Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I’m at level 46 and I love playing in dungeons and PvE with my greatsword (but mostly dungeons). I’ve been playing with that weapon since level 38 and I can’t find a proper balance between survival and damage... and I don’t know where it comes from as I absolutely no idea how skills and traits work. I used to play with sword+shield/mace+focus before and I was doing really good, but I prefer the style of the greatsword and want to play with it.

My current build is 0/0/15(VI)/20(III,IX)/0 and I use the skills Purging Flames, Judge’s Intervention and Bow of Truth, plus tome of wrath or courage depending on the situation. My armor components and my weapon are all level 45 "ravaging" items (+precision/+condition damage). Yet I still need to update my jewelry, which is currently a level 30 "strong" stuff (+power/+precision).

With that, I thought that it was quite balanced, having +toughness/+life from traits and +precision/+condition damage from armor.

But I keep doing very little damage and mostly I keep dying. So I just don’t know how to equilibrate my traits / stuff to be more efficient with a greatsword.

Can anyone give me guidelines about what I’m doing wrong and how I should improve that? Plus, if my traits are not really good, how can I request a reset like I had one at level 40?

Many thanks!

You will never feel like you are doing good damage in dungeons, everything has TONS of health.
Purging Flames and Bow of Truth should be dropped; they are mainly for condition removal, which is not a problem in dungeons.

Condition damage is not a viable stat for guardian in general—guardians will get the bulk of their damage from basic auto attacks, and you should plan accordingly.

If you find you are generating a lot of aggro in dungeons (has something to do with armor values), use blinds, blocks, and healing to mitigate damage. Greatsword has a great blind, and virtue of justice can be traited to blind. This is often not enough for some mobs, where you need to dodge or strafe out of everything they do, no matter what your build is.

In general, the glassier you go, the more you will have to rely on block/blind/evade/dodge to keep yourself alive. This does not always go well in dungeons because fights last a very long time, so it is not advised to go full offensive gear.

Nothing wrong with condition dmg on guardian. Just keep binding blade (5) on them, have eoung burns for upkeep in your build, and keep the mobs in your symbol (4). Added up that can tick for 1k easily. Given you are lvl80 ofc.

Indeed, I know dungeons are full of NPCs with huge amount of life. I have an elementalist that performs greatly in dungeons.

Regarding my stuff, do you basically mean I should go for the four main attributes (power, precision, toughness, vitality) rather than secondary ones? I do think I generate a lot of aggro, is it because I have high defense (up-to-level armor stuff) or relatively low toughness / vitality?

I’m already moving quite a lot (for instance, Kohler gets me once or twice maximum with his twirly attack, it’s not perfect, but better than most players I play with), but I’m being four-shoted because my healing skills (F2 + 6) are always in cooldown. Strangely, I’m performing much better against bosses than common mobs.

Finally are my traits good already or should I change them?

Tsuface.1865:

Nothing wrong with condition dmg on guardian. Just keep binding blade (5) on them, have eoung burns for upkeep in your build, and keep the mobs in your symbol (4). Added up that can tick for 1k easily. Given you are lvl80 ofc.

Burning will tick for over 400 without adding any condition damage; you lose FAR more than 600 damage per second by not spec’ing that into crits or power. I’m not saying burning is worthless; but most classes that CAN spec conditions are getting a much bigger payout. Plus there will always be cases that you have an engi or ele with you and your burning wont stack anyhow.

Given its situational, Having your burn tick for 600, gs 5 for 400 and your symbol for 250, that is not something to disregard so easily. Even if you dont get the numbers you still add to the burn duration. If thats the way you like to roll though, the recent gs symbol cd increase will effect you aswell.

Condition damage is good for dungeons where you can’t melee very much and need to tap virtue of justice, slam with a powerful attack, and bug out of there. It’s not so great for ones where you are actually supposed to stand in front of the boss.

Guys, I’m glad you take an interest in helping me, but I’m looking for general advice about how to make a better Guardian, not a complete debate whether Condition Damage is the way to go in 2 dungeons and awful in the rest of them. I’m really looking for a better “jack-of-all-trades” Guardian in dungeons / PvE. Plus, you concentrate on that particular topic where I have plenty of other questions, mostly answered by ens, but not all, so if you could just focus on that, that’d be really great :-)

Well, I have a level 80 guardian and I dont have any problems related to damage. First things first: keep in mind that the guardian is a support class, not mainly for DPS. Second, if you choose the right traits(power, crit chance etc) with the right utility skills Im sure you’ll do just fine when you’re higher level

I use GS/Hammer exclusively in dungeons and I have no problem staying alive or dealing damage. These 2 weapons complement each other very well for dungeons.

The rare times I’m downed, the group’s kill rate drops significantly. Bear in mind we already have significant DPS, but more importantly when we are alive, properly traited, we make the whole group so much stronger.

Use full Vitality/Toughness masterwork (green) armor and keep it somewhat up to date, as well as your primary weapon. Use defensive utilities such as Signet of Judgment, Save Yourselves, Hold The Line etc. more than anything else.

Worked for me, see picture.

i stopped useing my great sword. I went to a AOE hammer symbel build. really good for instances

Altruistic Healing is your friend.

I wanna know how we are finding out what is highest dps and what isnt… Is there a parser that i missed? Because unless we have one… there is no way to figure it out. We have not been confirmed int eh combat log that it displays all forms of damage and that there is nothing for hidden calcs or anything.

At 80 I kill things faster and live through alot more then other people. I’m not seeing where all this whining is coming from. I think it maybe bad choices in builds more then the actual class itself. Greatsword and Hammer is fine in dungeons. Like someone said above we are a support class you shouldnt be face rolling dps get over it. But at the sametime we don’t struggle to do anything.

I use GS/Staff in both Dungeons and PVE, and I’m ok with it.

Build is:

0/20/20/30/0

Kinda bad for crit build (only 44% crit chance), but yeah, I do survive dungeons.

Utility is mostly shouts.

I have a well geared lvl 80 Guardian and I have been using a GS almost exclusively (except when ranged was needed). I can’t really comment on the number crunching because it’s not how I play games, but I can say the GS has worked very well for me in dungeons (story and all explore paths). I agree that it’s unwise to go for full dps builds, but my build is pretty much full survival and I am rarely ever defeated in dungeons. It’s much more important to stay alive and keep damaging your enemies than to do more damage quicker and end up a corpse on the floor.

Having said that, if you don’t wish to have much in the way of toughness and vitality from traits or gear, then I really can’t agree with using the greatsword. It’s a complete AoE/control weapon with a multi-target draw-in that should be used by someone who can take more hits than the rest of his team. I’m sure many players can make it work, but I see it as a more effective front line weapon than pure dps. It’s a weapon that gets a lot of enemy attention, so you have to build your character accordingly. I can only assume this is why you die so much, and maybe your chosen traits just aren’t defensive enough to counter the target on your back when you use the GS.

JPapa.6325:

I have a well geared lvl 80 Guardian and I have been using a GS almost exclusively (except when ranged was needed). I can’t really comment on the number crunching because it’s not how I play games, but I can say the GS has worked very well for me in dungeons (story and all explore paths). I agree that it’s unwise to go for full dps builds, but my build is pretty much full survival and I am rarely ever defeated in dungeons. It’s much more important to stay alive and keep damaging your enemies than to do more damage quicker and end up a corpse on the floor.

Having said that, if you don’t wish to have much in the way of toughness and vitality from traits or gear, then I really can’t agree with using the greatsword. It’s a complete AoE/control weapon with a multi-target draw-in that should be used by someone who can take more hits than the rest of his team. I’m sure many players can make it work, but I see it as a more effective front line weapon than pure dps. It’s a weapon that gets a lot of enemy attention, so you have to build your character accordingly. I can only assume this is why you die so much, and maybe your chosen traits just aren’t defensive enough to counter the target on your back when you use the GS.

Can you please share your build + utilities? I assume 30 in Vitality for 2h specialization and 30 in Power?

30 – Valor – Strength of the Fallen, Strength in Numbers, Altruistic Healing
30 – Honor – Resolute Healer, Two-Handed Mastery, Battle Presence
10 – Virtues – Master of Consecrations

These traits are a little heavy on survival, but there is a good amount of support/healing in there. I use those major traits more often in dungeons, sometimes I use others. Master of Consecrations is for Wall of Reflection.

6 – Shelter
7 – Hold the Line
8 – Wall of Reflection
9 – Signet of Judgement
10 – Renewed Focus

Really the only times I’ve been defeated in dungeons is when the whole team wipes or if there’s a 1-shot mechanic I didn’t know about (rolling rocks in CoF). I survived the airship in Arah the first time.

Despite what people say, I’m really not convinced that guardian can’t play frontline DPS. You just have to have the right build and be smart about it.

Sure, you’ve got a fair number of support-style abilities by default, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything but play support. Those very same abilities aren’t strictly there to help others. They can easily be used for your own benefit.

Last time I looked at how the various professions matched up stats-wise, the guardian can be specced to have some of the highest sustained DPS in the game. You might not have the burst that other professions (like thieves, warriors, and elementalists) get, but you can do some serious damage much more regularly, because you have a number of inherent defensive abilities that allow you to stay in melee longer (and with less risk).

That being said, for dungeons, if you’re intent on using the greatsword as your “primary” weapon, you really need to think about upping your survivability some. Glassy, power and precision-centric builds work great in open world PvE, but they require a degree of finesse in dungeons that most players simply don’t have — not to mention stats and traits that just won’t be available until you hit the level cap.

As someone else pointed out, the greatsword tends to draw all the enemies in on you and focus on dealing with them all simultaneously via the various AOEs it deals. That in itself really requires you to up your toughness and vitality at least a little (either via traiting or through gear selection).

I’ve gone through various iterations of my “ideal” dungeon build, but overall I’ve found that there’s no single “best” solution. There are many situations where certain weapons and traits shine and others where they’re massively detrimental. Consequently, I switch around weapons and traits and the like as needed.

By default though, my dungeon set up (the “Teflon Soldier”) is greatsword main (with a Sigil of Superior Hydromancy) with mace/shield as secondary (fitted with a Sigil Of Hydromancy and a Sigil Of Superior Energy), Cleric’s set exotics with a six pack of Superior Runes of the Soldier, and a yellow defender’s back brace. Traits and utilities look like:

30 – Zeal: Fiery Wrath, Greatsword Power, Zealous Blade
20 – Valor: Purity, Honorable Shield
20 – Honor: Writ Of Exaltation, Two-Handed Mastery

Heal: Signet Of Resolve
Utilities: “Stand Your Ground!”, “Retreat!”, and Signet Of Judgement.
Elite: Renewed Focus

Overall, it works well enough for most of the dungeons. Hits hard enough and inflicts enough conditions that you can put out some meaningful damage while having sufficient sustain to stay in the melee (just watch those conditions slide right off).

It just fits my playstyle better than going all-out DPS or full-on support tanky.

I use a greatsword and a sword/shield. The damage and blinds are great along with the mobility and you can take either of the tomes as your elite skill.

I started off with putting points into valor picking up either meditations recharge 20% faster or 5% toughness as precition, i then went into power picking up 10% more damage to burning foes. You will do a lot of damage in your whirl every 10 sec if you can connect and you dont get interupted or downed.

I went for the 20/0/30/10/10 build at 80 but at the moment since my crit is low i put 20 into that. Get 10% damage done to burning foes and spirit weapons arent destroyed while commanded because they do quite a bit of damage, in valor i picked up meditations recharge 20% faster 5% toughness is given as a bonus to precision and meditations heal you. In honor i got aegis heals on removal and in virtues i picked up spirit weapons last 50% longer. This is the Ayra greatsword build that you can find on youtube and it works very well.

You’ll focus on toughness power and crit mostly and at 80 picking up the forge runes. The sigils can be whatever you think would complement your playstyle but i think quickness is the go to sigil for auto attacks your whirl and your zealots defense. The heal i went for is shelter because blocking everything for the duration that you cast it is very good. I went for Hammer of Wisdom for my spirit weapon, judge’s intervention which can be used to apply a burn to everyone or tele away from trouble which also heals you since its a meditation and smite condition which removes a condition on a short cd and heals you. The elite skill doesnt matter much but i went for the tome of courage because the aoe heals and group support is very good with a group wide full hp heal.

Try it out and see what you think. If you dont like it you can always throw your tweaks in it to suit you. You could pair greatsword with a hammer as well and do some aoe and group support but i think sword and shield works better as long as you get use to your shield number 4 and when to knock people back with your 5 to split a group or something.