Guild Wars 2

So, i just hit Level 80, and started doing some of the dungeons! (bit delayed, i know) only problem is i keep dying quite quick. I’ve experimented with my build several times, and cant find one that doesn’t end up with me being an Asuran Pancake!

So i am looking for tips on how i should be playing my guardian in a dungeon,

I know i sound like a complete noob, but this is kinda bothering me

how do you play the guardian?
What’s your build?
If you play a berserker build in dungeon, you can fall easy, but if you use a hybrid build or a defensive build you can easily survive in many dungeons.
I played with a guardian DPS and was always on the ground.
In addition to this, it depends on how good you are. But if you’ve reached the 80 you know a little how to play your class.
If you’re not a defensive, try a bunker sigil+heal class whit mace+shield/focus and staff or a hibryd whit greatsword and defensive traits and stats (es. armor pow tough vit or cleric).
(sorry for my bad english)

first we need details about to more about your build before we can help you and need to know your playstyle do you like bunker,zerker,knights etc. plus a tip is every dungeon requires a different setup may be minor changes but can make the difference

Silv.9207:

how do you play the guardian?
What’s your build?
If you play a berserker build in dungeon, you can fall easy, but if you use a hybrid build or a defensive build you can easily survive in many dungeons.
I played with a guardian DPS and was always on the ground.
In addition to this, it depends on how good you are. But if you’ve reached the 80 you know a little how to play your class.
If you’re not a defensive, try a bunker sigil+heal class whit mace+shield/focus and staff or a hibryd whit greatsword and defensive traits and stats (es. armor pow tough vit or cleric).
(sorry for my bad english)

I try to play Tanky, whilst i understand there is not set tanking role, because of a lack of an aggro system, i do know that i have a higher chance of keep its attention, tougher i am

I’ve tried allsorts of builds, normally end up with a mace and shield

Abraxius.6429:

first we need details about to more about your build before we can help you and need to know your playstyle do you like bunker,zerker,knights etc. plus a tip is every dungeon requires a different setup may be minor changes but can make the difference

I will grab a screen of my traits

Ok, here we go:

Traits

Gear is currently, Masterwork level, Sentinel gear, with Emerald Orbs

It’s a good build. But on the Valor change the VII whit the IX to obtain more defence.
And what’s your armor stats? Your equipment level? (Are you full exotic or full rare or 50/50?)

Oh, I’ve read that you’re in Masterwork equipment, right?
It’s the green color…
Ok, try to be full Rare and then full Exotic, then we can speak about be a good pg for dungeons XD
It’s the true: you need a Rare equipment to obtain a good defence. Whit a masterwork equipment you’re not good for dungeons.
When you obtain a rare (or exotic) equipment, try again and see the difference :-)
(if you’ve not the money to buy a rare/exotic equip or the materials to craft it, ask to your guild members. A rare equipment is easy to buy and good to start to do istances)
(p.s. sorry again for my english XD)

Oh, and when you upgrade your gear, try to stay away from Sentinel’s or Soldier’s. Use Knight’s instead. The former two may give you a high short-term survival chance, but they utterly cripple any damage output you might have and don’t help much in the long run. Knight’s, on the other hand, still has a good defense, decent offensive potential and increases your self-heal by a lot since the high crit chance grants you more procs from Empowering Might.

I concur with CptAurellian, I use Knight’s armor and Berserker’s trinkets/weapons on my guardian.

However, if you aren’t using the grandmaster traits in Honor, you can just as well take the 10 points out (the loss in vitality will not have too much of an effect) and put them into Radiance instead for a blind on Virtue of Justice and either trait II (Signet Mastery) or V (Searing Flames) for 20% faster recharge on signets or boon removal when you apply burning to a foe.

With the extra precision from Knight’s (and maybe the 10 points in Radiance) you’ll also get vigor more often on top of more healing from empowering might. The more endurance regen you get, the tougher you’ll be.

Hope that helps!

Cheers.

e: If you need exotic knight’s armor, you might want to try Sorrow’s Embrace, paths1&3, they’re not too hard.

Right, i now have a full set of Knight’s Gladiator Armor, nothing in the upgrade slots yet not sure what i need to put in them?

Also tweaked my Traits to give toughness when using a shield

Since you’re running a shout build you might want to try Runes of the Soldier, they remove a condition on using a a shout.

And add a few points to Vitality/Toughness.

Altruistic Healing, Empowering Might, a 50%ish crit chance and 3k armor from knights and emerald jewels.. some soldiers stuff… maybe 17,500 health.

peach pies.. cause I’m poor…

I do just fine in dungeons. As long as I can keep attacking, I can heal myself pretty well. If I can’t attack, dodge rolling and peach pie keeps me up most of the time. Shouts are like mini heals too.

Just be ready to dodge often. I also have grown quite fond of Wall of Reflection.

Ezeriel.9574:

[…]
peach pies.. cause I’m poor… […] I also have grown quite fond of Wall of Reflection.

Why not go for the lifesteal on critical / precision food? You’ll land a critital more often creating a better synergy with your other proc’s on crit.

Blackberry pie shoul be as cheap as peach pie.

Wall of Reflection is brilliant, imo. Especially if traited.

Cheerio!

Ezeriel.9574:

Altruistic Healing, Empowering Might, a 50%ish crit chance and 3k armor from knights and emerald jewels.. some soldiers stuff… maybe 17,500 health.

No, simply no. Apart from very few specific situations, where it is helpful but not at all necessary, Soldier’s is crap in PvE. If you want some vitality, Valkyrie can replace some items, but in general, 14-15,000 health combined with a decent amount of toughness (or not, if you are more experienced) is more than enough to survive. Once you are comfortable with your survival, start switching gradually to Zerker’s items.

I like the peach pie over blackberry for the regen for when I can’t attack for whatever reason… stunned.. rezing.. lagging….

I find those to be the moments when I need all the help I can get.

As for soldiers, yes simply yes!

I don’t do dungeons all that often, and rarely know when to dodge or whatever, so I’m sticking with the soldier’s for now, and since the OP is in greens, getting karma gear from the temple of grenth could work quite well for ’em

Runes of the Soldiers are very good, but they cost about 1g30s each.

If you want to jump in with a minimal investment you can buy jewels very cheap. Ruby Orbs add your overall damage, emerald orbs add precision and toughness.

Also this may be obvious, but you didn’t mention your trinkets. Trinkets add a lot of points.

TooBz.3065:

Runes of the Soldiers are very good, but they cost about 1g30s each.

If you want to jump in with a minimal investment you can buy jewels very cheap. Ruby Orbs add your overall damage, emerald orbs add precision and toughness.

Also this may be obvious, but you didn’t mention your trinkets. Trinkets add a lot of points.

My trinkets are still mis-match from leveling, questing, loot drops, etc!

Knights armor, 0/10 (signet heal recharge)/ 30/ 30 / 0
Dolyak Runes (Possible to replace #6 rune)
Staff
Greatsword.
Important Traits – Autistic Healing, Empowering Might, 2H Master. Shouts 20 less cooldown.

You are now a tanky guardian,

Popular utilities: Retreat, sig of judgement, Wall of reflect (situational)

TehSkrunch.1628:

TooBz.3065:

Runes of the Soldiers are very good, but they cost about 1g30s each.

If you want to jump in with a minimal investment you can buy jewels very cheap. Ruby Orbs add your overall damage, emerald orbs add precision and toughness.

Also this may be obvious, but you didn’t mention your trinkets. Trinkets add a lot of points.

My trinkets are still mis-match from leveling, questing, loot drops, etc!

Then I would recommend rare / exotic trinkets as soon as you can. If you have a LOT of karma (252,000) then you can get exotic soldiers trinkets from the karma vendor in the cathedral of silence (not optimal but adds a lot of survivability).

If you have jewelcrafting up to 400 (and you may because it’s the cheapest to level) and some ectos you can waste, I would craft exotic emerald stuff, but if not, buy rare trinkets until you know what build you want.

You can also look at this video. It’s by Strife you does dungeon speed runs with a guardian. Note, his guild is for an “organized group” which may not work as well for randoms. You can do pretty well by downscaling his advice from exotics to rares.

in short, I suspect you aren’t doing anything wrong, you are just under geared.

As a guardian you pretty much need to pop WoR, SoA and give aoe stability. Learn when and where to use those and you’ll be a welcome addition to most parties.
Surviving is not a priority, unless you’re an anchor guard.

Why empowering might? I tried using it and the cooldown meant that you could only get a couple of might stacks at a time whereas you can spec yourself so that virtue of justice gives 3 might stacks and just use staff for empower to give yourself 12 stacks right on the spot.

1. You can use EM while also having VoJ and Empower.
2. In contrast to Empower, EM does not require you to use a weapon that has no damage output at all.
3. A steady flow of healing and permanently ~3 stacks might on the group are reason enough.

I highly suggest soldier runes as it lets you run a shout build while still being able to wipe conditions from not only yourself, but your entire group.

TehSkrunch.1628:

My trinkets are still mis-match from leveling, questing, loot drops, etc!

Zero reason for that. Hit the TP and buy masterwork gear that matches your needs. In this case full Knight gear was what I did and dungeons were not a problem when coupled with a standard Altrustic Healing build and a hammer.

colesy.8490:

Why empowering might? I tried using it and the cooldown meant that you could only get a couple of might stacks at a time whereas you can spec yourself so that virtue of justice gives 3 might stacks and just use staff for empower to give yourself 12 stacks right on the spot.

A couple, in this case (with a hammer at least, and knight gear) goes between 4 and 5 stacks, pretty much perma as long as the hammer can swing. Though it is the first thing I take out when I want to put in something else, like symbols healing when running a CoE where everyone stacks up to the boss.

P.S. Wait, I have 50% boon duration, that explains our different numbers.

TehSkrunch.1628:

Ok, here we go:

Traits

Gear is currently, Masterwork level, Sentinel gear, with Emerald Orbs

There’s your problem. Get exotics. Cheap and necessary. Farm Orr a bit if you have to.

Additionally, you don’t necessarily have to, or should, face tank everything. A lot of the tougher mobs in the game have attacks you can’t tank. That’s what dodging is for. Don’t forget that you do heal (yourself and others) when you roll, and that you’ll likely have nearly perma-vigor, so don’t be stingy with the rolls. Also, if you find yourself in a position where you can’t dodge something that might kill you, it’s always better to burn Virtue of Courage than to eat the dirt.

If you tell us what dungeons you’re doing and where you’re dying we can tell you more specifically what might be going wrong.

Everyone here has given you solid advice, gear does make a large difference so upgrading that will help a lot.

Now on the gameplay side of things running with EM and AH is a great combo, they play well with each other, however you should play around with your traits till you find something that works for YOU.
I personally don’t run AH or EM but I’m still very tanky and am more oriented towards support. With all Clerics gear and a 0/0/20/30/20 trait setup, I’m very durable, my boons last for ages and I can help keep everyone up and about much easier, my rolls heal for over 1.2k and I can do three rolls in-a-row.
Upgrade your gear to Masterwork/Rare and re-work your traits a little and you should be fine, just remember that you can’t face-tank in GW2 like in other MMOs. Strafe, dodge, block, blind and invulnerability are you’ll tools to survive.

While gear is a significant factor in survival in dungeons, it is entirely possible to run even semi tough dungeons like coe with masterwork gear. You don’t even need to trait away all your dps by maxing out honor or valor trait lines to be successful. You do need to adjust your utilities from time to time for specific encounters (Wall of reflection, stand your ground, etc) and swap to a different weapon occasionally. This game is about 80% based on knowing your encounters (when to dodge or use the right utility). I’d say the other 20% is probably gear.

Also don’t let others dictate how you play your character…it is yours after all…that’s why you are controlling it and not them. If you listen to some people, they will have you running around in dungeons holding their hands, so that they can completely avoid all of their own survival traits and utilities. ANET avoided the trinity in this game for a reason. What you choose to bring to the table as class “x” should be a bonus to the group, not your mandatory role. What would they do if there was no guardian in the group…just give up and disband the group? That being said, do what is smart (adjust your utilities/weapon/traits) as best fits the encounter’s needs…makes for a smoother run/less deaths.

I play my guardian as mostly dps. 10/30/0/10/20. sword+torch/scepter+focus. I run equal parts signets/shouts and tome of courage as my elite. My HP is on the dangerously low side currently, but I still clear all 3 paths of coe quickly in pugs..often with only a couple deaths…and that’s usually due to group wipes on alpha with people trying to kite him and ignoring instructions to stack and dodge. Its all about timely dodges, trait synergies, utility usage. My gear is currently all berserker..a mix of masterwork, ascended, and exotic. If I were to mix it up a little and throw in a few pieces of vitality gear…i’d probably avoid all deaths…but I like the challenge of surviving in zerker gear.

All that being said, you don’t have to run the cookie cutter 30 honor, 30 valor build to be effective. In fact, I question the effectiveness of that kind of build as it can slow down a run due to low dps….especially if there are others in the group running similar bunker builds. The most effective way to run dungeons is balls to the wall dps with effective dodging and utilities. The faster stuff dies, the smoother the run…just so long as you aren’t dying as well.