Well I have 2 full berserk damage purpose characters (a thief and a ranger) and I definitly wanted a more tanky, supportive character aswell, that can carry less experienced people and assist the party as a whole on both pub and higher levels. I’m kind of few to guardians (~150 hours spent with it, leveled with instant 20 scroll, craft and WvW), and focusing on PvE, nowadays planning to move WvW.
Here is my current build:
*Armor
*Full Soldier Set (POWER, vitality, toughness)
*Armor Runes: Superior Runes of the Dolyak (vitality and toughness for each set level bonus, +30 health / sec regen for 6/6).
*Trinkets: Knight rings (power, precision, TOUGHNESS) and amulet, not sure if I should go for the same with earrings. I’ll propably go for soldiers here, currently using green knight stuff, the rest is already ascended.
*Weapons
*I think guardians really need to swich their weapon sets often, as depending on the situation some weapons may be more useful than the other. Here is the 3 I use: Hammer, Greatsword (combo fields synergy between these two, party buffing, healing, protection) and a staff (might stacking, burst heal, WvW crowd control).
I don’t know for sure what stats I should go for, so I went for a soldier hammer (as this is my main weapon, and the most supportive), bought a genesis mainly for the looks but kept as it is, sometimes I change between these two hammers, if I can offer more dps and there is no need for support at all. GS is just a random Cobalt, not sure what stats I should go for, staff is just a random rare Cleric.
*Traits
*0/10/30/30
*Zeal: 0
*Radiance: 10 (II) for heal signet recharge 40->32s cooldown)
*Valor: 30 (I)(VI)(XI)For condition removal, higher precision, self heal for buffing allies (synergy with hammer autoattack, staff almost everything, greatsword combo fields. GS combo fields also synergy well with hammer).
*Honor: 30 (II or VI) (VIII) (X). II or VI is up to you, one helps you a lot in tough situations, the other helps you “somewhat okay” and your allies. Buffs you’d get from shouts will be on you anyway almost permanently with a party, plus you provide a LOT of them by autoattacks and combofields anyway. VIII is the most important here: every critical strike you land (and this is why we have Knight gear with high toughness and precision) you give 5 seconds of might to the entire party (1s cooldown). This is extremely good dps buff for the whole party, plus add the staff. Of course you can go for this with berserker gear aswell, but even without it’s an extremely good dps buff (IMO) to everyone, making you very useful in “dps need” situations even if you are built to be a tank. X is there to heal yourself plus your allies.
*Virtues: 0
How you play with this build?
Rush in, land combo fields with hammer autoattack to give almost permanent protection boon to nearby allies, plus heal them and yourself, plus heal yourself for giving boons to them, plus get regenartion from Guardian F2, plus from armor runes, plus using regeneration (boon). You can provide AoE blind pretty often, condition removal by combo fields and shouts. Constantly switch between GS and Hammer to use a combo field with all possible combos (leap, splash). Depending on if the party needs more defense or dps, try to main a GS or the hammer, and feel free to use a staff if you want instead of one above.
You can also use those 2 Radiance points and 10 Honor points to go for 20 Virtues, and get more boon duration, faster virtues recharge (F1-2-3), bonus stats on virtue activation (might, regen, protection), do more dps with (I) if you are not targeted and have the passive aegis up for a long time, and (IX) for a 3 times stronger passive self heal from F2. However you lose the AoE heal for allies (heal on you is around the same, but except ~123/sec you get 362/ 3sec).
. Like… few*new.