Guild Wars 2

I’m confused… In Rift you had this possibility of changing specs in just one click as long as you weren’t in combat. In this game you don’t have that.
I find it a little annoying that I’d have to swap equip/traits just to do a dungeon or FOTM.

I’m still fairly new to guardian, and PvE doesn’t require that much skills besides dodging/kiting and managing cd.
I have no idea usually what to do in WvW. Most of the time I know I CAN’T go melee because I’m dead. If I get caught but 3 enemies, I can’t run away, I can’t heal, I can’t deal damage.

Probably my build is bad, but is there a build that could work for PvE and WvW? For PvE I know we need damage damage damage, but maybe I can compensate with boons or something else?

If you’re outnumbered especially vs. 3+ even reasonably competent enemies, yes you will likely die. The only time you’ll come out on top on those is if there’s a huge difference in skill, and it depends more on how much your enemies are bad than you are good. If you go solo in WvW, expect plenty of unfair fights and situations you can do nothing about.

As for your first point, I agree. It is annoying having to manually swap builds and gear, hopefully they will allow build templates sometime soon.

Other than that, can you post your current build so we can add some suggestions?

Honestly. I do not really have an issue with the current re-specing method. It is pretty quick and painless compared to how other games used to be, and even easier with the waypoint system that lets you move to one almost instantly from any map.

My build is Power 30, Precision 10, Touhgness 20, something like that, not ingame right now.
I don’t really want to be a DPS-zerker Guardian, but it’s required to do dungeons faster, deal damage as long as I’m in a group who knows the dungeon.
I have Knights Armor only and Ascended Amulet and 1 Ascended Accessory.

My problem is mostly WvW. I used to run GS and Staff… now I’ve changed to Staff and Scepter/Shield, because I know I have no change at all in melee range, so I just avoid it. But this is probably related to my lack of knowledge, I’m not familiar with all other classes, so even with my abilities on, I’m not sure when to use my skills.

My Scepter 3, most of the time it gets dodged! I cannot anticipate the dodge from enemy, unless I’m paying attention on checking if they ran out of Endurance (but at that time they’re dead already).
My shield 4, when is that necessary?

I think that for WvW I’ll have to go Toughness 30, Vitality 30 and some Valor to get reduced shouts.

I’ve become very attached to shouts Save Yourselves, Retreat, Stand your ground, Hold the line.

I’d would say that without noticing I’ll be running a Shout Support Guardian, but I’m not very familiar with how to use this abilities.

EDIT= anyway to go around the 5 people limit that shouts have?

Yeah that’s another area where this game falls short in comparison to GW1. In GW1 you had to option to save unlimited builds and load them with just a couple clicks. I have no idea why they didn’t implement that in this game as well.

Zorish.2940:

My build is Power 30, Precision 10, Touhgness 20, something like that, not ingame right now.
I don’t really want to be a DPS-zerker Guardian, but it’s required to do dungeons faster, deal damage as long as I’m in a group who knows the dungeon.
I have Knights Armor only and Ascended Amulet and 1 Ascended Accessory.

My problem is mostly WvW. I used to run GS and Staff… now I’ve changed to Staff and Scepter/Shield, because I know I have no change at all in melee range, so I just avoid it. But this is probably related to my lack of knowledge, I’m not familiar with all other classes, so even with my abilities on, I’m not sure when to use my skills.

My Scepter 3, most of the time it gets dodged! I cannot anticipate the dodge from enemy, unless I’m paying attention on checking if they ran out of Endurance (but at that time they’re dead already).
My shield 4, when is that necessary?

I think that for WvW I’ll have to go Toughness 30, Vitality 30 and some Valor to get reduced shouts.

I’ve become very attached to shouts Save Yourselves, Retreat, Stand your ground, Hold the line.

I’d would say that without noticing I’ll be running a Shout Support Guardian, but I’m not very familiar with how to use this abilities.

EDIT= anyway to go around the 5 people limit that shouts have?

First tip: You may know this, but I’ll say it anyways: Try to avoid setting your traits purely for the stat bonus. It’s not something to ignore, just don’t make it your first choice. Try to pick traits based on the goal of your build first, then examine how those stats affect things. Your stats will primarily be affected by your gear choice, and damage multipliers via traits, runes, and sigils. In other words, full zerker guardian doesn’t necessarily imply 30 zeal, 30 radiance.

I would really recommend dropping that 30 Zeal to maybe 10 or 20 at max. 10 Is good for Fiery Wrath (+10% damage on burning enemies), too much more than that and you’re missing out on some really awesome traits just to get more power.

I treat the precision line as an all or nothing thing, so 30 or 0. I typically only bother with it for Right Hand Strength. Again, your choice as even without points in this line, you can get a solid crit rate via your gear stats if that’s what you want.

The Valor (Toughness, crit dmg) line is where things get interesting. In PvE, most people run Altruistic Healing to maximize their survivability in dungeons or in WvW when running in a group. If you’re running solo, you may want to consider Monk’s Focus instead, though that would mean giving up your shouts. You don’t need either of these to be effective, just putting that out there. In fact, you don’t even need a point in valor, but there ARE some really cool traits here.

Honor Line (Vit, Healing Power), I almost always go with 30 points. If you play with shouts, having Pure of Voice is amazing. Other than that, I consider Superior Aria a must, 2nd trait is your choice. If you’re running AH, go with Empowering Might. Anything else is a toss up.

The Virtues line…If it’s pure PvE, you don’t need a whole bunch here, but AT LEAST put 5 points in to pick up Inspired Virtue (+Boons on Virtue Usage). I personally run 30 in this line for PvP, using Vengeful, Absolute Resolution, and Indomitable Courage. More points into this line also means a built in +Boon Duration. If you’re doing any sort of PvP, Absolute Resolution + Pure of Voice means you can survive much better against heavy condition users, which is a major factor these days.

Runes and sigils are up to you.
Just note that with any sigil that has an internal cooldown, it will conflict with any other sigil that also has a CD. Example: Using Sigil of Earth (2s CD) and Sigil of Energy (9s CD) means if you swap weapons to proc energy, sigil of earth cannot proc for another 9s. The same is true in reverse.

As for gear… Some will say zerker only. I say it’s your choice, but make sure it compliments your build and don’t skimp TOO much on offense. Knights works well, especially in combination with zerker.

Thanks for the pointers, Jericho. My guard just hit 80 a couple days ago and my trait points are everywhere. This’ll help me focus up a bit and figure out how I want to build it out for general PvE.

Dav.9152:

Thanks for the pointers, Jericho. My guard just hit 80 a couple days ago and my trait points are everywhere. This’ll help me focus up a bit and figure out how I want to build it out for general PvE.

Glad I could help!

Insightful post Jericho, thanks!
I see now people chose according to the ability gained instead of the stat given. It now seems more interesting, since I was worried about not having enough damage.

I think I’ll be using this:

Valor 10: Retributive Armor
Honor 30: Superior Aria – Empowering Might – Pure of Voice
Virtues 30: Vengeful – Absolute Resolution – Indomitable Courage

With Knights Armor I’m going to have a decent Crit-Chance and Toughness, to be critting a lot giving might, my shouts will have a short CD and probably I’ll be quite tanky.
I think I like this build, it has lots of versatility and finally using Save Yourselves won’t kill me with all those conditions :P

Just one question though, is there any way to up the natural regeneration of Guardians? I’ve read somewhere that Warrior heals like 500 each second?

Sword Focus for giving perma might (due to the 15% crit chance) could be worth it?

Zorish.2940:

Insightful post Jericho, thanks!
I see now people chose according to the ability gained instead of the stat given. It now seems more interesting, since I was worried about not having enough damage.

I think I’ll be using this:

Valor 10: Retributive Armor
Honor 30: Superior Aria – Empowering Might – Pure of Voice
Virtues 30: Vengeful – Absolute Resolution – Indomitable Courage

With Knights Armor I’m going to have a decent Crit-Chance and Toughness, to be critting a lot giving might, my shouts will have a short CD and probably I’ll be quite tanky.
I think I like this build, it has lots of versatility and finally using Save Yourselves won’t kill me with all those conditions :P

Just one question though, is there any way to up the natural regeneration of Guardians? I’ve read somewhere that Warrior heals like 500 each second?

Sword Focus for giving perma might (due to the 15% crit chance) could be worth it?

Sounds much better than what you were running before. My only suggestion is that you may want to test out Empowering Might and see if you actually like it. It is primarily useful not directly as a might stacking perk, but as another source of healing with a group via Altruistic Healing (I think you end up with like 5 stacks at maximum because of the internal cooldown). Since you’re not running AH, there may be better options. Symbols heal, symbols are larger, 2-hand CD reduction, etc. might round it out a bit more depending on weapon choice.

As for weapons..All of our weapons are good, but obviously some will be better with certain builds and scenarios. If I’m running with a group, I tend to use Staff + GS / Hammer. If I’m in spvp and solo, I usually run GS / Mace + Shield. Sword is a good choice for single target DPS, but if you find yourself in group battles, GS is going to go farther for you. Sword really comes into its own with Right Hand Strength, but that requires 30 into Radiance.

Edit: For upgrading guardian heal capabilities… You could use a whole bunch of cleric’s gear to pump Healing Power (I wouldn’t recommend it, although there’s a popular build called Healway that does this and works ok for roamers), or you could change traits around. We have a ton of traits, even minor traits, that heal us for doing stuff. AH is probably going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, but only if you’re in a group. Other than that, Absolute Resolution + Mace Symbol + Dodging (with Selfless Daring) + Sigils of Leeching do a solid job of getting your health back up.

You should also keep in mind that we don’t really need 800 healing per second, as we already have easy access to protection, which warriors do not. You should focus first on damage negation, then mitigation, and lastly healing.

I see how AH works, I got it now, was reading a bit. That will actually make me tanky due to constant heals.
Thanks Jericho, will try some traiting once I get home, I’ll have tons of fun now =)