Guild Wars 2

Yes there will be an update and 30 points in valor isnt dead.

9 days isnt long, why, this isnt my job so 30 days is alright and even a year would be alright.

I based the guide on actual gameplay and i will post the update as soon as i have enough ingame experience to give good advice. This might take a while since im playing my warrior atm and have no direct plans to play my guardian. Why drive a go-cart when you got a free formula 1 car?

When will that be than, frankly i dont know. There are some stuff i would like to test but that is kind of expensive and takes time.

But tbh the short version is:
Rune of travelar is nice
Fury on meditations
Meta has changed whch makes meditations relatively worse
We are even more pidgeon holed into condiremoval
PVT got relatively better in dps centric build
There are one two more trait distributions that i think should be in there.

I need at least 20-30 hours on a specific build before i write it down in the guide. So writing is infact the easy part, getting enough experience to write it is the difficult part. Just the two new trait distributions needs at least 40 hours of ingame action in wvw.

30 Point valor far from dead. LOL@that

Updated the guide.

The links from the first post to the chapters seem to break every now and then and i just dont have time to fix it right now so you need to scroll.

7. Added traits for meditations and what they do.
8. mace of justice added
9. Clarified that condition based weapons/gear is off limit
10. added celestial armor
11. Added a comment on celsetial trinkets
12. Removed vampire runes and added rune of the traveler.
13. Removed sigil of rage and leeching and added sigil of generosity.
16. Clarified shouts. Added the change from last patch to Purging Flames and Hallowed ground. Added in merciful intervention as a valid option and clarified sanctuary.
19. Added two 2h burst trait distributions
21. Added a link to a post which displays fully buffed wvw setups and also a reasoning behind wvw progression.

In addition to the above i also fixed some typos (lots left) and made a bunch of small altercations or QoL as Anet chooses to call it..

I will add in some more pics in the last chapter on stats and setups later on and also add in a short note regarding applied fortitude and guard leech and how to gain the most from those buffs in an overall perspective..

Fixed the broken links, thx for the help Tarsius. Your solution was much better than mine.

EDIT:
Edited the title, i kept the hammer chapter so it should be mentioned in the title.

Not enough room for my latest edit so i post here and link it in the last chapter.

First, Applied Fortitude (AF) and Guard Leech (GL). I like to see stats as investments and a well known practice in investments is that you should invest where you have max lever. The relative return on you investment is maximized. I try to do the same in games.

If we apply that to the guardians healthpool and celestial armor we will find that guardians have low healthpool (hello AF) and that celestials have low power (hello GL). Based on that a typical AH/MF and pure of voice build has 60 traitpoints invested in crit damage/toughness/healing power/vitality (stats that are “favored” in celestials) a guardian is a profession that might actually benefit from the gear, even though they have a poor effective budget. The issues is that as standalone its not the case.

But if we add in GL, 25 stacks of power from kills and bloodlust from ruins things start to shift in favor for the celestials.

A full celestial guardian has about 1400 in power and my full offensive setup has about 2000 in power. This means thats 25 stacks, major bloodlust and AF/GL adds 400 power.

On celestial this means a 29% increase in power and on the dps setup it means a 20% increase. Celestials benefits close to 50% more (from a return on investment perspective) than a full dps build.

It is this that might make celestial armor, or at least some parts of it, worth investing in.

Im not saying they are worth having but i think they are worth considering at least.

So thats why i chose to post these stats and gear so people can decide what to go for in the future, especially when ascended armor is released. I will most definitely go for at least celestial chest, legs and head and when you see the stats im pretty confident a lot of people will consider it as well.

Below you have a couple of setups and what gear they have. All builds have 0/0/30/30/10, food, major bloodlust, 25 stacks of power and 5*AF/GL. Add in 150 toughness in all builds from strength in numbers.

1.jpg. Celestial staff chest and legs, rest is a mix of valk, berserker and assasin. 6* traveler. Cleric ring and amulet. Ber/valk ring and ber back. Pre/tough/pow accessories

2. jpg. Same armor as 1.jpg but with berserker accessories and celestial rings and amulet.

3.jpg Full celestial armor and weapon with monk/water/traveler. Celestial rings, amulet and back. Berserker accessories. This one has >80% uptime on 12 stacks of might from the staff and with swap it has over 2300 power to burst with hammer. Pretty neat for full support.

4.jpg. pvt armor with rune of the soldier and celestial weapon. pvt rings and back, celestial amulet and pre/tough/pow accessories. First in and last one out.

5.jpg Mix of valk/ber/ass armor with 6*travelar, berserker weapon, back, accessories, amulet and ber/valk rings. My max dps gear.

6.jpg Same armor, weapon and back in 5.jpg but the rest of the trinkets are pre/tough/pow. Check out the crit chance, toughness and healthpool. I can honestly say that this one is really mean in wvw. Especially if my team gives me fury, its just insane with 81% crit chance on a full tank.

7.jpg Celestial chest and a mix of ber/valk/ass in the rest and 6*traveler, cleric hammer, ber back, pre/tough/pow accessories, cleric ring and amulet and pre/tough/pow ring.

Hope the pics illustrates what AF and GL contributes with and especially to guardians low health pool and celestials low power.

Brutaly.6257:

6.jpg Same armor, weapon and back kitten .jpg but the rest of the trinkets are pre/tough/pow. Check out the crit chance, toughness and healthpool. I can honestly say that this one is really mean in wvw. Especially if my team gives me fury, its just insane with 81% crit chance on a full tank.

kitten that kitten censor: “Same armor, weapon and back as 5.jpg”?

Tarsius.3170:

Brutaly.6257:

6.jpg Same armor, weapon and back kitten .jpg but the rest of the trinkets are pre/tough/pow. Check out the crit chance, toughness and healthpool. I can honestly say that this one is really mean in wvw. Especially if my team gives me fury, its just insane with 81% crit chance on a full tank.

kitten that kitten censor: “Same armor, weapon and back as 5.jpg”?

Thx, kitten fixed it. This kitten kitten just have to kitten be kitten fixed

did someone say kitten?

5 and 6 are pretty nasty. very very nice stats 2.5k armor is a bit low for me personally in WvW but i love the stats. finally got AF about a week ago and it’s given me some room to gear a bit more offensively. slowly working towards GL now : ))

akamon.2769:

finally got AF about a week ago and it’s given me some room to gear a bit more offensively. slowly working towards GL now : ))

oh man, you’re syncing with me again – last time we were running around with the same roaming sword/shield+GS and bane build, and now we’ve got AF in the same week ( what a huge buff that is too! )

Back on topic – I was part way through working on a Celestial build, but now I’m not sure how Ascended armour is going to change the optimal stats distribution yet, so I’ll probably put it on hold until the December patches are out

o snap lol. my EU Guardian counterpart? [added: and yes, frigging love AF! it’s pretty ridiculous lol]

and yea, if ascended armor is really gonna make it in the.. near future (didn’t they say it wouldn’t make end of this year though?), probably best to hold out for a bit. really gonna take some time to plan uot what’re going to be the best pieces. we’ll have to wait and see the investments for each piece. not exactly looking forward to it.. seeing as how some of us have over 7 sets of gear.

akamon.2769:

did someone say kitten?

5 and 6 are pretty nasty. very very nice stats 2.5k armor is a bit low for me personally in WvW but i love the stats. finally got AF about a week ago and it’s given me some room to gear a bit more offensively. slowly working towards GL now : ))

6 is crazy, tbh. Its a full tank and hits for 5k with mighty blow add in a 1-2 k more if you pop empower and VoJ before MB. Very nice with JI.

Anyone up for a 7k aoe burst?

If they keep the same relative budget i will invest in celestial chest,legs and maybe head, the rest can be bettered with other pieces.

If you think AF is silly i can tell you that with a full celestial armor/gear Guard Leech is pretty absurd. i sit with 1400 power and adding in 100 more just makes a world of difference in performance when you also have 25 stacks from kills and pow/pre food. going from 1400 to 1850 when zerging with 1,2k dodge rolls, 3150 armor, >20k health and 106% crit damage is just huge.

heh, so for a while, i didn’t loko at stat spreads as much i used to.. ut seeing those numbers i gave it a shot and came pretty darn close to your number 6. is major bloodlust still adding 50 to all stats? or did they change it? anyways.. the numbers weren’t exact but pretty close (i was missing about 100 from condi and healign though :/// lol) it was a lot of fun too haha thanks for bringing out that number crunching stat maxing part of me again. :PP lol

and it really does seem like a BEAST. can’t wait to put something similar together and give it a shot. even without bloodlust stacks it looks very decent.

heh, i’m slowly working towards GL now! can’t wait to get it as well. but you see, so that’s the thing. not holding my breath on how ascended armor is gonna turn out so i’m just going to wait.. it does seem like you said, at least for chest legs and maybe head, celestial can be pretty darn strong. assuming we won’t be able to run around with 3, 4, 5 different full ascended armor sets.. but we’ll wait and see i guess.

ps, just out of curiosity, do you guys get your sigil stacks on invaders? or on PvE? lol since certain builds do depend on sigils to achieve the “max desired effect” or even certain stats (though if you have legendaries it’s a non-issue in this case) so i don’t like fighting invaders using my stacking sets. i actually stack 25 using mobs with 2 1hers. stack ’em fast and swap back to my desired weapon set.

in WvW it depends on which borderland I’m in tbh.

In the bottom right camp it’s a no-brainer to pre-stack because you’ve got the self-spawning coyotes – just run around a collect 5-6, use a 2-hander to AoE them all down to an inch of life and then switch to 1-hander to finish them off. You can get fully stacked in less than a minute

For left camp and centre I might kill a couple en-route and get the rest by taking out a couple of camps.

If I’m solo’ing and there are lots of zergs or groups around ( ie I’m dying alot ) then I might just keep one sigil equiped all the time and let it accumulate naturally and switch it out once I’m lucky enough to have filled it up

ahh, i do what you do as well when i am dying a lot, lol. i’ll leave one sigil equipped as well and if it fills, it fills. then i switch it out for.. force usually if it works (assuming it’s OH).

i usually do the raptors on left camp. but yes, camps help too, and of course, for AF/GL stacks as well.

i know a lot of people call them OP.. but it’s been nice to have especially with the Guardian’s low HP base. it’s slightly opened up a few doors. maybe windows.

10% of the way towards Guard Leech…sigh

lol. i have.. 4 levels unlocked now!

but you really will get there faster than you think. plus, if you have massive laurels chilling, you can always “cheat” lol.

and of course, if you guys do karma trains before resets.. birthday booster + WXP booster gives massive WXP.

just to bring it back on topic, staff 1 in a zerg as well. :PP

I don’t like to zerg run and I don’t have much in the way of laurels – I’m very bad at completing dailies – quite often I’ll quit for the night with 4/5 done and just 5% gathering left to do or something silly like that.

On the other hand, I’m in no rush either…

think im at level 270 something by 75% roaming and small group play, been to much in wvw i think :-) Especially considering i havent used a single booster.

Back on topic, when i zerg i use staff all the way and i have a zerker staff with power stack sigil, two clashes and 2 towers and i have all buffs running.

when roaming i never stack on kill, i find energy just to good to be swapped, even for potentially 250 more power.

lol, Tarsius.. but but.. that’s like.. one harvest! haha
too funny. XDDD

ahha that does sound like a lot of WvW, Brutaly. ; )) i’m slowly getting there now. roaming still gives decent WXP too actually – last night was pretty fun roaming

and nice. i really should staff more when roaming zerging. but for roaming, you don’t prestack either? although i guess that does break up the flow a lot, especially if you’re caught by zergs or what not heh.

akamon.2769:

ahha that does sound like a lot of WvW, Brutaly. ; )) i’m slowly getting there now. roaming still gives decent WXP too actually – last night was pretty fun roaming

and nice. i really should staff more when roaming. but for roaming, you don’t prestack either? although i guess that does break up the flow a lot, especially if you’re caught by zergs or what not heh.

Well when i roam i get maybe one level per night and that is a good night, i backcap camps and kill the tail on the zerg mostly. Zerging we are talking about 5-8 level and a hour in a well organized zerg.

Was unclear, i never use the staff when roaming, i often end up with hammer/scepter or hammer/1hsword/focus. And i realize i wasnt clear, i use the staff in zergs but hammer is my main damage weapon there as well.

I have a scepter/sword/focus with stacking sigils as a compliment to my staff.

oops, lol. good catch!! i meant staff while zerging. yea i usually use hammer for zerging too. very usefulD and then i keep my 1h sets on my offset cause sometimes i get too lazy to change :// bad habit haha

oh mang. talking to u guys make me want to go home and play haha

if anyone’s interested i’ve been running this all week. started off with sword/focus + scepter/torch and then switched to mace for more blow ups your standard DPS guard but it’s been really fun.

i used buildcraft to add in bloodlust sigil stacks as well as applied fortitude. by the end of the week, i was sitting at around 17k HP. slowly working towards GL that’ll push power up to 2.9k which is i must say quite nice. no bloodlust buff counted atm.

i’ll generally roam like this. but if i know a big fight’s coming up, i’ll swap out Signets to Shelter and Contemplation or purity / Merciful Intervention or even Stand your ground, depending on what i think i’ll be facing. sometimes i swapped some jewelry for more toughness but most of the time i ran as is. and of course, switch up major traits accordingly if i took off signets.

if you need to do big jumps, i’d switch Zeal II to III and then switch back as well. having that flexibility helps a lot actually.

haven’t played this build in a while, but was really fun again. especially when i switched back to the mace. lost a lot of mobility through swapping the sword out but added more instant burst with protector’s strike. last night was hitting consistent 6-9k’s worth of protector’s strike, shield of wrath and zealot’s fires each. symbol of faith ticking up to 2k at one point. autos from mace got pretty high too. smite condition also hit up to 5k highest that i remember of course, everyone’s mileage may vary but in general got pretty lucky with some nice crits.

sustain was not too bad, especially thanks to AF. so i’d say if you enjoy WvW, get it asap and enjoy it. massively. helps deal with Guardian’s low base HP, the stupid crazy condition specs out there, as well as being able to pick up more offensive gear.

(though this coming week, i’m gonna try one of brutaly’s hard hitting tanky builds)

[edit: oops, few typos]

akamon.2769:

haven’t played this build in a while, but was really fun again. especially when i switched back to the mace. lost a lot of mobility through swapping the sword out but added more instant burst with protector’s strike.

I’m definitely going to have to bite the bullet and invest in a traveller set. I find it very hard to run anything except sword and gs in a medi build purely because of the loss of mobility ( even just losing one is annoying ) – which is a shame because I like the mace and scepter combo.

i’ve heard many say speed is a good alternative since it’s been fixed as well, especially if you need a larger cushion for HP. though from stats optimization, or even in general, you’d get more mileage out of traveler.

yea i used to feel i need sword and gs for medi’s as well but it’s not entirely necessary. : )) the short CD on flashing blade is nice but i have too much fun with the mace lol. and when roaming with the way i play, having scepter is a godsend so i really enjoy being able to use it, while not feel like i’m giving up too much.

Hi guys!

I’ve started playing my guardian at launch and left game a month or so later (just when dinged 80). Now Im back at game and start doing pvp and mostly WvW, so sorry for the noobish questio, but

What the hell are Applied Fortitude and Guard Leech? Are those guardian’s skills or what?

Hi hukalo, welcome back!

Applied Fortitude and Guard Leech are stacking boons you gain in WvW for killing camp guards/sentries/lords etc. ( max 5 stacks; up to 250 bonus vitality and 100 power respectively )

In WvW you gain WXP ( World Experience ) which periodically awards you rank points which you can spend for different benefits regardless of your profession. You can get access to the above 2 boons by spending 115 rank points in both: Defense Against Guards and Guard Killer categories.

You lose the bonus when you are downed or you switch maps

Hey mate,

Thx for the information!

and what makes them really interesting is that a guardian has low healthpool so 2,5k health is actually more worth for a guardian compared with a necro or warrior.

And also the power gained is more worth for a celestial geard toon compared to a non celestial geared. And guardians is possibly one of the professions that can benefit from celestial armor.

though, i will add, be careful and don’t fall into the habit of building TOO specifically to rely on AF and GL (i did this for a bit) not a big deal, and guard kills should be easy enough.. but just figured i’d make a little reminder. :PP

i would practice to see them as enhancements. and without them, you should still be able to perform.

hi,
what’s the best way to get the pvt armor you have? i’m not norn so i can’t get the cultural armor and i’m not vigil either so i can’t get that armor. i heard there’s a karma vendor on cursed shore where i can get pvt armor, so would that be the only other way to get the armor i need?

each of the temple in orr sells armor but you need to go to a number of temples to get all pvt and i if remember correct the head isnt sold by any of them.

If the temple is closed guesting is an easy solution. Here you can find what temple is open on which server.
http://www.gw2state.com/temples.html

alright, thanks, that website is super helpful
also, where do you get your celestial armor? is that the dark armor you can get for karma in cursed shore?

Would you run a full Beigarth set as an ascended version of knights armor?

Just getting back in gw2 after a few months, been wanting to update my current build and this looks just what I need. I usually just play WvW roaming, do you suggest I go for your set which is really mean in WvW? Also, what exactly is your mix of valk/ber/ass armor? I’m guessing its head+gloves/shoulders+pants/chest+feet?

Sorry for tanking so long to answer you.

Been busy playing golf in spain and playing GW2 whle not putting.

Celestial armor can only be crafted and its heavily timegated.

zaktam.1256:

alright, thanks, that website is super helpful
also, where do you get your celestial armor? is that the dark armor you can get for karma in cursed shore?

Its really totally up to you.

I will only craft one ascended armor and the one i did craft was celestial even though i know/knew its not favorable from a stat perspective.

If knights is your favourite by all means do it.

Jarrin Herr.8072:

Would you run a full Beigarth set as an ascended version of knights armor?

I use different sets for different jobs, i have 5 sets for wvw exclusively. You need to figure out how you want to play wvw and adjust your set accordingly.
Btw i dropped assasins.

chaosmesmer.9857:

Just getting back in gw2 after a few months, been wanting to update my current build and this looks just what I need. I usually just play WvW roaming, do you suggest I go for your set which is really mean in WvW? Also, what exactly is your mix of valk/ber/ass armor? I’m guessing its head+gloves/shoulders+pants/chest+feet?

Sat down yesterday and checked thru the patchnotes and in general 4 of the traits in the feature pack could be an option in an 30 point valor build due to their placement i radiance, valor, honor and virtues.

The thing is though that they all are pretty terrible. The exception is the trait in virtues that actually can have some use. But if its more vigor you need ther are other means thru sigils, runes and food that solves this better and without sacrificing a trait in our best supportline.

In short nothing changes.

I will check out some changes to sigils and runes and adjust the guide if neccessary. IM especially interested in the change they made to rune of vampirism, this one was really bad before but might be an option now.

So consider the guide to be updated.

Is that the one that has the 6th option that turns you into a mist form at or around 10% health? I’m just wondering if going 6 deep would be worth it since “I” seem to drop really fast at 10%. I guess I mean it doesn’t seem like it would help much if this is the rune I am thinking of. I guess I should check.

Crapgame.6519:

Is that the one that has the 6th option that turns you into a mist form at or around 10% health? I’m just wondering if going 6 deep would be worth it since “I” seem to drop really fast at 10%. I guess I mean it doesn’t seem like it would help much if this is the rune I am thinking of. I guess I should check.

Its the one but after getting a set valk/knight/pvt with those runes i can pretty much say its still very bad.

The mist form can be a winner but the leech is just bad, as before the patch.

Food and sigils are still the way to go if its lifeleech you want.

Crapgame.6519:

Is that the one that has the 6th option that turns you into a mist form at or around 10% health? I’m just wondering if going 6 deep would be worth it since “I” seem to drop really fast at 10%. I guess I mean it doesn’t seem like it would help much if this is the rune I am thinking of. I guess I should check.

I think this was bumped to a 20% health threshold in the patch ( which should be a tad more reliable ), but I’ve not tested it to be sure.

So a fellow Hammer aficionado!

I know this Guide is older and we’ve had updates to the Guardian since but it was a great read and many of the experiences you describe have been my own.

I learned a few things I was not aware of …like selecting B just before using JI so that it triggers on arrival and almost impossible to dodge.

I am curious about ascended celestial gear as I saw great potential for the Guardian in it early on. I almost have a full set of ascended celestial armor with runes of strength allowing me to maintain stacks of might.

reading through some of your suggestions I think I need to change my trinkets up as they are all ascended celestial as well … and suggestions once I have full celestial set up? I plan to continue to use strength runes as they were an expensive investment and I want to complement the DPS.

Weapon wise I use the Wup Wup Celestial Hammer (of course) w/Hydromancy and Battle(for might stacks) and Assassin’s Staff (for the crits) W/ Accuracy and Battle. This is my general WvW set up for groups med to large using a AH type build.

When solo roaming or playing small group WvW or PvP I swap to sword/torch or scepter/focus depending on situations and tactics of other players. I prefer to use assassins for the precision as crits are critical for support and synergy with the build as well as polishing off opponents faster.

Can you offer, under the current changes, some advice on properly utilizing, to its potential, my full celestial armor suite using strength runes?

The guide might be old but tbh nothing has really changed. Its still up to date except one or two builds and some minor tweaks on rune and sigils.

Tbh if i was going for strength runes and might stacking with celestials i would actually drop AH/medi and invest in virtues. Imo boonduration and might duration are essential to stacking builds. That and firefields which are enhanced by virtues.

As a young guardian (level 22) I think I’ve experimented a little bit with weapons and have come to the conclusion that the hammer is my favorite. The only caveat is I love the constant blinds with GS/1H+Focus.

Is there any leveling recommendations here? (As I’m posting this, I realize I may be better off asking in a different thread… There hasn’t been a response here in 7 months…)

Will this be updated to correspond with the changes to specializations? I’m willing to explain my modified AH build if you are to busy!