Guild Wars 2

As the topic says.

I’m leveling a guardian that is supposed to hit 80 in the next few days. I will mostly be playing with a couple of friends who play thief/mesmer, so I would like to provide some healing/boons for the party and be tanky. DPS is not really a concern as we will have that covered.

I’ll get whatever exotic gear is necessary and ascended trinkets (asc wepons latter on). Would appreciate some opinions on what builds are still viable.

Thanks in advance.

As you said that DPS was not an issue, I would suggest something similar to my build

This uses Cleric gear to give a high amount of healing support and with 50% extra boon duration some nice support that way.
You can swap out PoV for Battle Presence if you already have enough group condi removal.

Oh for goodness sake stop telling the OP to run bad gear.

Your DPS is not covered at all, stop trying to impose a fake trinity on your group and just go full DPS with the necessary support traits and utility skills.

You’re not going to tank anything because bosses will end up killing you fast regardless of gear and you can’t control their aggro reliably either. You all have a dodge key, so to mitigate damage use that, retreat/virtue of courage, hold the line, shield of the avenger and wall of reflection.

I think it is a better idea for the OP to try those builds and probably invest in rare versions of those defensive setups and let him see for himself whether his group actually has dps covered.

^^ I agree. Do it and see for yourself.

Guardian support comes in the form of boons, WoR and SoTA. A zerker guard can do all those. Tome of Courage #5 heals everyone in range for 100% with 0 in healing power. DPS is also a form of support in gw2, so it is always important.

Well what I was trying to say in the original post is that I am fine with sacrificing DPS to be able to support my group by giving them boons/heals instead. I am not new to the game and I understand there is no traditional trinity of tank/dps/healer here. I am, however, new to the class, so I’d like to see some viable builds for a support-type of a guardian before I tune/rework them to my style of play. Thanks for your input and please provide more info if possible.

I guess what some of us are trying to say is, you don’t need to sacrifice a lot of dps to provide boons. Heals… well if you looks at the amount you can aoe heal over time comparing to the dps of mobs you will find they are extremely one sided no matter how much healing power you put in. Basically heals are for instances like when you miss a dodge or something instead of constantly spammed for sustain.

As for build recommendations, if you want to go full support you can start with:
15/15/0/30/10 with supeior aria (more shouts = spewing out more boons), empowering might (spew out might stacks), pure of voice (turn condi to boon), and master of consecrations (projectile reflection or stability or condi removal). The hammer is the best support weapon imo with pretty much 100% protection up time for the whole team out of the box. 15 points in zeal (choose fiery wrath for more damage) lets you put some vulnerability stack on mobs when using your hammer so your teammates can do more damage. 15 points in radiance (choose blind exposure for more vuln stacks) let’s you spam F1 and can keep trash mobs blinded so your teammates take a lot less damage.

Wukunlin.8461:

The hammer is the best support weapon imo with pretty much 100% protection up time for the whole team out of the box.

Maybe if you’re running all warriors in a fight that requires no mobility.

How many fights require you to move out of symbol range?

The only reason it’s done on youtube videos is because so many people strafe instinctively even if they don’t need to.

Yaki.9563:

Wukunlin.8461:

The hammer is the best support weapon imo with pretty much 100% protection up time for the whole team out of the box.

Maybe if you’re running all warriors in a fight that requires no mobility.

Maybe if you learn how to play.
Ooops, my bad, i’ll just go back to lurking.

Yaki.9563:

Wukunlin.8461:

The hammer is the best support weapon imo with pretty much 100% protection up time for the whole team out of the box.

Maybe if you’re running all warriors in a fight that requires no mobility.

In any organized group, people should be meleeing about 95% of fights, regardless of class. I rarely use hammer because I’m full dps and hammer screws over fire fields. But the op is asking for support. What provides better support?

@Laharl – as Wukunlin (at least i think it was him) pointed this out for me on another thread, but as long you wait for your team to lay the fire field before starting to auto attack with your hammer the fire field should be fine, the blasts will work on the first field that was put down in case they’re overlaping.

^That was haviz :P

I can only think of one encounter where the team may need to move out of my protection symbol: the guardian boss in CM who puts down her own symbol that does quite a bit of damage. In which case we move to a different LoS spot and I lay down another protection symbol…..

Oxxy.7068:

@Laharl – as Wukunlin (at least i think it was him) pointed this out for me on another thread, but as long you wait for your team to lay the fire field before starting to auto attack with your hammer the fire field should be fine, the blasts will work on the first field that was put down in case they’re overlaping.

Yes, I’m aware of the mechanics of fields. I’m not talking about the beginning of the fight, but in the middle. In my group, ele generally opens with fire field. We hit 25 stacks quite fast. Then guard will often use purging flames or hallowed ground for continued blasting to stay at 25. If the guard is spamming hammer auto, you’ll end up comboing that in the middle of fights.

Wukunlin.8461:

^That was haviz :P

I can only think of one encounter where the team may need to move out of my protection symbol: the guardian boss in CM who puts down her own symbol that does quite a bit of damage. In which case we move to a different LoS spot and I lay down another protection symbol…..

We just dps the bejesus out of that boss and hope the boss lays down regen symbols.

Yeah, symbols can be quite a pain midfights, usually i move a bit before blasting my fields on my ele and that’s about it. But in fights where you use LoS symbols will indeed screw fire fields. :|

laharl.8435:

Oxxy.7068:

@Laharl – as Wukunlin (at least i think it was him) pointed this out for me on another thread, but as long you wait for your team to lay the fire field before starting to auto attack with your hammer the fire field should be fine, the blasts will work on the first field that was put down in case they’re overlaping.

Yes, I’m aware of the mechanics of fields. I’m not talking about the beginning of the fight, but in the middle. In my group, ele generally opens with fire field. We hit 25 stacks quite fast. Then guard will often use purging flames or hallowed ground for continued blasting to stay at 25. If the guard is spamming hammer auto, you’ll end up comboing that in the middle of fights.

if you drop hallowed right after you drop a SoP, there should only be about 1 second (both consecrations take at least 1 second to lay down including animation and aftercast duration) of light field on top where you may get 1 area retal or 2 if you use multiple LH eles but the remaining 9 seconds should all be blasting area might. Very rarely the fields will bug out but it doesn’t happen often enough for me to worry about.

This is a support build that I enjoy running, I switch in wall of reflection at times and drop the greatsword for hammer for wvw. it’s a solid build. You kills stuff slowly, but your group normally has a 20ish stacks of might, so they kill stuff for you. I don’t have all ascended trinkets yet, but that’s the goal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWRlUgyCXFSKEf4ERWBRi9AjwvjXPoYCZIA-jACBofBicIQZPFRjtMMsVXRr8KIKbYqXER1SBkrwI-e

regolith.6902:

You kills stuff slowly, but your group normally has a 20ish stacks of might, so they kill stuff for you.

Carry me!

Restoration sigils, lol. This forum is making me laugh way too much today.
But seriously, avoid all on kill sigils but the ones that gives you stacks.