Guild Wars 2

General Comments:

My videos were done at 48 so some of the strategies may be overkill for early levels.

I put the specific gear, traits, weapons, skills in the video description for each event/boss or you can look at the build info above.

I didn’t bother with the brain dead parts and I took only quick and clean parts to not waste your time

All the videos are shown as the anchor build which is different from the updated build. It does just as well for survival while offering more dps, flexibility, blinds, and vulnerability.

LoS means line of sight. This is a technique where you pull mobs around a corner and they swarm to it and group up in front of you so you can tear them apart.

Most pugs won’t melee things like mossman, bloomhunger, jellyfish beast, archdiviner so you may get complaints if you do so

My groups may make things look easy. You may struggle but hang in there

Use your virtues. Always spam F1, use resolve if your team is low and in trouble, and use courage for aegis chains, agony attacks, and if your team is low and in trouble.

If you are expecting good loot or an easy time in fractal than I’d suggest not bothering with fractals. You get terrible loot vs time and it will get tough but will make you a much better player and help learn your class.

Now on to the guide…

Aquatic Ruins Fractal

Krait Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hi8AX_wrRA

Dolphin Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXvpWPLL6IE

Luminous Plant Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJs7caAU5ik

Jellyfish Beast (Melee)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-T1FZ61rcU

Cliffside Fractal

Legendary Archdiviner (Melee)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_CxZV3WYk8

Chest Seal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZH1QOM9VH8

Arm Seals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Xtl1jWdKs

Final Seal with Archdiviner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD85exhKXcw

Snowblind Fractal

Bonfire Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkmqH7So8Yw

Elemental Source
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC2_Vx2InV0

Legendary Shaman Lornarr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7EyabBIfmk

Solid Ocean Fractal

Jade Maw (Quick video to show tome and 99%)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNW_jI7nrEI

Jade Maw (Full Fight)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9G_UrrgjWU

Swampland Fractal

Whisp Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17IxL3sli38

Mossman (melee)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XYjjRaOlfI

Bloomhunger (melee)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAFxIG-3awM

Bloomhunger speed kill as dps guardian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDgdf0G9cU

Underground Facility Fractal

Control Panel Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pury3dyGX20

Cannon Room Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiQZEnNtrHg

Cannon Room Event (Theif Speedy Style)
http://youtu.be/YerTi1PM6YU

Bomb Room Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_38rOY6Nl88

Champion Rabsovich and the Clown Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky2HpnvC05I

Legendary Dredge Powersuit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDDPPsBnB8k

Legendary Rampaging Ice Elemental
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh8j6DRIOms

Legendary Rampaging Ice Elemental (Melee)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zMpl94nj74

Pulling Levers (Shown vs Powersuit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuTf8Zw7eCM

Urban Battlegrounds Fractal

Breach the City Gates Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2VgJ6XbFGQ

The City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKuxoM0o9OM

Capture the Courtyard Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it_AVN0gZLs

Captain Ashym
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18WL-QGZDsA

Volcanic Fractal

Grawl Guards Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdy-BUzbkdY

Break the Shaman’s Bubble Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMzqdRt0ll8

Champion Grawl Shaman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvOlDiArL4M

Legendary Imbued Shaman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnKnNAMaf1Q

Uncategorized Fractal

Harpy Events
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Q8YDPg0uQ

Escape the Holding Area Event (champion room)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzjBxKwXOpo

Old Tom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSYyqyW1cp4

Raving Asura
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EoSxlE2yCw

Solo

Bloomhunger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td6ZAB6Lsxc

Archdiviner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P7Y4G3lLmU

Speed Kills

Dredge Power Suit 20s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiIU_ktc2Ac

Rampaging Ice Elemental 25s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXLDvQOKzxU

Bloomhunger 43s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDgdf0G9cU

Mossman 56s
http://youtu.be/ZsECC8zU8Ws

Mossman 4s
http://youtu.be/NlhVsoabtgo

Other Feats

Rampaging Ice Elemental Melee Kill without Superheated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYg2_WU_7rA

Archdiviner Full Melee at Final Seal
http://youtu.be/g7fWSETTFIg

Captain Ashym Full Melee
http://youtu.be/ILQgWA9UU7w

Awesome compilation and thank you for taking the time to record and post those fights. Good study material for anyone to understand the fights, not just guardians.

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Obal,

Great write-up. Giving me some things to think about. Also if you need a guard for 48, let me know. I’ve done it several times and would like a group to run with.

Here are a few questions:

Why Force/Night/Acc over Fire?

Xystus.3241:

Obal,

Great write-up. Giving me some things to think about. Also if you need a guard for 48, let me know. I’ve done it several times and would like a group to run with.

Here are a few questions:

Why Force/Night/Acc over Fire?

Accuracy is good for anchor since it triggers AH and you give the group might stacks. I use fire on my scepter but not 2h weapons.

Force/Night is something that should be used for every dps build. You will do more damage than fire can do. For 1h weapons I’d rather stack might with the other sigil with strength or battle for warriors than fire too since it probably leads to higher dps given all the power you have.

If you have a mic and I need another guard I’ll let you know. I probably won’t go as much though since I’m pretty burned out after doing the guide and I have 5 fractal torches….

Obal,

Thanks for the information. I have a mic and TS/Vent/C3/Skype/Mumble all setup.

Thanks for your great videos with all the nice hints and putting all the important parts into short videos. It’s really a shame that they have not yet been viewed more often since they are really great reference!

Spread the word so the higher level runs get way smoother

+1

Good write-up, thanks.

One more thing Obal,

What food do you use?
Normally on DPS build I use Squash Soup (Crit/Crit Damage).

I use squash soup on the dps build and omnomberry ghosts or squash soup for anchor.

Love the videos. Music works fabulously!

Just a bit curious, ever tested this build in wvw? Is the HP enough?

I don’t do wvw so I’m not sure. There are probably better builds out there better suited for wvw.

Obal, for Infusions:

Power vs Critical?
It ends up being 20 Power vs 1% to Critical Hit.

Nespinha.3165:

Love the videos. Music works fabulously!

Just a bit curious, ever tested this build in wvw? Is the HP enough?

You’d get destroyed trying to run the PVE berserker builds in wvwvw. The “anchor” build might somewhat work a bit but it’s not really optimal, if you’re going bunker you’ll find cleric builds to be much stronger. If you’re going damage with mostly zerk gear, you should have a look at meditation builds.

My group and I have issues with the Dredge Control Panel event show in the vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pury3dyGX20

I studied it carefully, and i liked the approach i plan to incorporate what you’re doing but my question is this around the 1:33 mark in the vid two of the downed party members were revived and the dredge numbers seemed a bit thinned out. Was that a time lapse at that point? Do the dredge have a limited number of spawns?

Xystus.3241:

Obal, for Infusions:

Power vs Critical?
It ends up being 20 Power vs 1% to Critical Hit.

I just use the +5 ar ones but the 20/1 sounds like a bad tradeoff. I guess you can put your build in a build calc and add them in to see what gives you higher though.

MastaNeenja.1537:

My group and I have issues with the Dredge Control Panel event show in the vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pury3dyGX20

I studied it carefully, and i liked the approach i plan to incorporate what you’re doing but my question is this around the 1:33 mark in the vid two of the downed party members were revived and the dredge numbers seemed a bit thinned out. Was that a time lapse at that point? Do the dredge have a limited number of spawns?

The strategy is to group up the ones in the middle and left and kill them. A vet will spawn by the panel afterwards which you leave alone and no more will spawn. You get out of combat to let the outside people revive if need be and send 2 in the room to the switches to let the other 2 in I just cut them reviving and running through to save some time on the video. From there 2 kite the mobs while the other does the panel.

hey obal! long time ; ))

just wanted to let you know i’ve been using this guide and slowly working my way up the fractal ladder. of course, i’ve made adjustments to better suit lower levels, but the core is here and thanks for all the hard work!

obal.3218:

The strategy is to group up the ones in the middle and left and kill them. A vet will spawn by the panel afterwards which you leave alone and no more will spawn. You get out of combat to let the outside people revive if need be and send 2 in the room to the switches to let the other 2 in I just cut them reviving and running through to save some time on the video. From there 2 kite the mobs while the other does the panel.

Thanks for the explanation!

I made a new build to replace the anchor since that is pretty much dead. It does just as well for survival while offering more dps, flexibility, blinds, and vulnerability. I also added a few more videos at the bottom of some crazy stuff we did.

nice, obal. been messing around with a 15/x/x/20/x hammer build as well and has been a lot of fun. i’ll have to give this shot in fractals as well and see how this goes.

qucik question – is this new “anchor” hammer tank/dps build made intentionally for organized groups as well? or do you feel it’ll still perform in pugs? i guess that’s not a question we can easily quantify though.

I made it for both organized and pug groups. I tried it out for my usual fractal group at 48 and it worked well. I liked the flexibility since half the fractal content is faceroll and the old anchor just slows things down, but you can go full zerk and benefit from it more for those parts and be tanky enough for other parts. More blinds and vulnerability is great too. It’s good for fractal for organized groups and pugging. Outside of fractal Brazil’s sword dps build is better for an organized group since stuff dies too fast for perma prot to be beneficial. I haven’t pugged dungeons in awhile but this one would be safer for that if you get a low dps or bad group.

Nice guide Obal, I hope people use it.

I just deleted my knight’s set entirely the other night.. Was using it for 48 but then realized if my party is failing so hard that I need to run knight’s I may as well just leave. Running the full dps setup above now for fotm 48. I found most of the places you mention where tank gear could be acceptable, I use crowd control measures/dodging and endurance food to mitigate the damage and still get away with full zerks.

First off, you are great inspiration to me and my team, you guys have a really nice coordination. I was wondering for the bomb fractal, you seem to be using a 0/030/30/10 which granted you some extra HP/Regen/Toughness, when I try the same but with your 15/15/0/20/20 hammer build, we tend to die alot more, not only do I take alot of damage but my regen is extremely low. How do you guys manage with this build? Also, would you consider a 15/15/0/30/10 for hammer build? The team condi removal seems nice since we barely have any.

I have grown to love 20 in virtues for absolute resolution. PoV makes you use shouts to remove conditions which can be bad because a lot of the times you have to use them at specific moments (retreat when expecting one shot attacks for example). There are also times when you only really want 1 shout on your bar (typically retreat, sometimes SYG) because you may need 2 consecrations or WoR + SoA for projectiles so PoV is pretty weak.

Trice.4598:

First off, you are great inspiration to me and my team, you guys have a really nice coordination. I was wondering for the bomb fractal, you seem to be using a 0/030/30/10 which granted you some extra HP/Regen/Toughness, when I try the same but with your 15/15/0/20/20 hammer build, we tend to die alot more, not only do I take alot of damage but my regen is extremely low. How do you guys manage with this build? Also, would you consider a 15/15/0/30/10 for hammer build? The team condi removal seems nice since we barely have any.

The new hammer build I came up with is better all around. It is more difficult but more beneficial since half the content is so faceroll that it is a waste to be defensive at all. You add blinds and vulnerability that will add to your groups survival as well (except for the lame dredge as far as blinds go but the vuln will help the dps race to rally). I gradually transitioned to it and just learned to deal with having less survival. I updated it for a little bit of leeway. You could put the 10 in valor for 250 more armor and 150 more for your team and 10 in virtues instead of 20 if survival is a problem. I did that at first and do it sometimes still depending on the group or go to do crazy stuff I do like melee ashym or archdiviner at the final seal .

You will probably only have 1 shout on your bar in fractals so PoV is a bit of a waste. Conditions aren’t too much of an issue either in fractals. When they are like in cliffside I use purging flames as my main removal and use the traited virtue for an extra cleanse if I really need too. If you have someone else with removal you probably won’t even need the 10 in virtues and can put it to valor for more defense or 10 in radiance when you are more comfortable with the build to max the deeps.

obal.3218:

Trice.4598:

First off, you are great inspiration to me and my team, you guys have a really nice coordination. I was wondering for the bomb fractal, you seem to be using a 0/030/30/10 which granted you some extra HP/Regen/Toughness, when I try the same but with your 15/15/0/20/20 hammer build, we tend to die alot more, not only do I take alot of damage but my regen is extremely low. How do you guys manage with this build? Also, would you consider a 15/15/0/30/10 for hammer build? The team condi removal seems nice since we barely have any.

The new hammer build I came up with is better all around. It is more difficult but more beneficial since half the content is so faceroll that it is a waste to be defensive at all. You add blinds and vulnerability that will add to your groups survival as well (except for the lame dredge as far as blinds go but the vuln will help the dps race to rally). I gradually transitioned to it and just learned to deal with having less survival. I updated it for a little bit of leeway. You could put the 10 in valor for 250 more armor and 150 more for your team and 10 in virtues instead of 20 if survival is a problem. I did that at first and do it sometimes still depending on the group or go to do crazy stuff I do like melee ashym or archdiviner at the final seal .

You will probably only have 1 shout on your bar in fractals so PoV is a bit of a waste. Conditions aren’t too much of an issue either in fractals. When they are like in cliffside I use purging flames as my main removal and use the traited virtue for an extra cleanse if I really need too. If you have someone else with removal you probably won’t even need the 10 in virtues and can put it to valor for more defense or 10 in radiance when you are more comfortable with the build to max the deeps.

Thanks alot. From what Iv’e seen my party is not taking down the enemy fast enough and I end up dying when it takes too much time. Most of the time we end up with only 1 warrior which doesn’t help. Also about the 20 in virtue, I’m already loving it, with 2 guardians you have more than enough condi removal without PoV, also the boon duration help alot with the perma protection.

Keep checking these videos for pointers, good stuff, I really think this should get stickied.

I agree, sticky it.

Agreed, deserves sticky. Plus he always updates his builds and strategies..

Some of it is a little dated. I might eventually do updated ones at 80 now that I’m there . I added a video build guide for now.

I saw that vid, it was good, you took into consideration those who are just starting out.

A question regarding the Sigil of Force:
Somewhere I red that the maximux DPS is around 4k for a Guardian. This would be 20k in 5 second, aka 1k damage from Sigil of Force in in 5 seconds.

Isn’t Sigil of Air a good alternative? (trying to be cheap, sorry!)

The max is higher than that which you can see here http://youtu.be/U67QNskKYHs
I’d rather have force since it’s a steady damage multiplier, it works with reflected damage, and it works on things that can’t be crit. If your group has a lot of dps most fights won’t last long and you will get maybe 3 procs on the air sigil. It’s also a single target hit so it wouldn’t be worthwhile for mobs.

Not really.
It has an internal cooldown of 5 seconds. Best case scenario, that’s an extra ~1000 damage every 5 seconds. However, since it is a 30% off a critical hit; it’s not as reliable.

Let’s say you have 60% to critical, which is doable for guards. Out of 100 attacks, 60 will be critical. Out of that 60, only 18 will activate air.

Let’s assuming you’re using greatsword #1 auto-attack only. Its #1 is .5 seconds per hit. 2 hits per second. To get those 100 attacks in, it will be 50 seconds. With the internal cooldown, you’ll only be able to activate it 10 times. Again, this is best case.

Whereas Force is just a straight 5% damage every hit.

This is where it really sucks: mobs and other objects you can’t critical. Going against something like Tequatl, it will never activate.

heh, bumping this up. with the new fractal update, figured a lot of Guardians could use this. it’s certainly helped me a ton.

also, Obal, you planning to video the new fractals (and with the new builds as well : )) )?

so far, i’ve only tried Molten fractal and boss. can’t say i’m disappointed not having yet landed the aether ones :PPP lol

Hi Obal, not sure if you gonna see this anytime soon but I hope you do. Ive been told your the man to see about guardian builds. I’ve been running knights armor with soldier runes.. and the assesories are zerker for when I know the group or soldier when I pug. I use 0/0/30/30/10 AH build from last year. I do fotm up to 39 cuase im about to start crafthing my ascended armor and weapons. I run GS and staff or sceptor/focus for really tough bosses with pugs.

The last few days I’ve been stickgin with mostly zerker gear and been running with some better groups in 30+.. I definitely see why they say the harder it gets the more dps you want.. Its amazing how easy it is when you got all kinds of dps in your party and bosses last 1/3 of the time..

Im just wondering if the build you posted here is still the one you or other good guards run and just wondering if theres another post that’s newer. Im gonna make the dive into being a high level fratal guard and want to craft the right gear cuase we all know that asceneded gear is quite a commitment to just redo them.

anyways, if everything is the same now in terms of this build then I can get started on getting what I need.

thanks again : )

I made a guide focused on builds here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE

Run the 15/25/0/20/10 hammer build if you have someone with condition removal in the group and 15/15/0/20/20 if not. If you have 2 guardians in the group and the other is the hammer guardian then run 10/25/0/10/25 gs + sword/focus build or you can take 5 out of honor and put it somewhere else for more dps.