Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I’ve been playing thief/mesmer for ages now and getting somewhat bored. I’m really into dueling but also absolutely new to guardian.

If any guardian experts are willing to share with me a good dueling build (1v1), prefrebly dps rather than bunker types, it would be tremendously appreciated!

P.S some tips on perhaps how the rotation of skills will work would be very useful.

Thanks in advance =3

For dps:

0/10/30/30/0 or 0/5/30/30/5

Get signet cooldown reduction for radiance if you went 10 in radiance. Otherwise:

Purity, retributive armor, and altruistic healing in the valor tree
2H weapon skill reduction cooldown, shout cooldown reduction, and pure of voice

Go triple shouts, don’t pick up retreat.

Invulnerability elite.

Mix of Knight’s and Valkyrie armor with zerker jewels.

If you are willing to sacrifice some DPS (about 20-30% of it) you can have much higher sustain with the boonway/healway build. I would recommend checking it out; it stacks a lot of healing power and boon duration while going pure power for damage and maintaining a decent to high uptime on literally every boon in the game

20/0/30/5/15 –
Fiery wrath, eternal spirit
Purity, retributive armor, altruistic healing
Vigorous precision
Improved spirit duration

Greatsword
Scepter, torch

Sigil of purity on greatsword and torch. Sigil of accuracy on scepter.
Runes of ogre on armor.
Amulet of the Knight with berserker.

Shield of the avenger, hammer of wisdom, stand your ground
Tome of courage

Use #3 on scepter to set up any combo you want. Spirit hammer on top of it for more burst. Use stand your ground to not get interrupted.

You will heal off of any boon you apply. You get protection from virtues. Stability from shout. Use spirit shield against range. Tome of courage plus stand your ground to use aoe full heal.

10/30/30/0/0 Hands down.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|c.1g.h2.d.1c.h19|1.1p.h19|1n.7c.1c.7c.1n.7c.1c.7c.1n.7c.1c.7c|1p.61.1n.67.1n.67.1i.67.1g.67.1c.61|a2.u6ab.u56c.0.0|54.1|w.1b.15.13.1i|e

Some of the highest single target damage you are going to be able to get without going full glass cannon. If you run against alot of conditions, just switch signet with contemplation of purity.

As teamkiller said, healway is honestly the best 1v1, but I consider that honestly the cheapest build as well, as it literally relies on retaliation to do all of your damage, which is honestly a broken mechanic.

However, i have to say that the 0/x/30/30/x builds are not suited for 1v1, They have great survivabilty, but lack in killing power. Also AH is pretty much useless in 1v1, as it is meant to be used around other people, and has dismal healing when solo. They are really meant to be kept in groups, not out roaming or dueling.

0/30/30/5/5 is the best 1v1 setup.

Monks Focus with Smite Condition, Judge’s Intervention, and Stand Your Ground

Sword/Focus and Scepter/Shield

You do strong DPS and at the same time very survivable with MF.

Bakitten291:

However, i have to say that the 0/x/30/30/x builds are not suited for 1v1, They have great survivabilty, but lack in killing power. Also AH is pretty much useless in 1v1, as it is meant to be used around other people, and has dismal healing when solo. They are really meant to be kept in groups, not out roaming or dueling.

That will depend on your gear. You have to remember that the 30 in any trait line will only affect a stat by a maximum of 300 points. Compared to being able to stack well over 1000 of another stat (and around 2/3 of that on two other stats) through equipment and accessories alone (for example, my ranger has >1400 condition damage) it won’t make a huge difference.

As in, I could go Full Berserker Equips and x/x/30/30/x And hit harder with full on whirling wrath than a full GC thief could hit with backstab. No, that build is not practical because you would die to a feather falling on you but to illustrate my point, my guardian runs a x/x/30/30/x support build with half my gear being Valkyrie’s and the other half being knight’s, and I can still consistently hit 4-5k whirling wraths.

Teamkiller.4315:

Bakitten291:

However, i have to say that the 0/x/30/30/x builds are not suited for 1v1, They have great survivabilty, but lack in killing power. Also AH is pretty much useless in 1v1, as it is meant to be used around other people, and has dismal healing when solo. They are really meant to be kept in groups, not out roaming or dueling.

That will depend on your gear. You have to remember that the 30 in any trait line will only affect a stat by a maximum of 300 points. Compared to being able to stack well over 1000 of another stat (and around 2/3 of that on two other stats) through equipment and accessories alone (for example, my ranger has >1400 condition damage) it won’t make a huge difference.

As in, I could go Full Berserker Equips and x/x/30/30/x And hit harder with full on whirling wrath than a full GC thief could hit with backstab. No, that build is not practical because you would die to a feather falling on you but to illustrate my point, my guardian runs a x/x/30/30/x support build with half my gear being Valkyrie’s and the other half being knight’s, and I can still consistently hit 4-5k whirling wraths.

True, but at the same time there are many traits picked up which further increase damage compared to the x/x/30/30/x builds. You pick up 10% increased damage from burning on a target, (from 10 in zeal, ontop of the 100 power) 10% increase from having a condition on a target, 5% increase on one hand sword damage, 15% increase on 1h crit (which is huge in itself) ontop of the amount of crit you gain from putting into that tree in the first place. Where as with honor you at most get 10% from dodging (which can be detrimental as its always better to have full endurance than to HAVE to dodge to increase your damage) 20% cd reduction on 2h, which is a good talent, Empowering might, which can net you 5 stacks of might, assuming you are critting enough every second to proc it. Which in a 1v1 fight, is alot less then people think.

Bakitten291:

Teamkiller.4315:

Bakitten291:

However, i have to say that the 0/x/30/30/x builds are not suited for 1v1, They have great survivabilty, but lack in killing power. Also AH is pretty much useless in 1v1, as it is meant to be used around other people, and has dismal healing when solo. They are really meant to be kept in groups, not out roaming or dueling.

That will depend on your gear. You have to remember that the 30 in any trait line will only affect a stat by a maximum of 300 points. Compared to being able to stack well over 1000 of another stat (and around 2/3 of that on two other stats) through equipment and accessories alone (for example, my ranger has >1400 condition damage) it won’t make a huge difference.

As in, I could go Full Berserker Equips and x/x/30/30/x And hit harder with full on whirling wrath than a full GC thief could hit with backstab. No, that build is not practical because you would die to a feather falling on you but to illustrate my point, my guardian runs a x/x/30/30/x support build with half my gear being Valkyrie’s and the other half being knight’s, and I can still consistently hit 4-5k whirling wraths.

True, but at the same time there are many traits picked up which further increase damage compared to the x/x/30/30/x builds. You pick up 10% increased damage from burning on a target, (from 10 in zeal, ontop of the 100 power) 10% increase from having a condition on a target, 5% increase on one hand sword damage, 15% increase on 1h crit (which is huge in itself) ontop of the amount of crit you gain from putting into that tree in the first place. Where as with honor you at most get 10% from dodging (which can be detrimental as its always better to have full endurance than to HAVE to dodge to increase your damage) 20% cd reduction on 2h, which is a good talent, Empowering might, which can net you 5 stacks of might, assuming you are critting enough every second to proc it. Which in a 1v1 fight, is alot less then people think.

10% increased damage from burning is honestly not worth it at all. The only way you can get any respectable duration on the burn is through the active f1, or if you are using something like whirling wrath, which will stack at the very maximum (you have VoJ traited to every 4 attacks and you are just proccing on the first hit of WW) 3 burns, or 3 seconds of burns (30 in zeal would increase it to 4 seconds I guess, from condition duration increase). The damage increase is not worth having to invest in the zeal trait tree imo, which is honestly terrible.

Honestly, your most optimal trait lines if you want dps would be to invest heavily in radiance and in valor. 300 Power is really only like a 10% damage increase if you are stacking dps (I have 3000 power without it and I have power on almost all my gear, but 0 in zeal) whereas you get 300 toughness AND 30% crit damage. If you even have 33% critical chance, investing in the valor line already beats investing in the zeal line from a pure statwise standpoint.

And then there’s the issue of the Valor traits just being far better than the zeal traits.

P.S. If you are not dodging then you aren’t doing a duel right! :P. Good opponents should always force a dodge out of you, even if it’s early. In fact, even bad opponents that are upleveled I usually dodge because of my very high uptime on vigor I get from that adept minor trait.

Teamkiller.4315:

10% increased damage from burning is honestly not worth it at all. The only way you can get any respectable duration on the burn is through the active f1, or if you are using something like whirling wrath, which will stack at the very maximum (you have VoJ traited to every 4 attacks and you are just proccing on the first hit of WW) 3 burns, or 3 seconds of burns (30 in zeal would increase it to 4 seconds I guess, from condition duration increase). The damage increase is not worth having to invest in the zeal trait tree imo, which is honestly terrible.

Honestly, your most optimal trait lines if you want dps would be to invest heavily in radiance and in valor. 300 Power is really only like a 10% damage increase if you are stacking dps (I have 3000 power without it and I have power on almost all my gear, but 0 in zeal) whereas you get 300 toughness AND 30% crit damage. If you even have 33% critical chance, investing in the valor line already beats investing in the zeal line from a pure statwise standpoint.

And then there’s the issue of the Valor traits just being far better than the zeal traits.

P.S. If you are not dodging then you aren’t doing a duel right! :P. Good opponents should always force a dodge out of you, even if it’s early. In fact, even bad opponents that are upleveled I usually dodge because of my very high uptime on vigor I get from that adept minor trait.

See, I strongly argue the burning trait, but I do agree that going heavy into zeal generally isnt worth it. (though I do know of someone who does make good use of it) Skills like WW as you said, can proc Voj quickly, but also keep in mind that high radiance builds use 1h sword as well, which A) has ZD to help procing VoJ, and has the fastest hitting AA of all of our weapons. (and arguably the strongest when done right) Using VoJ at the correct time is just part of the learning curve that comes with using the II trait in zeal.

Also, Torch, which is the highest damage offhand (well debatable, if you can get focus #5 to last the hits and hit with the explosion it easily outdamages it) can cause aoe burn ticks from just activating #4, and also adds a 3 second burn when hitting with the ranged part of the ability) Add in Judges intervention, and even burn on block in valor, and you can keep burning up very easily for the trait to work very well.

The build i suggested is actually radiance/valor already though, the 10 in zeal is just extra icing on the cake.

dodge the hard hitting stuff, retaliate the rest.

I go for 0/0/30/20/20

Bunker Meditation Build

Valor: Meditation Mastery, Focused Mind, Monk’s Focus
Honor: Wrathful Spirit, Superior Aria
Virtues: Vengeful, Absolute Resolution

Healing: Signet of Resolve

Utilities: Judge’s Intervetion, Smite Condition, Stand Your Ground
Elite: Renewed Focus

Weapons: Greatsword/Sword+Focus

In WvW I go with Soldier stats and Knights Jewelry + Runes of Earth
In sPVP I go with Cleric Amulet + Runes of the Dolyak

Who said you can’t kill anyone with x/x/30/30/x? In 1vs1 I have absolutely no problems, even 2vs1 and if the enemies are bad, even 3vs1. This build focus on stacking up Retaliation and being a super tank/bunker. Your damage output will be little, but the HP of your enemy will go down quite fast because of Retaliation+sustained burning.

Wisely use Smite Condition, which removes a condition every 16 secs and deals damage + heals you. If you have alot of conditions on you, use Virtue of Resolve, which removes 3 boons and heals quite a bit. Use Virtue of Courage to block massive attacks, and when in need, use Renewed Focus to reset the CD on your virtues, and so on.

I’m loving this build, I’ll never trade it for anything else.

Bakitten291 (Bash)

10/30/30/0/0 Hands down.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|c.1g.h2.d.1c.h19|1.1p.h19|1n.7c.1c.7c.1n.7c.1c.7c.1n.7c.1c.7c|1p.61.1n.67.1n.67.1i.67.1g.67.1c.61|a2.u6ab.u56c.0.0|54.1|w.1b.15.13.1i|e

How good do you find Sigil of Generosity? – it’s one of the few I haven’t experimented with yet.

I can see it might be handy for glassier builds which don’t have as much access to removals as other specs.

Edit: just noticed your username gets censored – wtf

Trafalgar.5247:

I go for 0/0/30/20/20

Bunker Meditation Build

Valor: Meditation Mastery, Focused Mind, Monk’s Focus
Honor: Wrathful Spirit, Superior Aria
Virtues: Vengeful, Absolute Resolution

Healing: Signet of Resolve

Utilities: Judge’s Intervetion, Smite Condition, Stand Your Ground
Elite: Renewed Focus

Weapons: Greatsword/Sword+Focus

In WvW I go with Soldier stats and Knights Jewelry + Runes of Earth
In sPVP I go with Cleric Amulet + Runes of the Dolyak

Who said you can’t kill anyone with x/x/30/30/x? In 1vs1 I have absolutely no problems, even 2vs1 and if the enemies are bad, even 3vs1. This build focus on stacking up Retaliation and being a super tank/bunker. Your damage output will be little, but the HP of your enemy will go down quite fast because of Retaliation+sustained burning.

Wisely use Smite Condition, which removes a condition every 16 secs and deals damage + heals you. If you have alot of conditions on you, use Virtue of Resolve, which removes 3 boons and heals quite a bit. Use Virtue of Courage to block massive attacks, and when in need, use Renewed Focus to reset the CD on your virtues, and so on.

I’m loving this build, I’ll never trade it for anything else.

As I said earlier, I personally think that retaliation spam is a cheap tactic, as there is literally no way to avoid it other than trying to strip the boon, of which only 2 classes can do with any success. It honestly kills the depth of combat in this game, since guardians can keep it up 100% with just 15 trait points.

As far as not being able to kill anyone with x/x/30/30/x, I didn’t say that, I said they lack in killing power. Meaning that they aren’t going to be as damage effective as a non bunker traited build. It is easier to last longer against this build, just because it doesn’t have the damage that a dps traited guardian is going to have. (take my build and switch the traits, it is literally over a 1000 effective power difference) Obviously as a trade off this build is going to last longer, which if that is your type of play style that’s fine.

Tarsius.3170:

Bakitten291 (Bash)

10/30/30/0/0 Hands down.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|c.1g.h2.d.1c.h19|1.1p.h19|1n.7c.1c.7c.1n.7c.1c.7c.1n.7c.1c.7c|1p.61.1n.67.1n.67.1i.67.1g.67.1c.61|a2.u6ab.u56c.0.0|54.1|w.1b.15.13.1i|e

How good do you find Sigil of Generosity? – it’s one of the few I haven’t experimented with yet.

I can see it might be handy for glassier builds which don’t have as much access to removals as other specs.

Edit: just noticed your username gets censored – wtf

Yeah… not sure why it does that exactly, and even more so since it looks like you could actually type my name next to it without getting censored lol

Anyways, It works very well, its always funny putting a bleed stack or even sometimes confusion back against someone because they obviously arent expecting it. It isn’t going to really save you ikittenerg, but in small group combat or duels it works very well.

I normally only use it if I am running lower amounts of condition removal though, which in the build i posted only relies on smite condition and the purity trait, and i like to have either 3 sources of condition removal, or run melandru runes with duration reduction food so they become an almost non issue.

You have to decide how aggressive you want to play your Guardian and how many defensive skills you are going to pick up. If you have an idea of what you’re going to be playing against you will have a slightly different build.
Remember that when playing 1v1 you’ll find some skills that aren’t viable usually become really strong, such as Hammer of Wisdom.

First thing we’ll do is decide on the Heal:

• Signet of Resolve
  If you think you’re going to be up against condition damage, DPS or bunker builds you’re going to want to use this heal.
• Shelter
  If you don’t know what you’re playing against or you think you’re going to be playing against burst or that they won’t be able to maintain high DPS for too long, you’re going to want this heal.

These two skills are optional for all builds. Next you have to decide on your elite, fortunately there’s no options, the only elite you will be using is Renewed Focus. The other 2 skills which are non-optional are Stand Your Ground, which has massive amounts of utility, anti-control and gives you retaliation to boot, and Hammer of Wisdom. Most people think that HoW isn’t worth bringing due to its low Health but due to the nature of a 1v1 the enemy will not have enough time to kill it before it does the controlling and thus becomes extremely amazing at shutting down spikes, chaining control skills and setting up your own spikes.

Now you have to decide on how you’re going to mitigate your enemy’s damage, through DPS + Burst OR DPS + Heals OR Heals + Dodges.
Which presents 3 builds:

• Symbol DPS
• Meditation Burst
• Control Bunker

Symbol DPS
http://tinyurl.com/c4wfkzz
Provides a ton of healing through Writ of Persistence + AH while also being able to tick over 1.2k per symbol hit and every single weapon can crit over 1k per auto-attack (staff included <3).
Optionals:

• GS > Staff
• Energy Sigils > Fire Sigils
• Sigil of Life > Sigil of Accuracy (if expecting to kill enemies for stacks beforehand)

Meditation Burst
http://tinyurl.com/chktu38
Your healing on this build is through meditations, I didn’t included Stand Your Ground in this build due to it being extremely focused on burst but it can be swapped out for Judge’s Intervention. It has a very strong amount of dodgerolls due to the high crit rate and a large amount of DPS. Also the best able to kite at range out of all these builds.
Optionals:

• Stand Your Ground > Judge’s Intervention
• Contemplation of Purity > Hammer of Wisdom
• Energy Sigils > Fire Sigils

Control Bunker
http://tinyurl.com/bvet5dg
Master of Dodge rolls, this build is extremely strong if you know how to make the most out of your damage, it is a bunker build but that doesn’t mean it can’t do damage at all, you simply have to realise the opportunities to deal damage to your enemy. By far the best against condition builds, but if you don’t know how to make the most of Mighty Blow or Banish you’re not going to do well.

I’ll write up some nice combinations of skills you can do, but I have to go somewhere. If you got any questions ask ^^ I’d recommend the Symbol DPS or Meditation when starting off.