Guild Wars 2

So ive managed to get full Zerk armor on my Guardian, I should say that i mostly play PvE havent really tried any pvp. But I noticed even i dodge and all that stuff eventually i go down cause everything is on Cd basicly, i might just be bad. But i like doing dmg and even though Warrior does more dmg or so it seems, there just something about a guardian that speaks to me.

So here is my question is there any good survival spec i can try with my zerk gear, sorta as a hybrid jsut to try how it feels not to be so squishy

Traits like Purity of Body, Absolute Resolution, Monk’s Focus, and Altruistic Healing really add a lot of heals throughout a fight. Also, don’t underestimate the strength of symbols. Using mace and hammer can keep protection and regen on you almost non-stop. The idea is to keep boons rolling on you and use dodges and aegis strategically to avoid big hits.

Alright, im not a big fan of hammers, but ill look up those traits

Hammer alone with the protection makes 3 hits only hurt like 2 hits. It’s a huge increase to survival… and it works for the entire group that is in your symbol.

Aegis is key for guard, retreat and virtue.

But to me the key for a lot of survival, Blind. Traited Virtue of Justice with 3 points in Radiance so it refreshes on kill and blinds, ohh it’s beautiful. Pull a pack of mobs, LoS to get them tight, VoJ as they reach you to avoid the first attacks. that alone a lot of the time in dungeons is enough to have them start dominoeing over and as they do you just continually spam VoJ. If it’s not though you have GS3 for more blind.

I’ll often have GS for initially pull, VoJ for blind, safely Whirling Wrath, then plant the symbol and do the leap for more blinds, then swap to hammer to ride out the rest with perma protection.

Where a warrior may take a few hits and shrug it off, a guardian doesn’t have the health pool to do that, but we have the tools to avoid taking a LOT of the damage.

Here some way to get some survivability AND team support as a guardian.

- 3pts in Radiance : Minor trait Justice is blind and Renewed Justice allow you to spam F1 and blind ennemies. Of course this don’t work that well against single target, but against a group of mobs that’s fantastic.
- 2pts in Honor : Vigorous Precision is a powerful defensive trait. Its not as powerful as its used to be, but still it give more a lot more dodge. You also take Superior Aria so that the CD on Retreat is reduce from 60sec to 48sec. One more aegis now and then can make the difference.
- 4 pts in Honor : If you want to go Hammer, then Writ of Persistance will allow you to have perma-protection while using Hammer auto-attack. Great against hard hitting boss like in fractal. GS + H also have very similar DPS than a GS + S/F build.
- 5 pts in Vitures : Master of consecration is great for Purging Flames and Wall of Reflection. Reflect is a good defensive ability in some situation, while purging flames stay the best condi removal of the guardian (low Hp of a zerker guardian make them vulnerable to condi). Not a big deal, but inspired virtues give you protection and regen. Abolute Resolution will give you a better F2 regen, so that’s a big deal and it also remove condition when you activate it. The 5pts is not for surviability or support, but if you go 4pts into virtue you better put a 5th one to get 1%dmg for each boons.

Thad is spot on, though one comment.

The 5th point of virtues, Sometimes it’s not a given.

Hammer build of 3/3/0/4/4. You can take the 1 off zeal for 2/3/0/4/4. That one can be placed in honor for more health and 10% damage when not full endurance, not a bad option. It can go into virtues for 1% for each boon and more boon duration/faster virtues. Or can leave it in zeal for more Power and basically 3 stacks of perma vuln (if you’re keeping a symbol down, but hammer…)

Each option seems to have some perks to it. Personally I go with the point in zeal as the vulnerability is 3% extra for my whole group, where the other two are just me.

the primary PvE build is 4/5/0/0/5 GS + Sw/Fc

So, a hybrid build would be 2/5/0/5/2, dropping some damage for 2500 health and vigor+heal on dodge, it’ll play sort of the same way.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dl0ApUo1CxVI8DRR8QlVKa7H0CVFA4+EJBA-ThSBABBu/QWKDoU9HzUCGxRA4KlMYpUCPdDLcBAA4hAQIAZbBA-e