So, I’ve been hearing a large number of complaints about Guardians, and I can’t help but think they’re at least in part related to the prevalence of the standard AH cookie-cutter build. Not that AH-based builds are bad; quite the contrary! They’re so good as to throw most other builds into the shade. However, complaints about lack of mobility, lack of damage, relative weakness in solo play, and uselessness in WvW roaming (among others) abound, partially because of the few weaknesses it has. This is my answer: the build I’ve been running since beta. Others have developed this build or something closely approximating it as well, so I’m not claiming it’s original; it just needs a lot more attention than it’s been getting. Please note: I do PvE (open-world and dungeons/fractals) and WvW, but I don’t do much of any sPvP. While it was unstoppable as a roamer when I tried it in sPvP, that was before the nerf to SY, and I haven’t gotten into the higher ranks of sPvP.
The Boonway Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR7dlYgqCHFyvDf4ESOjVCBtPQQYPwI4rjA;T0Ag0CtUbp0iqLjXCvsi56SK2CjRG7IA
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Obviously the stats are a bit off due to the PvP builder: I run P/V/T armor, and power/precision/crit% accessories. Runes are as listed, but the Sanctuary runes are the major versions rather than the superior, which grants me an extra 10% boon duration (rather than 20% chilled duration). I end up with about 16.5k health, 4% less crit chance than listed, about 50 less power than listed, about 200 more toughness than listed (I forget the exact amount), and around +60% crit damage.
Nothing about the build is weapon-specific. Pick whatever weapons you like; they’ll all work very well. I prefer GS in WvW, hammer in dungeons/fractals, and scepter/focus for my ranged option. I don’t spend much time at range, but the scepter/focus (while not being useful beyond 600 range) at least allow you to deal damage while closing with enemies, snare attackers to give you breathing room, block incoming attacks, and even put out a fair bit of hurt if anyone’s silly enough (or CC’d enough) to stand still under an onslaught of blue tennis balls.
All that aside, let me put forth what this build does really, really well: BOONS. Guardians do boons like no one else. Just about the only boon we can’t hand out readily is Fury (without a tome elite, at least). However, with this build, you get 33% uptime on every single boon in the game, including Fury, through Save Yourself alone. You should have perma-vigor, retaliation and about 8 stacks of might in combat (12-15 if using GS with Sigil of Strength, as suggested), permanent protection if using the hammer, perma-swiftness at all times, and regeneration all over the place. Moreover, these boons give you bonus damage, to the tune of 1% apiece. Doesn’t sound like much? Sure, it doesn’t, but neither does the 70 health per boon from AH, until it stacks up with a lot of boons. The end result: we have 8% improved damage 33% of the time, with a minimum of around 5% at all times. Might stacking improves our damage even further, and we can might-stack like nobody’s business thanks to Renewed Justice, especially in PvE situations or places where enemies are dying frequently. Fury brings us up to around 50% crit chance 33% of the time, with around 34% crit chance the rest of the time (completely ignoring the minor accuracy sigil, which I favor heavily, and when stacked brings your crit chance up to glass-cannon levels). Plus, we get 0-10% bonus damage depending on our endurance—and we heal from dodging, which gives us incentive to dodge frequently.
(edited by Kharel Arhew.1437)