Guild Wars 2

This is my first time playing GW and my Guardian is my first character. I’m still trying to understand everything.

After HOURS and HOURS of searching and redoing my build and spending way to much money…. I’m still dying more than other players…

Before I spend any more time and money, I would like opinions on my newest build..

I want to play the support role, buffing other players, etc. while using a shout build.

Currently I have:

All Knight’s Armor – Exotic
(power/precision/toughness)

All Superior Rune of the Soldier
(1) +25 Vitality
(2) +15 Toughness
(3) + 50 Vitality
(4) + 35 Toughness
(5) + 90 Vitality
(6) Shouts remove a condition

All Emerald Knight Jewelry – Exotic
(power/precision/toughness)

Back – Soldier’s Spineguard of the Cleric with Exquisite Sapphire Jewel
(18 power, + 13 toughness, +13 vitality)
( 25 healing, +15 power, +15 toughness)

Knight’s Destroyer Sword – Major Sigil of Hydromancy
(64 power/64 precision/+90 toughness)

The Mad Moon Shield – Superior Sigil of the Night – Exotic
(64 power/64 precision/+90 toughness)

Apothecary’s Destroyer Greatsword – Major Sigil of Speed – Exotic
(128 power/128 precision/+179 toughness)

I THINK all my armor, jewelry and weapons are ok.. What I’m struggling with is the trait points.

Currently this is what I have:

Zeal – 0
Radiance – 0

Valor – 30
-Retributive Armor
-Purity
-Altruistic Healing

Honor – 30
-Superior Aria
-Two Handed Mastery
-Pure of Voice

Virtues – 10
-Vengeful

I realize boon duration is important, since I didn’t max virtues, I plan to have omnomberry cream (20% boon duration) in my inventory at all times.

My overall stats:
Power – 1,616 Attack – 2,716
Precision – 1,743 Critical Chance – 43%
Toughness – 2,199 Armor – 3,410
Vitality – 1,394 Health – 15,585
Condition Damage – 0 Condition Duration – 0
Boon Duration – 10% Healing Power – 325
Critical Damage – 30% Guardian – 10%
Agony Resistance – 0

Also, would I get more protection if I switched from greatsword to hammer?

Any advice/suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks in Advance

Looks like a pretty straightforward support build to me. I take it you run 3 shouts? Or maybe 2 shouts and wall of reflection?

Either way, this can be a successful support build. Is this for WvW or sPvP? If it’s for WvW, the best advice I can give you is have a hammer and a staff also in your inventory and be ready to swap them in should the situation call for it. Empowering might works well with Altruistic Healing too. I go back and forth between that and 2 handed mastery myself. Can’t decided which one I like more.

I also wouldn’t bother with the +boon duration food, but that’s just my preference. Others like it, but +20% is only going to give you an extra second or two on most buffs. I’d suggest going with some toughness/vit food to make you even more tanky, or lifesteal food to take advantage of your decent crit chance.

I’m using:
Signet of Resolve, Stand Your Ground, Retreat, Hold the Line and Renewed Focus.

This is mainly for dungeons, I haven’t participated in WvW or PvP yet.

The Rooster.2615:

Looks like a pretty straightforward support build to me. I take it you run 3 shouts? Or maybe 2 shouts and wall of reflection?

Either way, this can be a successful support build. Is this for WvW or sPvP? If it’s for WvW, the best advice I can give you is have a hammer and a staff also in your inventory and be ready to swap them in should the situation call for it. Empowering might works well with Altruistic Healing too. I go back and forth between that and 2 handed mastery myself. Can’t decided which one I like more.

I also wouldn’t bother with the +boon duration food, but that’s just my preference. Others like it, but +20% is only going to give you an extra second or two on most buffs. I’d suggest going with some toughness/vit food to make you even more tanky, or lifesteal food to take advantage of your decent crit chance.

That looks a lot like my build.

I run either Giver’s, Yakkington’s, or Berserker’s armor, depending on the situation. For dungeons, I tend to wear Berserker’s (I honestly don’t remember what runes I have in it, or if I even runed it up yet).

If you’re having trouble surviving with that build, I think it comes down more to style than the build itself.

It is hard to go into specific techniques without being in the context of a specific fight, but some of the general pointers that come to mind:

• Be mindful of where allies are. If your party is spreading out too much, you can easily be wasting shouts and party memebrs will take extra damage.
• You have a passive regeneration and that means you can soak some, but not all hits. Some hits should be taken, some dodged, some aegis’d, some blocked, and others can be invulnerable’d. Balancing all of these potential responses and picking the correct one each time is the art of the guardian.
• The spirit shield and wall of reflection are amazing in certain fights. You don’t explicitly state whether or not you use them, but if you don’t, you should. They are not everyday skills, but when facing ranged attackers, they can make all the difference in the world.
• Don’t be afraid to change your traits mid-run. Some fights require condition removal and others do not. Pure of Voice is a wasted trait in a fight where the enemy has no conditions.
• The shield can be useful for party support, but the focus is generally a superior choice for personal defense.
• Similar to managing responses to incoming attacks, cooldown management is key. You want your party to have protection when a big hit comes in, but if they aren’t hurt, giving them regeneration does no good. Similarly, blowing all your cooldowns so you can’t self-heal with AH leaves you vulnerable.

Edit:

• The Mace has healing and blocking capabilities the sword lacks.
• The hammer will help you maintain protection, but that isn’t necessarily the problem with your survivability. 33% reduction in damage is nice, but it restricts your mobility to maintain the bonus.

Just curious, where did you experience more dead?

I have similar gear/trait/skill choice as you, and one thing I realized is when fighting in scenarios I can’t tank for very long(some parts of dungeons, certain temple/event bosses, etc.), mobs always go after me and it’s almost impossible to de-agro because my toughness is way too high compare to nearby glassy/mf.

Recently, I switch my emerald set with ascended(more precision, less toughness), my weapon/back from knight/soldier to zerker, and now I can actually transfer agro to my friend with full soldier set if needed.

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, my old gear setup looks exactly the same as yours. Just with 10 point in radiance instead of virtue, so a bit more selfish but I don’t play as a support.

Thank you very much for in info.. Someone else told me to switch from sword to mace. I will try that out and see how it works!

You mentioned Spirit Shield are you referring to Shield of the Avenger?

And Wall of Reflection.. I have not used either of these. It seems like I may benefit from Wall of Reflection a little more, what would you suggest I switch out for this?

Fildydarie.1496:

That looks a lot like my build.

I run either Giver’s, Yakkington’s, or Berserker’s armor, depending on the situation. For dungeons, I tend to wear Berserker’s (I honestly don’t remember what runes I have in it, or if I even runed it up yet).

If you’re having trouble surviving with that build, I think it comes down more to style than the build itself.

It is hard to go into specific techniques without being in the context of a specific fight, but some of the general pointers that come to mind:

• Be mindful of where allies are. If your party is spreading out too much, you can easily be wasting shouts and party memebrs will take extra damage.
• You have a passive regeneration and that means you can soak some, but not all hits. Some hits should be taken, some dodged, some aegis’d, some blocked, and others can be invulnerable’d. Balancing all of these potential responses and picking the correct one each time is the art of the guardian.
• The spirit shield and wall of reflection are amazing in certain fights. You don’t explicitly state whether or not you use them, but if you don’t, you should. They are not everyday skills, but when facing ranged attackers, they can make all the difference in the world.
• Don’t be afraid to change your traits mid-run. Some fights require condition removal and others do not. Pure of Voice is a wasted trait in a fight where the enemy has no conditions.
• The shield can be useful for party support, but the focus is generally a superior choice for personal defense.
• Similar to managing responses to incoming attacks, cooldown management is key. You want your party to have protection when a big hit comes in, but if they aren’t hurt, giving them regeneration does no good. Similarly, blowing all your cooldowns so you can’t self-heal with AH leaves you vulnerable.

Edit:

• The Mace has healing and blocking capabilities the sword lacks.
• The hammer will help you maintain protection, but that isn’t necessarily the problem with your survivability. 33% reduction in damage is nice, but it restricts your mobility to maintain the bonus.

That seems to be my problem, I can’t tank very long. I do well in PvE, but when I am in dungeons, I seem to die more often than anyone else. And quiet frankly, it sucks.

LastShot.4762:

Just curious, where did you experience more dead?

I have similar gear/trait/skill choice as you, and one thing I realized is when fighting in scenarios I can’t tank for very long(some parts of dungeons, certain temple/event bosses, etc.), mobs always go after me and it’s almost impossible to de-agro because my toughness is way too high compare to nearby glassy/mf.

Recently, I switch my emerald set with ascended(more precision, less toughness), my weapon/back from knight/soldier to zerker, and now I can actually transfer agro to my friend with full soldier set if needed.

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, my old gear setup looks exactly the same as yours. Just with 10 point in radiance instead of virtue, so a bit more selfish but I don’t play as a support.

Are you expecting to facetank stuff in dungeons? I’m going based off of what information you provided and am not trying to be harsh. You’re not supposed to sit there and take damage like tanks do in other MMOs. You will eventually have to dodge/negate/mitigate damage to survive.

My traits are nearly the same as yours, and my gear is more offensive with a mix of knights and zerkers. Our skills are exactly the same except I use greatsword as my main weapon. I have ~3k armor and ~40% crit chance. Your setup is fine if that’s what you’re comfortable with. Perhaps it’s not a statistical issue?

One of the things I noticed when shifting to a build like this is that you will draw mob attention more frequently because of your armor rating, meaning that you’re pretty much taking more damage than those with less armor. If you want to come close to actual facetanking with this build, you probably want to use a hammer for its protection uptime on the auto attack. Otherwise, you’re probably better off timing dodges/skills to avoid damage spikes.

I survive well on my guardian using pretty much the same basic stuff you have by timing my dodges and renewed focus. The reality is that no amount of stats will make you invincible, but negating/reducing damage at the right time will help you survive longer.

I’d probably put empowering might as one of your major traits in the honor line because that will heal you frequently with AH. Also, it’s another form of support you can offer your team. Either replace 2H mastery or pure of voice.

Here’s a few tips that I use to keep alive:

• Having a sigil of energy on an alternate weapon set for swapping can give you an extra dodge roll, which, because of your traits, will heal you and your nearby teammates a bit. I usually put one on my staff, shield, and focus, since those are typically the alternate weapons I use for defense.
• For tougher fights, using skill 4 (empower) on a staff will tick your Altruistic healing trait multiple times on top of the skill’s actual heal amount. When you do this, you increase your team’s damage and you’ve healed yourself quite a bit. You can also use skill 2 for its sequence heal and skill 3 to tick AH (altruistic healing).
• If you feel you need more crit , pick up a sigil of accuracty for a 5 crit chance boost.
• Start learning which attacks hurt you more and how to dodge/negate/mitigate them. There are some bosses or mobs where a well timed aegis (retreat or virtue of courage) can simply block a lot of damage from a single lethal hit. I have used this to block a heavy swipe attack from Giganticus Lupicus, for example, which would deal a lot of damage to my team and send them flying across the room. If you know that projectiles are going to be a problem, wall of reflection and shield of the avenger make it trivial. The list goes on and on, but guardians have a lot of tools to help them survive.
• Against certain bosses, a focus may be more useful than a shield for its free blocks with skill 5 (blast finisher is a plus). You already have enough protection at your disposal, anyways, and bubble push is pretty meh for most boss fights.

I hope that helps. If you have more questions, I’ll check in later.

Also, if you could provide an exact scenario where you find yourself dying more often in a dungeon (Kholer fight, hellstorms in CoF, dredge, etc.), I may be able to provide more assistance. For now, I’m just advising in the general sense based on the information provided.

My experience with dungeons is, as others have said, that dying is much more dependent on my ability to read attack signals, dodge properly, move properly, and trigger off the appropriate skill at the right time than it is on my gear. I’m still not very good at it, but the only way I’ve found to get better is many, many hours of practice to get the muscle memory needed to hit the right keys at the right time and react quickly to visual cues. That means not only running dungeons but also practicing soloing vets and helping fight unpopular Champions in outdoor PvE (you don’t learn as much being part of a 30 player zerg against the Behemoth).

Why now, having played since a month or so after release, I only die about once a level on my level 80, mostly Exotics (still working on trinkets) Guardian and Engineer while fighting routine outdoor PvE mobs! With another few months, I expect to cut that in half!

I’d recommend taking “Save Yourselves” instead of “Retreat”, unless it’s a WvWvW build and you are trying to be mobile, in which case I’d suggest “Save Yourselves”, “Stand Your Ground”, and “Retreat”. However, in PvE “Retreat” is on too long of a cooldown (for what it offers you and the group) compared to other Shouts, especially if you are running both Pure of Voice and Soldier Runes x6. In addition, the Condition pull on Save Yourselves can really help your allies out while the boons it applies synergizes nicely with Altruistic Healing.

Also, if you are running Support and Altruistic Healing, I really recommend you consider taking Staff. Empower heals for about 2-3k base to allies and you (depending on healing power), and the boons it applies heals you for another ~4.5k from Altruistic Heal. That’s not to mention the stacks of might it gives. It’s just an amazing ability all around. I’d dump Sword/Shield for Staff mainly because running Sword/Shield with Two Handed Mastery feels like a waste, but also because Sword offers very little as a supporter, in my opinion. If have really want to run two one-handers, then run mace + shield or sword + focus and swap Two Handed Mastery for Empowering Might. Sword + Shield in my opinion is fantastic if you are fight a lot of ranged, but it pigeon holes you too much, the option I listed gives more diversity with a lot of useful protection that isn’t limited to projectile absorbs.

Greatsword is fine if you want be more damage oriented. If you want to offer more CC and protection as well as a blast finisher, then go Hammer.

I’d consider dropping Pure of Voice and taking Empowering Might. With 43% Crit Chance it’d seem like a waste not to take it. The Grandmaster Honor Traits are very lack luster, and Pure of Voice combined with Soldier runes seems redundant. Soldier Runes with Hold the Line and/or Stand Your Ground are great for removing one or two conditions, if the party has more then just pop Save Yourselves instead.

Gear in my opinion is perfectly fine for a frontline support, but the traits just needed some tweaking to really make the build shine. Good work.

I have been playing my guardian basically since I started GW2.
Its true that you can die very easy but also if you play well, dodge at the right times you can survive very long ^^
That said I should point out 2 things. I usually play with a friend, while on skype, so I’m nearly always with some one in a party. secondly I mostly play pve and dungeons so my build is not really for wvw or pvp.

I have been looking at different support build for a while now, trying to figure out what works and what doesnt. For one, I really love the combi of scepter/shield for long range in parties as guardians are not the fastest to walk from one enemy to an other and its easier to doge. second I use a great sword, just to get that extra damage in pve or boss battles. I dont like to use a hammer for this as the attacks charge rather slow. The combinations you can make with the knock back, root and skill2+F1 is really nice after which they usually come to and switch over to gs to blind them with 3 and really do some damage ^^ anyways just know when to switch between weapons and know all your skills.

In WvW/PvP (note: I dont really do pvp) I prefer my hammer, scepter/shield combo. You will have 2 rooting skills and 2 knock back skills, and well thats just handy when you try to catch some enemy or when some are after you XD
———-
For my traits, I have been running around with a ‘commander build’ for a while which I adapted to suit me more:
30 Valor: V, IX, XI (for some reason I dont have much crit so I’m not using Retributive Armor)
30 Honnor: II, IX, XI-this skill kind of affects you too
and this is where I go kind of 2 ways, and this will depend on what skills you want to use.
10 Zeal (to get a bit extra power as for the skill I didnt agree with the guy who featured this build so I just kinda randomly took a skill) I or V

I love using sanctuary, downside of it thakittens rather short and a long cooldown.
So I saw this ‘undying support build’ and I for one they used a mace and an other close range weapon… dont like… if your low on health and jump out of the battle, you cant do a thing ! and in all likely hood the enemy is on your tail… unless some one ells (warrior?) is pulling it.. so only too one trait from that build. switched my zeal to virtues:

Virtues 10: VI – concentrations skills last longer. meaning I can use 2 shields a lot longer, combined with my rooting and knockback that basically means i nearly have my sanctuary back !!!
I’ma call it the cocoon build !!!~ Muwahahaha XD joke XD anyways been playing this now for a while as well, and I do miss the power. but thats also because i have been switching armors.
———-
The skills I’m running (6-0) are:
6 signet of resolve
7 save yourself
8 retreat/ hold the line/ wall of reflection
9 sanctuary/ sword of justice
0 hounds of balthazar/ renewed focus

depending on what i’m doing, whos in my team and what the boss or mobs require i change my skills. so when quickly zerking through maps i use my sword and my 2 shouts with running skills. on cof i always make sure to have one running shout, sanctuary and which ever one the party requires. so yes thats my skills
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As for armor most support classes go cleric or sentinel armor.
though I like the reasoning from the commander build. so i’m going half sentinel half knights armor. so I do have my bit more vitality but yha your never gonna get a high health pool so I dont focus too much on it. The knights armor, gives me more precision and my toughness and power, which is nice cause then your enemies die a bit quicker XD
I mean you can only hold out for a certain time limit, if the boss is not dead your dead… its about the timing ^^
———-
for sigls and those runes. i’m still looking into that. though think i’ll stick the the commander build idea and use the runes of the dolyak. reason. nearly every shout removes a condition or gives you healing, every 10s a condition is removed, and i got my shield attack which removes conditions, and if you have shield of retaliation, that removes conditions too. so why not XD down side it that this rune cost like 3g70s. so yha the rune of the soldier is a nice alternative. atm i’m saving up for the rune of dolyak. (I used to mindlessly spend money on un-important stuff == I’m a girl thats what we do XP)
————
Also save up all your laurels,dont buy unidentified dyes !!! == meaning I’m still saving up now for the legendary rings etc. I will be taking the all stats that the undying support build advice’s and mix it with 1 or 2 power, toughness, vitality ones.
———-
anyways this is my build so far. I know its not the best one out there most likely XD got an other member in my guild who keeps on pestering me about my weapons hahaha but ok, this is how I like to play and play best ^^

any tips are always welcome !!!~ I mean my build is not perfect ^^ hehehe