Guild Wars 2

So I decided to gear up my zero AR (FotM lvl 19) guardian to get ready for FotM 20, but I’m going to have to make some serious choices in order to take the plunge into ascended gear. I don’t know how hard it’s going to get or if my build will continue to work, so I’ll take advice there too. Mostly I want advice on what ascended gear to get.

Build I used to get to lvl 19: Mace/Shield and Scepter/Focus with Altruistic Healing and Pure of Voice. Curing conditions and providing healing and boons to my team. My gear is Soldiers, but with ruby orbs so I can help a little on the DPS as well. Accessories are mostly zerker at the moment.

So I have to decide whether to get the all stat ascended (Solaria, Lunaria, etc.) or to go with something Zerker or maybe Knight before I go on. Need help deciding what to buy. All three sound good. All stat is most tempting, but I don’t need condition damage or magic find. Any suggestions? Also (but not as important) will my current weapon/trait setup still be good as I progress up higher in FotM?

I’m running an AH guard in the mid to upper 20’s for daily’s and do just fine using knights gear. I opted for berserker stat rings, amulet, and soldier back. Weapons are mostly berserker. With soldier gear and an AH build you’re probably sitting very good on healing and staying alive. I’d go for berserker stat ascended gear as it jives well with most builds and still affords you some extra DPS boost that you may be lacking.

Mazer has a decent idea, but his advice on going zerk is moot considering the fact you use a mace. If you used the tried and true standard of GS+scept/x discounting a couple specific scenarios, I’d agree. The fact you use a mace is either an oversight or preference. If it’s your preference, then you’re probably better off getting some healing power or something. There isn’t a correct gear choice when it comes to that weapon.

I wouldn’t go with the all stats one, since you just get a small boost to each stat rather than a targeted boost to the stats you need.

I don’t understand why you are using a mace but as Thz said, if you’re using a mace then why don’t you use gear that comes with healing power?

For my Guardian I use GS, Hammer or Staff depending on what part of which fractal, and secondary always Scepter/Focus. I’m struggling to think of an instance where I’d use a Mace over any of those three. I’m almost fully wearing P/V/T and it’s working well for me.

I love my scepter/focus secondary, but it seems my mace/shield primary is not standard. Let me explain what I was thinking when I chose mace/shield. I was thinking pure survivability. Heals on 1,2 and 5 and protection on 4 (and possibly on three if the block doesn’t go through) I felt would make me a tanky support. I can take a lot of punishment with the build though I know the damage isn’t the highest. I also know that with many spread out fights, and not too many melee heroes per party, not everyone is getting the benefit of my symbols. I can see that. Perhaps I should try GS or hammer? I definitely have been enjoying the combo of pure of voice and alt healing. I guess it would work with another melee choice.

I have played with Greatsword a bit, but I mostly used it for zerg events. Things like Penitent/Shelter farming and when I was leveling up in Hinterlands. I guess I feel like I’m providing more for my party with Mace, but with greatsword I’d only be upping the damage a small bit at my parties expense. I did enjoy the weapon though. I’m getting from you guys that the greatsword is the standard melee choice for higher level FotM? Hammer I’ve never tried.

So as one of you mentioned, there is another choice as well for my ascended: Soldier’s. I do have my set of soldier’s armor though so maybe at a certain point that would be overkill? Or would having one tankier member provide more overall for the party?

Thanks guys for all the input so far! Now I have Zerker, Knight, Allstat, and Soldier to think about.

This one follows the basic AH trait and my set combination. I hope it helps.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1o.a4|b.1o.a4.e.1o.a4|1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c|1c.64.3u.0.2u.0.1n.64.1n.64.2u.0|0.a2.u69b.u28b.0|39.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

I’ve been running 30-40 fotm for quite awhile as a Guardian and I recommend highly you only get berserkers ascended gear since at higher levels if you’re ever maxing anything out I believe it should be dps, I mix in pieces of vital/toughness to varying degrees depending on the map/situation, i’ve never used mace in fotm, I use scepter, shield, staff, 1h sword, greatsword, hammer, torch.. if you like AH I recommend 0/30/30/0/10, using either unscathed defender or consecration duration/cds depending on the fight.

Thz.7569:

Mazer has a decent idea, but his advice on going zerk is moot considering the fact you use a mace. If you used the tried and true standard of GS+scept/x discounting a couple specific scenarios, I’d agree. The fact you use a mace is either an oversight or preference. If it’s your preference, then you’re probably better off getting some healing power or something. There isn’t a correct gear choice when it comes to that weapon.

Gah, good call. I was tired and didn’t even consider that he was using a mace. I was thinking the extra precision/crit from zerker stuff would work well with Empowering Might if he’s using that on his AH build. I’m really not familiar which stats would work well with the mace since I never use it.

Join the darkside, join the Band of Zerkers, we got cookies =)

Since the buff to the ascended gear that give all stats, I have planned to get these for my guardian. Ascended berserker jewellery does has a good trade-off of crit damage to regular stats however (less than 10 stat points lost per 1% crit damage), and would be my second choice. Here is why I prefer all stats to berserker in the case of rings:

Since I prefer not to go full dps, I like to have my gear giving me lots of power, lots of precision, lots of toughness and enough vitality. Call these ‘useful stats’. I also want some crit damage when I think it’s a good trade-off. I will try to get as much of these stats as I can from my jewellry and fill the gaps with my armor.

Berserker ring gives:
171 useful stats + 8% crit damage

All stats ring gives:
172 useful stats + 6% crit damage + 43 healing power + 43 condition damage + 4% magic find.

In my opinion, 43 healing power + 43 condition damage + 4% magic find is worth more than 2% crit damage, so I will use the all stats ring.

Of course if you don’t want any vitality and feel you have enough toughness from your armor and/or traits then you wouldn’t treat the four ‘useful stats’ as equal. But if you know you’re going to at least need some vitality and extra toughness then going for all stats is definitely not a bad choice.

Flax.4980:

Since the buff to the ascended gear that give all stats, I have planned to get these for my guardian. Ascended berserker jewellery does has a good trade-off of crit damage to regular stats however (less than 10 stat points lost per 1% crit damage), and would be my second choice. Here is why I prefer all stats to berserker in the case of rings:

Since I prefer not to go full dps, I like to have my gear giving me lots of power, lots of precision, lots of toughness and enough vitality. Call these ‘useful stats’. I also want some crit damage when I think it’s a good trade-off. I will try to get as much of these stats as I can from my jewellry and fill the gaps with my armor.

Berserker ring gives:
171 useful stats + 8% crit damage

All stats ring gives:
172 useful stats + 6% crit damage + 43 healing power + 43 condition damage + 4% magic find.

In my opinion, 43 healing power + 43 condition damage + 4% magic find is worth more than 2% crit damage, so I will use the all stats ring.

Of course if you don’t want any vitality and feel you have enough toughness from your armor and/or traits then you wouldn’t treat the four ‘useful stats’ as equal. But if you know you’re going to at least need some vitality and extra toughness then going for all stats is definitely not a bad choice.

Issue is, when it comes to offense the most important stat above all else is power and going for celestial item pieces nets in a -huge- loss of it. If that doesn’t bother you though, then yeah it’ll still be decent.

What about going for the Precision/Power/Toughness items like Protomatter Chain, Cirque of Arah, Band of the Brotherhood, Big Mama’s Tooth and Molten Ore? They don’t exist for back, but I have been calculating. The difference between power and precision as a primary stat is a total of 173 points, or about 8.23% chance of critting, so these items would have that advantage. (That’s 8.23% above the extra crit chance that comes from the 213 precision we would get from zerker on those 5 pieces.) They don’t add to crit damage percent, but mine will already be at plus 30 from Valor.

Also, the 213 toughness also will provide an extra 10.65 points to precision for a half percent boost there to my crit chance from Retributive Armor. (Not to mention the 213 points might make some hits a tiny bit easier to take.)

Between empowering might and vigorous precision the extra crit chance from the precision primary stat items could be the best of all. Thoughts?