Guild Wars 2

I recently leveled my Guardian to 80 and have playing around with different builds for a few weeks for PvE/dungeons only. I think I finally have a grasp of the mechanics of the weapon sets and traits/skills, but I still haven’t found a build the I really like.

I tried the standard AH build (0/0/30/30/10) and while it was good in a party, it was not as good for me solo. Also the DPS was somewhat lacking.

I tried a couple of DPS specs with shouts (10/30/0/30/0 and 10/25/0/30/5) and the DPS was nice, but I wasn’t sure if I was contributing anything else to the party than DPS (which Warriors and Thieves can do better). Can someone that has run these specs a lot tell me if the boons you give through shouts are enough party support?

I recently tried the Boonway build (0/15/0/30/25) and a more DPS heavy variant (0/25/0/20/25) and it worked pretty well whether in a party or solo. The DPS was a little down, but acceptable in the variant build and the uptime on the boons was really noticeable. I am wondering if these prolonged boons actually make a difference, and are worth it to party survivability to trade DPS for them?

Ideally, I’d like a build with good DPS, but also that brings something useful to a party situation. I have many hours on a Thief, so I am fairly good at active damage mitigation and managing a low HP pool, so I don’t require a build that has a ton of toughness or vit in it (not that it wouldn’t be nice to have some of that however!). Since in my experience it is impossible to reliably hold agro or really even face tank in this game at high levels (DPS and evasion/mitigation seems to trump all else), I am not looking to be a group “anchor” or traditional tank.

Anyone have any build suggestions that might get me what I am looking for?

hey stone cold, you seem quite well versed in the many Guardian builds out there already. and you seemed to do fine with all of them. then i would just ask, which do you have most fun with? : ))

even with a full DPS spec, the Guardian will bring to the table what other DPS classes can’t. vice versa, there’ll always be something that other profs do that we don’t. so sure, warriors or thieves might be able to out DPS us from that standpoint alone, but i wouldn’t worry TOO much about that. see below for a little elaboration on what i feel the Guardian brings to the table : ))

sounds like this is mainly for PvE? in that case, if you’re good at not dying or damage mitigation (and often, you can do this group wide due to the Guardian’s abilities! —> AoE blinds, AoE aegis, AoE protection, AoE stability, regen, retal, and also a ton og wardings / area denail / control, etc etc), by all means, go the DPS route. each second faster you and your group are able to down a mob, that’s 1 second less for that mob to attack you guys. dead mobs = 0 DPS from mobs.

and boon durations are argubly one of the strongest stats Guards can go for if you actively use your boons. they’re AoE in most cases and you have a ton of them, easy access, and work for both defensive as well as offensive boons. many Guards swear by them : ))

which weapons do you enjoy? you can also try any variations of 30/x/30/x/x or 20/x/30/x/x. i’ve been particularly enjoying 10/30/30/0/0 recently. and especially beast with 1-handed weapons. argubly less PBAoE dmg, but even with a one-hand strength build, you can easily swap in GS or Hammer and still do massive damage.

Guardians can provide plenty of support just fine without any specific trait investment. Build for DPS first, then see what works. Usually a Wall of Reflection or just having a hammer is enough support for everyone.

If you want to be the king of support, though, run with boon duration runes (Monk/Water/Sanctuary) and use a hammer and staff with a 10/0/0/30/30 build with Two-Handed Mastery and Master of Consecrations. Start with staff, using Empower then drop all your other skills for a burst of DPS, then switch to hammer, cast Purging Flames, blast finish in it twice with Mighty Blow, then cast Hallowed Ground and blast finish in that three times, then back to staff again for more Empowering. That alone will maintain 25 stacks of might on the entire party, as well as protection and retaliation (if you blast finish in the symbol) and still have better DPS and defense than your average AH babby build.

Alternately, just go DPS and kill things. Best support of all.

Devils.3679:

Hey man this is my DPS dungeon, solo PvE build.
http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2949-dungeon-dps
this is my Dps dungeon build i posted a bit about it at the bottom of the build.
its really import with the gs to learn what the skill can really do e.g: Skill 4 gives vulnerability along with using whirl wing inside it to remove conditions, skill 5 is a dot dmg attack thats does about 300-400 per tick.
I hope this was help full

Thanks for all the replies! Very good information. I’ll try to answer the questions raised.

This is only for PvE/dungeons, to be clear. I don’t have a preference for any of the weapon sets and will use pretty much any of them. I don’t like the Scepter’s autoattack and how slow the 3rd chain of the Hammer’s autoattack is, but then who does. So I usually end up with GS main with either Hammer/Staff/ or Scepter+Focus on switch.

I’ll try out some of the builds suggested this week and see what I think. Guanglai, your support build is something that I never would have thought of and am looking forward to trying it.

I think I really will end up with a build that favors DPS using a boon duration rune set in the armor. I was also playing with the build calculator and came up with a combination that looks interesting: 0/30/10/30/0. Anyone ever run this spec?

Thanks again for the help!

Which of the builds listed would make me more like a Trinity style tank?

I run 0/30/30/0/10 for dungeons. Right-hand strength is fantastic. Sword is arguably our highest dps weapon, scepter is great damage when you need to be ranged, and mace is a great facetanking tool. If you gear for damage, then traits are really about playstyle, but putting 30 into AH line gives you 30% bonus crit damage, which is awesome. The 10 in the virtues line is for the groups boons from VoJ spam (which comes from the radiance line) as for the ground targeting of consecrations. Being able to put WoR wherever you want is a fantastic utility.

Yeah sword is the highest dps weapon for Guardians, however it is single target damage. The GS is Aoe so imo is better for dungeons. 20/0/30/20 provides with with crits a little over 10k(without food, I just don’t care to buy them) i play with a Sword/torch guardian who runs Full dps(zerker/ruby orbs) and never crits more than 1k over me. yet i run with 2x Water and Monk Runes(For boon duration) and Soldiers back and amulet. So if just a build for smashing mobs out in Dungeons and PvE roaming my GS build is maybe not the Best ever but will make you very happy. With this build you get Vulnerability on symbols so Mace/shield or Staff and great in your other weapon slot.
http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2949-dungeon-dps

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Which of the builds listed would make me more like a Trinity style tank?

A hammer/staff altruistic build most likely. With a lot of boon duration for that protection, or longer symbol duration for the hammer chains symbol. The latter is not good for pvp tho, since you want to be as mobile as possible in pvp.