Lyscir – Main Engi
[????] – HoD
[????] – HoD
Casual Guardian Build
Read the FAQ that is stickied and after that the 30 point valor sticky, everything you need can be found there for wvw..
You have everything there but a good bet is to start with 30 points in valor and 30 points in honor or 30 points in honor and 30 points in virtues.
0/5/30/30/5
0/0/30/30/10
10/0/0/30/30
0/0/10/30/30
0/30/30/5/5
10/0/30/30/0
Those are basically the builds that are available to us but the two last ones isnt really competitive in the present condi meta but fun to play.
Suitable traits/play style for those trait distributions can be found in the stickies.
So I’ve come up with something like this trying to mix a good balance of offense and defense.
1) Probably going with GS/Hammer in open PvE mostly and Hammer/Staff Combo in WvW.
2) Last utility is kinda what i need, save youselves in solo for fury and other extra boons, retreat for mobility, wall of reflection for projectiles.
3) Heal might be situational as well as maybe some traits (ie. strength in numbers for retributive armor.)
Lyscir – Main Engi
[????] – HoD
[????] – HoD
Shouts are great for a casual build and Greatsword w/ Hammer is a good weapon combo. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need Honor IX — Two-handed weapon skills recharge faster. You don’t need it on Greatsword or Hammer.
For your 3rd utility Bane Signet or Signet of Judgment are a good choice. Retreat is good too for moving around the world
I would start with this build for your base. The condition removal from Pure of Voice isn’t that great.
That leaves 20 unspent points.
- II Zeal — increase damage by 10% against burning foes. World bosses are always burning wherever there is a zerg, so this is a flat 10% DPS increase.
- 15 Zeal + VII Zeal — Greatsword attacks deal +5% damage and heal you. This would make the Hammer’s auto-attack inflict Vulnerability, since it drops a symbol. GS bonus is self explanatory.
- 15 Radiance + 5 Virtues — This combo is notoriously overpowered in PvE. VoJ give might to the entire party and it recharges when you kill a foe.
- Honor VII + Honor III — Symbols Last longer and Symbols Are Larger. This combo is good with the Hammer. It’s 3rd auto-attack drops a Symbol of Protection, and these traits actually increases Hammer DPS since Symbols deal damage. Get one of these instead of Pure of Voice if you go 30 in Honor. Honor X — Symbols Heal Allies isn’t bad either.
EDIT: If you don’t go 5 in Virtues remember to switch your elite to something besides Renewed Focus
This game is not about out-DPSing you. It’s about out-flashing you.
(edited by Finnway.2183)
Thank you for the advice so far, I think I might have one or two more questions left. Would Soldier’s armor be nice to switch to in WvW as I know its a big deal with all the damage being thrown around?
Lyscir – Main Engi
[????] – HoD
[????] – HoD
I don’t do WvW, but my understanding is that you need a balance of survivability and damage. So yes, I’d say Soldier’s armor is more advisable then Knight’s since everything else is Berserker.
This game is not about out-DPSing you. It’s about out-flashing you.
Here’s a versatile build that works well if you can get the celestial trinkets.
You got some advice that i think is very good, for wvw, but some i think you should be a bit critical towards.
Remember just as the above are opinions my wall of text is also opinions. Mine are based on over 3000 hours solely on my guardian.
1. If you are in doubt to grab either pure of voice or absolute resolution you should know that a triple shout guardian removes more conditions with pure of voice than with absolute resolution and also gives more boons to the team. Pure of voice>Absolute resolution
2. If you still want absolute resolution you should most definitely get battle presence for the team. Absolute resolution with out battle presence isnt supportive and tbh overkill on a wvw guardian but can be good for team. Absolute resolution = Useless with out battle presence.
3. Dont touch celestial trinkets. They are way off budget wise and any stat combination you achieve with those can be bettered by mixing your gear. Here we are talking about effective stats not raw stats. raw stats are misleading since stats are worth different but they all share budget in your gear. For instance power>precision>crit damage.
4: The only celestial worth having is chest and legs and maybe weapons, the rest have poor overall effective budget.
5. if you still want celestial for the imaginary diversity they offer you should fit them with boon duration and go for a might stacking build. Celestials make you hit like a wet noodle since the are so low on power so they benefit relatively more from adding power thru might. See bullit point 3.
6. If you dont have pure of voice in a triple shout build use rune of the soldier.
7. If you want to use other utilities than shouts, pop in 6*rune of melandru or 6*Hoelbrak for decreased condition duration and use lemongrass.
8. Skip empowering might. The aoe is really small and the benefit for the team is marginal. If you have staff you get more might from empower if you trait 2h mastery. If you on top of that have a hammer, throw in purging flames and deal fire damage, cure 3 conditions and add 6 stacks of might (hammer blast) for 33 seconds with a 0/0/30/30/10 build with no aditional boon duration. With 2h mastery you can keep 16 stacks of might with 80% uptime for over 30 seconds. Empowering might<Purging flames and hammer.
9. 2h mastery is a must on hammer, mighty blow is infact the main dps contributor in pvp and wvw, opposite to pve where the chain is the main contributor. Not having 2h mastery both lowers your dps and your support thru less blast finishers. The same goes for the staff, empower, line of warding and orb of light. With staff you can actully burst rather niceley if you set up SoS postion for the column from orb and throw in the auto attack.
One more thing, not having 2h mastery on hammer makes you use the auto more often, which isnt a good thing tbh. The ligt field from the auto blocks other fields and retaliation is just so much worse than fire fields and water.
(edited by Brutaly.6257)
[Snip]
This is the part of the post you missed, Brutaly.
Anyone know of a half decent build for playing Guardian casually in Open PvE/Zerg WvW?
Brutaly’s WvW/PvP advice is better than mine though. I only know about PvE. Anywho,
2. Absolute resolution = Useless with out battle presence.
Absolute Resolution and Battle Presence do not stack.
9. 2h mastery is a must on hammer. Not having 2h mastery both lowers your dps and your support thru less blast finishers.
Mighty Blow is good for combo finishers, but Two-Handed Mastery only decreases the cooldown by 1s (5s down to 4s). He can switch to it for WvW.
8. Skip empowering might.
He needs empowering might to proc heals from Altruistic Healing.
This game is not about out-DPSing you. It’s about out-flashing you.
(edited by Finnway.2183)
Oh i didnt miss it at all, it was the reason why i just gave him vague hints in my first post, i avoided to get into specifics since they very often are misleading. But when advice might be misleading i just wanted to point out some possible consequences it might have following those advice.
I just tried to point out some stuff he should be aware of, if he choses to follw the advice given in some of the posts in here.
My point wasnt that they stacked. My point was if he choses to pick up an improved heal from absolute resolution he should at least see to it that the passive from the virtue benefits the team, since he wont be needing it for him self. Even a casual guardian will be the last one to go down in casual wvw, aka zerging. Why invest heavily into virtues with very little benefit for the team compared to pure of voice..
0/15/30/20/5 using AH/EM, GS/Hammer, knights armor with zerker trinkets.
0/0/30/30/10. Using AH/PoV with 2-handed mastery, Staff/Hammer, with Soldier’s armor and weapons while keeping the zerker trinkets. maybe change runes to rune of melendru just for pure defense if need be. changed food as well. last utility is wild card for whatever i need at the time.
Lyscir – Main Engi
[????] – HoD
[????] – HoD
The last one is a nice beginner build for wvw. You have both soldier runes and pure of vocie whcih is very good. You might want to reconsider lemongrass, that food is more suited with – condition runes like hoelbrak or melandru. Its also very expensive and personally i only use it with burst builds (meditations) which have poor condi removal.
Maintenance oil might be more fitting. 24% crit chance is a bit on the low side.
But a very good start for a casual build in wvw. With that one you wont be disapointed and neither will your buddies in the zerg.
WvW Build Updated http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlYgqCnFSKEf4ERWBRi9AjZsjXPoYCZIA-jUyAYrkhuCElBgEBl9KiGbltIasqFMVJRUt3oIa1yAovAA-w
Here is that build updated with new food and maintenance oil. Crit chance is still low but I would have to change weapons to get it higher but than vit and toughness takes a hit (not sure what the standard health you want on a guard in wvw).
Lyscir – Main Engi
[????] – HoD
[????] – HoD