players never will.

Frankly, you have to find the ‘best tanky DPS’ build that suits you. It will be the one you can play that’s closest to the full zerker gear damage output that allows you to survive like you are wearing full PVT or Cleric. Probably not the answer OP was looking for.

As a more serious suggestion, I would start with a combo of knights/PVT gear and 0/15/30/20/5; I consider this pretty vanilla. Adjust towards more ‘DPS’ stats and traits as your skill allows. Over time you will creep closer to your ‘tanky DPS’ build.

Warrior:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/What-s-your-highest-crit/first#post1895851

Guardian:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/How-much-dmg-your-Guardian-can-do/first#post1773157

Although for sake of argument, debuff/buff conditions and sustained DPS versus burst damage are factors to consider but you can glance at what warriors can do versus what guardians can do in those limited scenarios.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Maybe you’re just playing zerker guard wrong. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Nespinha.3165:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Gotta partially agree with him. Full zerker guards can’t hold aggro and survive while anchoring enemies, and that’s the main role of a Guardian. A Guardian can have high dps but muss always be able to protect allies and hold off enemies from fragile companions. If not, then why choose Guardian?

Obviously you can get a good PvE build around PVT stats, but I think you can get the best performance mixing things up (soldier and knight stats are my favorite)

Hammer prot? Mace regen? Area might? On-demand stability? Projectile reflect and constant condition removal? Being by default the tankiest class in the game, even before traits and equipment? DPS that exceeds warriors when built properly?

All seem like pretty good reasons to run guardian in a dungeon to me.

Guard outputting more dps then war? Have you played both guard and war? its impossible for a guard to output more damage than a warrior, so why the hell would you even attempt to? guard is NOT for dps, rather for being tanky and providing support. AFTER you are tanky then you start worrying about dps. cant just go all out dps, only relying on traits for support.

Have you ever actually tried playing DPS guardian? I’m sick of all these clowns who take their AH guardians in cleric gear into a dungeon and go OH MAN I’M NOT DOING AS MUCH DAMAGE AS MY FULL ZERKER WARRIOR GUARDIANS SUCK FOR DPS.

The only substantive difference between a guardian and a warrior in a dungeon is that the warriors provide offensive support (fury, banners) while the guardian provides defensive support (regen, prot, stability, consecrations). Because of that, a warrior putting offensive buffs will do more damage than a guardian putting defensive buffs on himself, but put the two together so they buff each other and the difference totally disappears. In fact, the guardian has a very slight edge over the warrior.

you are stupid for saying that. guardians base damage on weapon skills are A LOT less than ones for warriors, which is the reason why guardians cannot output more damage.

You can easily tank most of the things on this game with a Berserker/Knight setup. At least i’ve managed to do it with my Furious Knight build https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Furious-Knight-Built-WvW-Solo-Burst/

If you’re looking for something more tanky, did you ever consider Cleric’s instead of Soldier’s ?

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Maybe you’re just playing zerker guard wrong. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Nespinha.3165:

Maiden England.3491:

Dungeons, high level events, WvW, PvP………………… PVT works for all of them. for those who said PVT is useless in PvE, are you insane? YES you do need the health when you are in a dungeon, because you’re the one tanking the most. zerker guards are a joke.

Gotta partially agree with him. Full zerker guards can’t hold aggro and survive while anchoring enemies, and that’s the main role of a Guardian. A Guardian can have high dps but muss always be able to protect allies and hold off enemies from fragile companions. If not, then why choose Guardian?

Obviously you can get a good PvE build around PVT stats, but I think you can get the best performance mixing things up (soldier and knight stats are my favorite)

Hammer prot? Mace regen? Area might? On-demand stability? Projectile reflect and constant condition removal? Being by default the tankiest class in the game, even before traits and equipment? DPS that exceeds warriors when built properly?

All seem like pretty good reasons to run guardian in a dungeon to me.

Guard outputting more dps then war? Have you played both guard and war? its impossible for a guard to output more damage than a warrior, so why the hell would you even attempt to? guard is NOT for dps, rather for being tanky and providing support. AFTER you are tanky then you start worrying about dps. cant just go all out dps, only relying on traits for support.

Have you ever actually tried playing DPS guardian? I’m sick of all these clowns who take their AH guardians in cleric gear into a dungeon and go OH MAN I’M NOT DOING AS MUCH DAMAGE AS MY FULL ZERKER WARRIOR GUARDIANS SUCK FOR DPS.

The only substantive difference between a guardian and a warrior in a dungeon is that the warriors provide offensive support (fury, banners) while the guardian provides defensive support (regen, prot, stability, consecrations). Because of that, a warrior putting offensive buffs will do more damage than a guardian putting defensive buffs on himself, but put the two together so they buff each other and the difference totally disappears. In fact, the guardian has a very slight edge over the warrior.

you are stupid for saying that. guardians base damage on weapon skills are A LOT less than ones for warriors, which is the reason why guardians cannot output more damage.

Lol the base damage on the guardian’s skills is higher than the warrior’s. Compare the tooltips on the greatsword autos, or guardian sword vs. warrior axe.

Sorem.9157:

You can easily tank most of the things on this game with a Berserker/Knight setup. At least i’ve managed to do it with my Furious Knight build https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Furious-Knight-Built-WvW-Solo-Burst/

If you’re looking for something more tanky, did you ever consider Cleric’s instead of Soldier’s ?

Going full zerker with an AH-build always gives you quite a good survivability, that’s the principle of the build. On the other hand, that very principle is the reason why especially PVT stuff, but also cleric’s won’t help you a lot on the defense. Both of them totally cripple your damage for having only one offensive stat, and they cripple your selfheal. Without precision, your crit rate drops into oblivion and empowering might becomes useless, which is one of the finest sources of healing for AH.

If you want to use cleric’s armor, use a full healway build. It makes the best of it (AH does not really scale with healing power), has rather decent support for the group and you won’t do damage anyway. For an AH build to be the most defensive, take knight’s, not soldier’s. That gives you higher armor and a constant flow of healing, which will offset the increased vitality of soldier gear after a few hits in the fight. Its only “weakness” are massive hits, but you should not facetank those anyway.

@ the damage argument: You are completely mistaken, Maiden. A guardian can very well be within the damage range of a warrior, even without sacrificing his support. He only needs to the the warrior’s offensive support, but that’s not a big problem in an organized group.

I usually run a mix of knights and zerker for a solid mix of dps and survivability. Gs//H

If I feel I can just go all out dps I change the knight pieces to zerks. Gs// S/T

If I feel I need more heals (self or group) and tankynes I change the zerks to clerics… H // M/F

Sc/Sh (with reflection and SotA) for ranged fights…

Traits I use the 0/0/30/30/10 and change the Majors from AH/Shouts to MF/Meditations from group to solo scenarios… The one in Virtues I change from more retaliation to bonus to consecrations depending on situations… sometimes even dmg bonus with aegis is used…

I know its not the optimum setup for dps or support, but I feel its a very flexible set that let me adapt on the run…

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

If I’m the only guardian in the party, yes I do.

CptAurellian.9537:

Sorem.9157:

You can easily tank most of the things on this game with a Berserker/Knight setup. At least i’ve managed to do it with my Furious Knight build https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Furious-Knight-Built-WvW-Solo-Burst/

If you’re looking for something more tanky, did you ever consider Cleric’s instead of Soldier’s ?

Going full zerker with an AH-build always gives you quite a good survivability, that’s the principle of the build. On the other hand, that very principle is the reason why especially PVT stuff, but also cleric’s won’t help you a lot on the defense. Both of them totally cripple your damage for having only one offensive stat, and they cripple your selfheal. Without precision, your crit rate drops into oblivion and empowering might becomes useless, which is one of the finest sources of healing for AH.

If you want to use cleric’s armor, use a full healway build. It makes the best of it (AH does not really scale with healing power), has rather decent support for the group and you won’t do damage anyway. For an AH build to be the most defensive, take knight’s, not soldier’s. That gives you higher armor and a constant flow of healing, which will offset the increased vitality of soldier gear after a few hits in the fight. Its only “weakness” are massive hits, but you should not facetank those anyway.

@ the damage argument: You are completely mistaken, Maiden. A guardian can very well be within the damage range of a warrior, even without sacrificing his support. He only needs to the the warrior’s offensive support, but that’s not a big problem in an organized group.

Lol sorry, i guess i expressed myself wrong haha

Indeed, Cleric’s Armor would be a total waste on this kind of build. But also take in consideration that he wants Tanky Dps while the Healway is pretty much full tank/support. The damage is just meh, specially with the retal nerf they said that was comming

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

If I’m the only guardian in the party, yes I do.

Pretty sure a zerker Guardian can tank a lot more than a Warrior.

If you need PVT to tank CoF, you’re doing it wrong, Guardian is probably not your class. I tank it just fine with zerker, while being the only Guardian in the group.

Sorem.9157:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

If I’m the only guardian in the party, yes I do.

Pretty sure a zerker Guardian can tank a lot more than a Warrior.

If you need PVT to tank CoF, you’re doing it wrong, Guardian is probably not your class. I tank it just fine with zerker, while being the only Guardian in the group.

been playing guard since release, i think i know that class pretty well…..

Maiden England.3491:

Sorem.9157:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

If I’m the only guardian in the party, yes I do.

Pretty sure a zerker Guardian can tank a lot more than a Warrior.

If you need PVT to tank CoF, you’re doing it wrong, Guardian is probably not your class. I tank it just fine with zerker, while being the only Guardian in the group.

been playing guard since release, i think i know that class pretty well…..

Then why do you need PVT for CoF?

his playstyle is probably more rambo-ish, wish is fine and isnt lack of skill at all.

If he likes to get all the agro on him 24-7 then yeah sure p/v/t could help, i use a mix of zerkerp/v/t/knights but have slowly tweaked and min-maxed (crit dmg on jewels) to he point i want

Blissified.8369:

his playstyle is probably more rambo-ish, wish is fine and isnt lack of skill at all.

If he likes to get all the agro on him 24-7 then yeah sure p/v/t could help, i use a mix of zerkerp/v/t/knights but have slowly tweaked and min-maxed (crit dmg on jewels) to he point i want

I charge into whatever the hell want, solo dungeon mobs because I get sick of waiting for my party, and most of the time I don’t even bother to heal because it’s too much trouble to press the button. Plus, it’s COF, you don’t even need to be at the keyboard for 99% of it, you can just get into melee range of a mob and start auto-attacking while you go do something else.

Shanger.3172:

Thx guys for help. By saying tanky i meant survivability I think i will do smth like Mikemad said. I will mix soldier and berserker with some knight and i’m going to use GS. I think 3k armor and 3k power will be good with high HP and some crits Maybe can someone help me to do traits to my build? 0/10/30/30/0 will be good for that?

Hi OP, since I assume you will be building for mostly PvE, you’ll be OK with 3k Armor/Attack Power but you’ll also want to aim for both of these minimum stat points of:

1.) Near to 30% Critical Chance or higher
2.) the lowest HP you can handle
3.) 30-60%+ Critical DMG

Why are these minimums important?

1.) This level of Critical Chance (30%) will help you proc Vigor enough for you to dodge roll as much as you want, and if you trait for it, proc Might for yourself & your team through Empowering Might (20 Honor – VIII). These then grant you HP per application per person through Altruistic Healing (30 Valor – XI), to which, both Vigor & HP returns will make you very, very tanky.

2.) With Altruistic Healing (30 Valor – XI), its many synergies & your high armor rating — you’ll do fine with an HP value low enough for you to handle comfortably. The +300 Vitality granted by 30 Honor is more than sufficient.

3.) Who wouldn’t say no to more damage really.

On rune setup, you can go:

A.) Ruby Orbs, for pure anadulterated DPS
B.) Boon duration runes which synergize with every single one of your supportive traits and buffs — which in turn makes you either tank better, hit harder, or both.
C.) Lyssa Runes if you hate conditions & debuffs

On traits, the way you’re setup is already fine as is, but I would suggest putting 10 points from Radiance into Zeal for Fiery Wrath. It’s an easy increase in DMG (+10%) in a party or group setting for you.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|0.0.0.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|a2.0.u56b.u28b.0|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

Change the 30-pt Honor trait as needed per situation.

If you plan to be a little more supportive instead, 10 points in Virtues with Master of Consecrations would suffice.

Additional information:

When you’ve grown accustomed to high-level content and challenging boss fights that you’ve simply outgrown the need for Altruistic Healing and Toughness in general, slowly phase in Berserker gear into your current gearset — eventually blossoming into a Zerker Swan.

Don’t let the squishiness of Berserker gear faze you, as guardian has -many- ways to be robust regardless of the loss of toughness.

Plus, you get the cherry on top that are better builds which perform role X or Y that weren’t possible before with 30 points spent in Valor.

Everyone says that you need Toughness to be tanky, not really, it just helps. Honestly I think that health is more important, so I use Valkyrie everything with a healing/DPS build.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Just go full DPS spec (zerker, 10/30/0/30/0 traits) and take hammer. The permanent protection you get from the symbol is better than any knight’s gear you can take.

You have to hit the first two autoattacks of your chain to get the symbol working, you basically have to waste over 2 seconds on two autoattacks and then wait for the forever 1.25s channel to get that protection which only refreshes, and 1 sec/sec at that. If at any point your target avoids a hit from your auto you have to start the whole chain over.

Did I mention you’re vulnerable while doing that?

It’s good in PvE where targets are stationary but terrible for wvw.

@ Hennaz: Nope, vitality is simply a waste in most situations. Its superior to toughness in the very short run, but after that, you’ll always want toughness. In PvE, you don’t need a big buffer for big burst damage, because you should dodge that anyways, but anything that helps reducing incoming damage will help, so that the limited amount of healing you have available can deal with it.

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

Oh, sorry, did I upset you by calling your setup a joke? My apologies.

I have the DM title and it was done mostly with my zerker guardian which I also run Fractals with. The groups I run with don’t expect me to tank nor do I expect any class to tank. None of us have a taunt button.

Zerker isn’t a joke, full PVT isn’t needed. If you want to play your guard like a tank or healer that’s your call, I love the fact we have different builds to explore. We can ‘tank’ better than most, all I’m saying is don’t be afraid to grab some DPS gear because you can be effective with it. Killing stuff quickly mitigates damage also. I agree that staying on your feet is highest priority.

Blood~

I just love all these Zerker Guardians…. Eliteness in its best: “I’m better, you suck.”

/eyeroll.

Bloodgruve.6038:

10/30/0/30/0 with Hammer and Zerker works good. Get 2x runes that improve Protection duration and you’re good to go, fill the rest with Ruby Orbs.

0/0/30/30/10 with Hammer and Zerker is very tanky and almost autopilot in most cases. I’d think if you want a tanky GSword setup this is it too but if you don’t run Zerker or Knights your DPS will be low. Start with Knights if you feel the need but move to Zerker as you get comfortable, keep that crit high.

Blood~

*By ‘Tanky’ do you mean holding agro or just survivability?

How would both of these builds be traited? Especially the 10/30/0/30?