Guild Wars 2

Brutaly.6257:

11. Accessories
Same here as gear, I have a ton of them as well and to make it brief, get them in this order
-Knights
-Clerics rings and neck
-Berserkers
-Magi

These are all crafted and the reason why I think you should go for knights is that is maximizing your survivability and also adds the most crits, the dps is still beyond good and you can take a severe beating.

Clerics are very well suited with the pre/vit/heal gear since it lacks pover and clerics has that. But you just buy rings and neck.

Here comes something really interesting I think you should get! In cursed shore, between Harrowed sea and Winterknell shore, there is a settlement and a karma vendor and there you can buy masterpiece (green) earrings with pre/heal stats on them. It’s the only ones I seen ingame and I can’t find any exotics in the database that has those stats.

Its kind of weird that those aren’t exotics imo but be greatful, they fit a support AH/hammer guardian beautifully. GET THEM.

In case you don’t know already, for “earrings” you can get these exotics for pre/heal

Wukunlin.8461:

Brutaly.6257:

11. Accessories
Same here as gear, I have a ton of them as well and to make it brief, get them in this order
-Knights
-Clerics rings and neck
-Berserkers
-Magi

These are all crafted and the reason why I think you should go for knights is that is maximizing your survivability and also adds the most crits, the dps is still beyond good and you can take a severe beating.

Clerics are very well suited with the pre/vit/heal gear since it lacks pover and clerics has that. But you just buy rings and neck.

Here comes something really interesting I think you should get! In cursed shore, between Harrowed sea and Winterknell shore, there is a settlement and a karma vendor and there you can buy masterpiece (green) earrings with pre/heal stats on them. It’s the only ones I seen ingame and I can’t find any exotics in the database that has those stats.

Its kind of weird that those aren’t exotics imo but be greatful, they fit a support AH/hammer guardian beautifully. GET THEM.

In case you don’t know already, for “earrings” you can get these exotics for pre/heal

Yeah, i got them but forgot to update the guide.

Will add it in the next update alongside a couple of sentences about ascending.

Thx for reminding me.

Knight versions of Ascended gear has been added now, so that should conclude which Ascended items you should go for first, right?

Frankly what i was going to write about was the lack of knights and the potentiell drawback this could be but now they seem like they are there indeed.

Tbh i would go for berserker amulet and back and knight rings. Pretty much what i got this morning. Waited to buy my gear and was hoping for knights and patience paid off.

Brutaly: First of all, awesome guide. I never believed in the hammer until I read your work and now I am loving it.

Question regarding the new, new ascended gear. For the rings you suggested knights, which is cool, but there are 2 "types of knights. 1 heavy in toughness and 1 heavy in precision. Is there a preference or is it “however you feel would best suit you”? Also, as you probably know, ascended accessories are available from the guild events reward system. Would you also suggest knights for that or berserker.

Again, great work on the guide.

@TimberWolfe – i’ll try to answer what i can.

just in case, ascended accessories are also available using 40 laurels and 50 ectos. which seem quite pricey.

as for knights vs berserkers or other stats. i’d say take your build lay out and try to tweak the numbers to see where you want your stats to spread out over. and just a general rule of thumb, for ascended trinkets as it stands, for each 1% critical damage you add, you give up 7 regular stat points for Ascended Back, 8.5 for ascended ring and earrings and around 9.4 for the amulet. so you can sort of base your decisions off that as well and mix and match.

glad they have ascended Knight’s now. : )) i personally wouldn’t mind Knight’s with a valkyrie prefix :PP

Just curious how would this build do?

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3|2.1n.0|6.1n.hz|1c.71g.1p.71h.1c.b1g.1p.71g.1c.71h.1p.b1g|4v.0.2s.0.3s.0.31j.0.21j.0.2s.0|0.0.u000.u29b.a2|0.0|e

@Timberwolfe
Akamon has given you a very precise answer BUT you can actually use different paradigms when building.

As a marketeer i like balanced scorecard and the use of levers.

So one way to build is creating balance with in the build. Something i noticed when i was about to buy my rings yesterday was that i actually ended up with to much crit damage. And to compensate for that i choose one of each of the knights rings and choose berserker amulet and berserker back.

And the day (very far in the future since im in a 10 man guild) i i have enough badges i will chose soldiers/berserker accessories. As for gear i will match that with my full soldiers armor and my divinity runes.

As you can see if i do as Akamon says (max stats) with that gear my stats would look considerbly different. So back to scorecard and lever, balance wise i have certain thresholds i like to keep and in order to do that i need to have bersker in my amullet to fine tune the other stats, sure i can gain a couple of points in toughness/precision but having knights in my amulet but its less the marginal for me.

The same goes for lever, in the level of stats i have crit damage becomes very powerful and the challenge i had was to have enough crit and power to support that.

So you can look at it in different ways tbh.

Here is what i aim for, my threshholds) in my setup, 2h weapons, 0/5/30/30/5. And atm im almost there now and will be spot on with ascended accessories.

3k attack
3100 armor
40% crit chance (Dont need more, i play in a group that has 100% uptime on fury)
70% crit damage
HP is irrelevant for me but i will end up with about 17,5k but im a bit uncertain,im on a business trip but its in the area of that at least.

With foodbuffs that will be about 50% (70% incl fury) crit and 80% crit damage.

@chaosmesmer
I assume you have purity and retributive armor in valor!?

It would do very well, just deduct 7% crit (no radiance and no divinity runes) from the above and that is one hell of a supporter.

akamon.2769:

as for knights vs berserkers or other stats. i’d say take your build lay out and try to tweak the numbers to see where you want your stats to spread out over. and just a general rule of thumb, for ascended trinkets as it stands, for each 1% critical damage you add, you give up 7 regular stat points for Ascended Back, 8.5 for ascended ring and earrings and around 9.4 for the amulet. so you can sort of base your decisions off that as well and mix and match.

As for a balance of knights and berserker gear, the best to do atm is get
ascended berserker backpack, rings, accessories and amulett
and full knights armor and weapons.
All non-ascended items offer less crit damage for each stat point.
For more offense / less defense go for berserker shoulders, gloves and boots (12 stat points / 1% crit damage).

I’m wondering how the ratios for future ascended gear will be and if one could foresee that and plan accordingly. Maybe ascended shoulders / gloves / boots will offer better ratios for stat points versus crit damage.
It seems as if there is no correlation between exotic and ascended item’s ratios.
Exotic rings for example had the worst ratio (16 stat points for 1% crit damage) whereas ascended rings offer one of the best ratios.
Does anyone see a pattern?

@Brutaly and Hyuri – great insights and thanks for the shares! Brutaly you’re right in that everyone mixes and matches their numbers differently and i like your approach as well. min/max is not the only way to go. : )) and most importantly, what numbers can’t tell is how you play on the field, use your skills in acordance with your stats and how you react to various circumstances that each and every single player will throw at you, cause they’ll all be different.

my threashold is similar to yours tha tyou’ve laid out (which are really nice btw!) but depending on my build i’ll tweak them accordingly. at the same time, i haven’t really had a chance to look at ascended gear in detail yet so i’ll probs have to change my approach as well.

so @Timber – do take what is aid with a grain of sale, as i currently enjoy being able to make small tweaks using upgrade slots in jewelry, etc so if i want to get a full ascended lay out, i’ll probs have to make changes as such.

@Hyuri – i thought it was interesting that ascended trinkets offer more crit dmg per stat compared to exotic jewelry. so like you said, definitely makes sense to get crit dmg % on ascended jewelry even before you throw it on regular armor.

i want to say, or should i say HOPE, that we will be seeing a similar trend with the ascended jewelry.. where we won’t be giving up as much stat points as we are currently with exotics. but we’ll see where it goes. so as it stands, in terms of just armor, head, pants and chest offer the least amount of crit dmg% across the board. but hopefully ascended will make a difference. and perhaps, that is where ascended will stand even further out compared to exotics. solely for the purpose of trading off crit dmg or % stats vs flat stats.

Thanks alot for this guide.

I tried to take a look at the builds you linked to in chapter 19. Seems that the links don’t work. Could you take a look at this matter?

Thank you!

They are templates with the purpose to display the distribution of traitpoints. Each template can then be fitted with the traits of your choice. As the text actually states.

The traits are described in the text.

So, working as intended. And in this case its true.

if it says bad link, copy and paste them, the forum cant handle links that well.

hey brutaly!
EPIC guide! i really like it and i’m already using it for a few months now, but mainly for PVE (dungeons and fractals). in this time i tried to optimize my equipment and this is how my guardian looks now:

http://i.imagebanana.com/img/jqa6y0k8/waechterfull.jpg
on this screenshot you can see my equipment and my stats

http://i.imagebanana.com/img/y3pqfmsd/gw055.jpg
and here you can see my choice of traits

as you can see im using a combination of knight and berserker equipment with dolyak runes in my armor and sigil of blood in my hammer (and i use omnomberry ghost as food)

for earrings i use “magi’s” items.

but still i just can’t really reach the desired attribute stats you posted. do you have any suggestions how i can alter my build or is it ok as it is?

That part of the guide needs an update.

I gotten a bunch of PM asking the exact same question and i realize i been a very unclear.

With exotics its really hard to get more than maybe three different stats within the threshold. My point with that segment was that the stats where examples of desirable stats in a couple of areas and if you get those you need to sacrifice other stats to do so.

I will update that part of the guide and make that a bit more clear but i havent got the time atm but later in this month this, and a few other changes, will be added.

Hi, I had read all the guide and I understand most of the important things, but when I read the build names I’m not sure about wich I must choose because my level of english isn’t the best and I don’t understand the build names.
With my guardian I’ll just play pve and dungeons and some WvW, but 80% gameplay I’ll be in pve, so I just one to know wich is the best of your builds for this kind of gameplay.
I don’t want to be tank, for that purpose I have my warrior. I think that with my guardian I just want to be 50% tank 50% support. There is any build apropiated for that? Can I use greatsword instead hammer? Or hammer is better for that kind of gameplay?
Thank you very much and sorry for my english.

i picked the names based on their characteristics. If you want one build for both pve and wvw i would go for 0/0/30/30/10.

By just a switch of majot trait in virtues you go from retal solo grinding in pve and a consecrationbased support monster in wvw.

Add in a couple of different armor sets with different runes that build can pretty much do everything in game but you need to swap a trait or two, swap a couple of utilities and then fine tune with armor.

Really versatile imo.

If you want more offense
0/5/30/30/5 (great supportbuild if you use three shouts and pure of voice and rune of the soldier)
Or
0/15/30/20/5
Really only about dps unless you have rune of the soldier

or for max support
0/0/30/20/20

Ofc you can use gs, i use both actually. Which should be clear if you infact read the wall of text.

Dont build for weapons primarily, build for the role you want to play and then chose the weapon.

Hammer is the best aoe weapon we have, gs has better performance versus single targets or spreadout targets. GS is more cd dependant.

The weapons do very different things so ofc you can play with gs but hammer exploits AH much better.

I played around with AH awhile ago and then switched to the ‘Healway’ build. And while I did enjoy that build as well, after coming back to AH I realized why I love this build so much.

It is so freaking flexible. You have to put 30 in Valor for AH. Other then that it is mostly just well lets try this and see what the hell happens.

Being a tinkerer it is great to have so much freedom in a build. Im not dying hey lets drop 400 toughness and pick up crit. Hey I am dying lets switch utilities. Hey my crit is to high lets jack in some health. I really like dodging, lets eat some endurance food. I’m a pyro, lets put 15 into radiance. I love blue circles on the ground, lets roll 10 in virtues, 20 if we want throwable blue circles. Who doesn’t?

For one build to be able to do so many things, it is just fun.

Thanks for the time and effort writing up this guide.

Brutaly.6257:

11. Accessories

Here comes something really interesting I think you should get! In cursed shore, between Harrowed sea and Winterknell shore, there is a settlement and a karma vendor and there you can buy masterpiece (green) earrings with pre/heal stats on them. It’s the only ones I seen ingame and I can’t find any exotics in the database that has those stats.

Its kind of weird that those aren’t exotics imo but be greatful, they fit a support AH/hammer guardian beautifully. GET THEM.

Hey you may want to update, although it isn’t the cheapest item, Operative’s Creed is available with same stats. Spent some time looking today because I get OCD about having all exotics. Awesome guide btw if you haven’t heard it enough It’s been a good baseline for any build I have been using. (0,0,30,20,20 for AH or MF usage with some nice retaliation involved )

Hi,

to all of you experienced in Fractals 40+:
I feel I have reached a point where I have to decide whether going more into DPS or switching to a more support oriented build (with healpower equip and the likes). I see players discussing that in any forum I visit (while most times I doubt there is solid first hand experience, it seems more to be a fight between two religions). Any advice you can give me from personal experience?

I’m currently running a balanced (between def and off) build:
0/0/30/30/10
full knight’s armor and weapons
6/6 sup soldier runes, sup sigils of accuracy / energy
berserker’s ascended amulet + rings + backpack
exotic emerald earrings with ruby orbs
Stats unbuffed (IIRC, not at home right now)
Attack ~2900
CritChance ~46%
CritDmg ~66%
Armor ~3000+
HP 15,5k

Any advice will be appreciated, thx in advance!

Hyuri

I’m new to guardian and will start doing fractals tonight, I’m looking for a nice AH build with a mix of dps and support and also like GS and Hammer. I’m just can’t seem to find a nice layed out build so I can get my feet wet, I’m talking about what traits to pick and what gear works best also what runes/sigils. If someone can get me started with a good AH fractal build it would be appreciated.

Btw ATM I have full clerics set and 3 pieces of zerkers armor. I have no problem getting other armor but I just need to know what works best with AH builds.

You should try the 0/0/30/30/10 build I posted above your post. It’s a very flexible and balanced setup, especially if you don’t prefer hammer or greatsword over the other:

When playing with hammer you can switch Honor IX to VII for longer lasting symbols (~100% protection uptime) or XI for even more condition removal. Or you leave Honor IX as it is for reduced CDs on staff (and greatsword, if you want to swap it in).
If you are lucky and playing a human guardian as I do, you can take the racial heal skill instead of the signet for nearly the same heal on 30s CD (you won’t miss the passive condition removal as you will still have Valor V and soldier runes and maybe Honor XI).
10 points in Virtues is a must, IMO, as reflect is king in fractals. I usually leave VI and Wall of Reflection on my bar as default and switch to Shield of Avenger and IV when needed – in some fractals / situations you will want to have both on your bar.

My gear (see above) offers solid defense while maintaining good damage. With 3000+ armor you can easily outheal any incoming damage in fractals sub lvl 30 (blocks, blinds, reflects and DODGING help OFC).

@Wryscher.1432
I played around with the healway build and its great for small parties.

In large scale battles it absolutely relies on people being stupid enough to hit you and as soon as you run into an opponent that knows what to do they just cc you and swap target, the direct damage is close to ignorable. Imo it relies to much on retaliation to have any severe impact in lage scale battles or versus decent opponents.

There is also a hard counter for it but that one i keep to my self.

@Hektor Warfield.6052

Yepp i know, i just havent gotten the time to update the guide.

@Hyuri and Lunatic
There is a thread about fractals.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Frac40-High-DPS-Support-build
I think you might get the answer you seek there.

Would like to share how I run build for those that may be taking everything in and find it overwhelming or wanting something a bit more specific. This comes from a pve and wvw mindset. I don’t spvp so keep that in mind. I never respec since I ran it so if you are a fan of being able to do both with one build this may interest you.

I run a 0/0/30/20/20 build. The best thing IMO that you can maximize your effectiveness is to have at least two of every weapon you plan to use. I say at least two due to the many options of stack type sigils. I usually run sigil of life for healing stacks and then switch to endurance regen on kill and on swap. This gives you The best option to keep endurance regenerating as fast as possible, and with perm healing this can give you a steady stream of healing and complete Dmg mitigation as I’m sure you would already know.

I run healing signet, stand your ground, and save yourselves all the time. The one utility I swap goes between judges Intervention for wvw, hold the line for most pve, and wall of reflection where needed (when switching out be sure to switch out your virtue traits, big reason i run 20 in virtues).

When not running wor, I use my virtue traits for 25 percent retaliation uptime, as well as retaliation when activating virtue. This not only gives you extra healing from altruistic healing, but if you find yourself in that oh crap moment in wvw, you can spam pretty much any combination of utilities and virtues that are on cd, and pop renewed focus. This will give you insulin, as well as still prodding retaliation Dmg, and when that is up, dodge roll, switch weapons, and dodge roll again. Between the distance you are able to cover in that time and the amount of mitigation coupled with retaliation, and having up to four conditions removed if using soldiers runes, should save you from having to get 25 stacks again. This version of this build allows me to go a whole days worth of wvw only dying a few times. Very fun stuff IMO.

First of all great guide! I have a question regarding this build. I´m mainly a WvW player, and often i find myself outnumbered (1v2, 1v3, etc), my question is, is this build capable of handling those situations, since it relies so much on supporting others?

I guess it depends on the specific ah build you use. 0/15/30/20/5 or 0/0/30/20/20 with knights gear and accessories to your flavor work well for me in wvw. I use all weapons in different cosmos but generally speaking I go sword and shield with hammer. I prefer the 0/0/30/20/20 build with empowering might, and the virtue traits toward retaliation uptime and extra virtue health regenerate. Run judges intervention with syg, and save yourselves. Can keep a hefty dose of retal up, usinh flashing blade and ji to close gaps. Ji can also be used when charging up banish or ring of warding for a bit of control. Feel free to add me and msg me in game and I’ll help where I can

Hektor Warfield.6052:

I guess it depends on the specific ah build you use. 0/15/30/20/5 or 0/0/30/20/20 with knights gear and accessories to your flavor work well for me in wvw. I use all weapons in different cosmos but generally speaking I go sword and shield with hammer. I prefer the 0/0/30/20/20 build with empowering might, and the virtue traits toward retaliation uptime and extra virtue health regenerate. Run judges intervention with syg, and save yourselves. Can keep a hefty dose of retal up, usinh flashing blade and ji to close gaps. Ji can also be used when charging up banish or ring of warding for a bit of control. Feel free to add me and msg me in game and I’ll help where I can

Will do, thanks for the answer. I asked this question because i´m currently running a 0/0/10/30/30 retaliation build and i feel i need to be able to do more dps and more survvability, that´s why i´m looking to an AH build.

Yea then the transition to a 0/0/30/20/20 shouldn’t be too bad. Keep in mind the ah build is made for group play, however if you change up your style a bit more it is fine for small skirmishes. The nice thing about that particular spec as well as the 0/15/30/20/5 is that they both transition well over to a meditation build and either trait line compliments it well. I can’t stress it enough though that althoug the build is based off of heals from boons, my personal recommendation is to go get 25 stacks of your desired stats then switch to your other set. Since I run sword shield hammer in the case of wvw most of the time ( staff is a great weapon in place of either sword or hammer when in large groups), I run sigils that give endurance on swap and/or on kill. IMO it cannot be beaten in the amount of pure mitigation and healing this offers in conjunction with perm vigor. Just make sure when in the heat of battle not to be shy about dodge rolling, it’ll fill up quicker than you would think.

Hektor Warfield.6052:

Yea then the transition to a 0/0/30/20/20 shouldn’t be too bad. Keep in mind the ah build is made for group play, however if you change up your style a bit more it is fine for small skirmishes. The nice thing about that particular spec as well as the 0/15/30/20/5 is that they both transition well over to a meditation build and either trait line compliments it well. I can’t stress it enough though that althoug the build is based off of heals from boons, my personal recommendation is to go get 25 stacks of your desired stats then switch to your other set. Since I run sword shield hammer in the case of wvw most of the time ( staff is a great weapon in place of either sword or hammer when in large groups), I run sigils that give endurance on swap and/or on kill. IMO it cannot be beaten in the amount of pure mitigation and healing this offers in conjunction with perm vigor. Just make sure when in the heat of battle not to be shy about dodge rolling, it’ll fill up quicker than you would think.

Yeah on my current build i use GS and sword focus, and i have sigil of energy on all primaries. I was thinking of trying knights armor and weapons and berserker on jewelry, and maybe runes of the soldier. Would that work good?

hey Skull, i put together a little sth and you can see if you like it. it’s very basic without a whole lot of tinkering, but i think it offers good mix of offense and defense.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h1j|c.1g.h1j.d.1g.h4|1n.7x.1p.7x.1n.7x.1p.7x.1n.7x.1p.7x|1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1g.67|0.0.u000.k00.k00|39.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

i personally like having valkyrie and knight’s mixed armor to get my HP up there. and i usually don’t go full zerker on jewelry to retain armor above 3k. which is sort of my personal threshold, but not neccessary. if you want more HP, you can either switch your weapons to valkyrie or swap the exquisite jewels in the trinkets to valkyrie jewels instead. the power shown on the stats table includes 25 stacks from bloodlust in the focus. or like Hektor / Brutaly mentioned, run stacking sigils on another weapon set, which is what i do as well.

again, just what i think is a decent mix. : )) hope this helps. Soldiers is a good choice on runes and with majority of knight’s gear you get high toughness, as well as precision so your AH benefits from that.

isn’t 4 rune of the pack + 2 monk runes viable or am i missing something?

4 rune of the pack will give u a 5% chance to apply 3 boons (fury swiftness might) to nearby allies when you are getting hit. 10sec cd. giving that you are tanking you should be taking a few hits and proc it rather often.

some quick math gives us that there is a 50% chance of procing it if you get struck by 15 or so attacks from the moment it can be reactivated. 25 attacks give a 75% chance. but on average you should get it proced around every 15 attacks. 15 attacks can easily be delt to you within 5seconds giving us a proc every 15 seconds or so. all the boons have a 5sec uptime and with 20-25% increased duration ( 5-10 from trait and 15 from monk) gives another second.

4*rune of the pack is actually kind of weak, in wvw you should have perma swiftness and fury from your team and the might from rune of the pack is just overall worthless.

Might look good on paper and in pugs but that is about it.

We are talking about approx 10-15% uptime on one random boon. That is 1,5 seconds fury/might/swiftness per 10s.

2* superior rune of the monk and 2* major rune of the monk gives you 5% less boon duration on all boons as 4*pack and 2*monk. Just as comparison.

Overall i think that setup actually gives more much more boonduration uptime than 4*pack and still enables 24/7 swiftness!

I’d like to see your source from the numbers and facts that you present.

4*rune of the pack is actually kind of weak, in wvw you should have perma swiftness and fury from your team and the might from rune of the pack is just overall worthless.

fair enough, it’s useless in pvp or wvw, but i kinda knew that i just forgot mentioning that im mainly pve dungeoning.

Brutaly.6257:

Might look good on paper and in pugs but that is about it.

We are talking about approx 10-15% uptime on one random boon. That is 1,5 seconds fury/might/swiftness per 10s.

actually it’s 30-60% uptime of three boons and fury being one of them witch is quite hard to get as a guardian.
according to the wiki, when the rune proc you get 5 seconds of fury,might and swiftness. and not only to you but to nearby allies, witch i must say works very well in combination with AH.

Brutaly.6257:

2* superior rune of the monk and 2* major rune of the monk gives you 5% less boon duration on all boons as 4*pack and 2*monk. Just as comparison.

i don’t understand this comparison but ok.

Brutaly.6257:

Overall i think that setup actually gives more much more boonduration uptime than 4*pack and still enables 24/7 swiftness!

of course it gives more boon duration, but if it’s boon duration i want i would have gone with 2x water 2x monk and 2x(cant remember the name) to give me 40% extra boon duration, and i could care less about the swiftness as this is a pve build and swiftness doesn’t play that big of a role.

the entire purpose of having rune of the pack is to get more AH procs. 3x boons to nearby allies is alot of boon. and 10seconds is a rather low cd.

for it to have 50% uptime, 5s duration with a 10s cd, it has to proc everytime the cd has run out. Which ofc happen from time to time (but rarely, in fact in 5% of the hits received) but even if you where hit 20 times (5%=1/20) a second the nature of probability (its called that for a reason, and not certainty) will make it so you always have less than 50% uptime in a given timeframe. Its physically impossible to have 60% uptime with 5s duration and 10s internal cd and it doesnt matter if you have 15% in 2*rune of the monk.

And regarding AH its like 20 hps (assuming 50% uptime which is impossible and one ally in range) even if it is 3 boons. Tbh i cant recall how it worked when i used it, i might be wrong because i only recall getting one random boon but its along time ago, but its still kind of useless since swiftness and fury should be permanent in wvw, and even more so in pve, in any competent team. Which leaves you with one stack of might.

The nature of probability also makes it so for long durations of time you wont get it to procc at all and this lowers the total uptime dramatically. The practical internal cd is infact much longer since its a procc with 5% chance of triggering if you are hit.

Compare it with EM that has 100% prcc chance with and 1 sec internal cd. lets assume that is 10 stacks of might per 10 seconds with 1 attack per second that crit . Now we take rune of the pack and assume one attack per second, this means it will procc once every 20th hit in average.

You get the picture, you need a huge amount of hits for it to procc consistently and this only occurs in open world pve (you dont need ah at all) and in stacked aoe in wvw or when zerged. And you have no guarantees it proccs when you need the health

Overall we are talking about a very poor uptime/number ah proccs.

If its the AH proccs you are looking for then there are other runes that give you more effective heals per minute and also has more “burst”, control and also support your team.

It might be an option for soloplay but then it would be for fury i would look for, since that is a boon guardians lack.

But by all means, invest in it, but im gonna tell you “i told you so”. :-)

Brutaly.6257:

for it to have 50% uptime, 5s duration with a 10s cd, it has to proc everytime the cd has run out. Which ofc happen from time to time (but rarely, in fact in 5% of the hits received) but even if you where hit 20 times (5%=1/20) a second the nature of probability (its called that for a reason, and not certainty) will make it so you always have less than 50% uptime in a given timeframe. Its physically impossible to have 60% uptime with 5s duration and 10s internal cd and it doesnt matter if you have 15% in 2*rune of the monk.

i am running a AH build, so having 5points in virues is mandatory giving me 20% boon durtion (15 from monk and 5 from virues) witch makes 60% mathematically possible but in practice impossible. 60% was just a round number, or would you like me to us 57,644% instead? despite i did say 30-60% and not 60%.
at 15 attacks there is a 50% probability of the rune to have proced and 15 attacks can easily be dealt to you within 5sec (3 attacks per second) meaning that there is a 50% chance the rune get proced within 5 seconds. witch give us a 33% uptime of the boons. (without boon duration)

And regarding AH its like 20 hps (assuming 50% uptime which is impossible and one ally in range) even if it is 3 boons. Tbh i cant recall how it worked when i used it, i might be wrong because i only recall getting one random boon but its along time ago, but its still kind of useless since swiftness and fury should be permanent in wvw, and even more so in pve, in any competent team. Which leaves you with one stack of might.

like i said, this is not a wvw or a pvp rune, i know that. having thise rune in pvp or wvw is stupid.
this rune gives a 15HP/s for every ally within range ( if it proc every 15seconds witch we worked out to be the average)
i havent tested the rune out either and i am only theroycrafting.

The nature of probability also makes it so for long durations of time you wont get it to procc at all and this lowers the total uptime dramatically. The practical internal cd is infact much longer since its a procc with 5% chance of triggering if you are hit.

i know this, and on Average this rune will proc every 15 attacks from the moment it can be activated again. average is the only thing we can calculate towards when dealing with odds. and yes there will be times when i wont get it to proc in perhaps 50 attacks but it will rarely happen. and sometimes i get procs within 5 attacks. its chance.

Compare it with EM that has 100% prcc chance with and 1 sec internal cd. lets assume that is 10 stacks of might per 10 seconds with 1 attack per second that crit . Now we take rune of the pack and assume one attack per second, this means it will procc once every 20th hit in average.

on average you will proc the rune every 15 attack ( or more precisely 13,5). and one attack per second is very low. considering you will be in the front line having aggro from alot of enemies.
and what makes you think i dont have EM allready?

You get the picture, you need a huge amount of hits for it to procc consistently and this only occurs in open world pve (you dont need ah at all) and in stacked aoe in wvw or when zerged. And you have no guarantees it proccs when you need the health

as mention this rune should never be used in pvp/wvw. and this “huge amounts of hits” is about 15.

Overall we are talking about a very poor uptime/number ah proccs.

If its the AH proccs you are looking for then there are other runes that give you more effective heals per minute and also has more “burst”, control and also support your team.

i’d say it’s a quite strong number of AH procs considering that there is shouts that have less boons/s.
please, share your knowledge about these runes that you talk about.

It might be an option for soloplay but then it would be for fury i would look for, since that is a boon guardians lack.

why should it be for solo play? considering that it’s a aoe buff.

But by all means, invest in it, but im gonna tell you “i told you so”. :-)

….right.

No its not mathematically possible, its on the end of the standard curve. The fact is that with one hit every second and with 5% probability to procc the average time until it proccs is 10 seconds.

Now add in the internal cd to that (it cant procc when on cd) which means with that the procc will be activated every 20 seconds.

in open world pve you dont need it and in bossfights you will be hit less than once every second or you are doing something wrong.

You get the picture, trust me i tested them and they arent worth it.

Regarding other runes that give more healing, i suggest you search the wiki.

EDIT: try them out in the mist, no need to theorycraft. As an AH enhancers they are close to worthless. boonwise they might fill a purpose in solo/roaming.

Brutaly.6257:

No its not mathematically possible, its on the end of the standard curve. The fact is that with one hit every second and with 5% probability to procc the average time until it proccs is 10 seconds.

Now add in the internal cd to that (it cant procc when on cd) which means with that the procc will be activated every 20 seconds.

With 2 hits every second its 15 seconds. So if you are hit twice every second you will have 6 seconds uptime every 15 seconds with 20% boonduration.

in open world pve you dont need it and in bossfights you will be hit less than once every second or you are doing something wrong.

You get the picture, trust me i tested them and they arent worth it.

Regarding other runes that give more healing, i suggest you search the wiki.

for open world pve you can run in all blue and still find it rather easy to play <.<. this is more for harder content like fractals or other dungeons, lets take the fractal for example as it is the hardest dungeon.
imo the bosses aren’t that hard. if you know how to dodge they are easy. just go range and dps and dodge all attacks and you’ll be fine. so you shouldn’t have your gear focused to boss battles. imo the hardest content in fractals are content when there is alot of enemies, like underground mining fractal, or grawl last boss when the adds spawn. allot of enemies= allot of incoming attacks = more procs from on struck runes.
yes this rune suck for boss battles, but as i said they aren’t that hard anyway.

i hope you see the uses of this rune now.

i’ve tried to find better runes but i can’t find any. so why can’t you tell me about the runes you were speaking of, you know, those that would grant me better burst,control and healing capability.

ok, 60% uptime is impossible but it was only a rounded number. its more like 55% with 20% boon duration. sorry for my misstake.

however you’r math is incorrect about the average amount of hits it take before the rune get proced. im not going to turn this to a massive math post so i’ll just put up the right calculations and i hope you get it.

how many hits does it take to activate the rune on average?

there is a 5% chance on activating it on every hit taken. thus there is a 95% of it not to activate on every hit.

0,95^h=0,5 this equation will give us the amount of hits (h) it takes to achive a 50% chance of not procing the rune thus 50% chance of procing the rune.

some simple algebra makes this equation solvable.

lg(0,5)/lg(0,95) =h = 13,5134… rounded to 13,5

so there is a equal amount of chance to get the rune proced after 13,5 attacks that it is to have it proced before 13,5 attacks. thus on average the rune will be proced every 13,5 attacks taken.

in fractals the range to the team is often out of range for the rune.

And as you said you werent looking for the boons (which other professions can/should give you 24/7) but the AH procc and the fact is that the doylak (there are better ones also, once again check the wiki, what can give your team and you a controlled heal for about 1500-1800 per minute) rune is better since that one has a steady 30 incoming heals per second not matter situation and you need three allies in range for pack to give you 30 in heals per second if you procc it every 15 second.

Add to that that you need to get hit extremely often (twice per second in average) to have one proc every 15 seconds, over time. Getting hit twice every second in fractals is suicide.

Add in 10 s cd when it cant be triggered in your equation.

Hello everyone.

Haven’t played in a bit and was wondering if they took out animation skipping? Can’t seem to do it anymore.

Did anything in the last patch impact this build?

Thank you so much for your effort mate, I used your guide and changed some gear for my style. Your build works really well and shines… Cheers for everything.

Brutaly can you post again the AH builds? I can’t see them.
BTW does this builds works well in WvW/PvE in general? In sPvP i use silven’s build with meditations because i can’t find a good balance in AH in sPVP.

Enzo Kensei.9850:

Brutaly can you post again the AH builds? I can’t see them.
BTW does this builds works well in WvW/PvE in general? In sPvP i use silven’s build with meditations because i can’t find a good balance in AH in sPVP.

The builds in this guide are the point allocations only — the specific traits are left blank on purpose. You’ll have to read the guide and pick’em yourself to fit your playstyle.

@Enzo – AH builds work best with at least a full party around you / in a group setting. That being said, it’s more than viable solo as well for both PvE/WvW. depending on who you’re up against, solo WvW, you still might be better off with meditations and MF, but the beauty of many of these builds, you can easily switch back and forth from AH to MF adn change your bar. especially the 15/30/20/5 build IMO.

also, for sPvP, i feel AH works extremely well with symbol builds. : ))

This is about what I am shooting for. I hope this will be effective enough on the field in group wvw.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1g.h17|1.1g.h1b|1c.7h.1c.7h.1c.7h.1c.7h.1c.7h.1c.7i|1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.8c.67|0.0.u56b.u28b.a2|55.7|v.18.19.17.1i|e

I just can’t decide on boon duration runes or the eagle/lyssa combo. 40% boon duration +20% might duration(monk/water/fire) or 50% boon duration (monk/water/maj water).

Awesome guide. I’m trying to get back on my 80 Guardian after months of not playing him. I enjoyed my Guardian a lot (was my first GW2 character) but got burned from only playing him. I looked over your guide and I was pretty much running a similar build when I played him. I’ve come up with a Armor / Trinkets / Weapon stat combination and wanted some input from the people in this post. I want good damage and survivability. I mostly do solo PvE but I want to branch out to dungeons with this guys (I only did AC in this guy for the P/V/T armor). Most of my WvW I do in my Thief, but I don’t see why this build won’t work in WvW as well, since it’s very seems flexible enough and I can stay 0/0/30/30/10 and just switch traits to suit any situation. What do you guys think?

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|2.1n.h1b|9.1n.h1b.e.1n.h15|1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x|1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1c.67|0.0.u68b.u279.a6|21.1|v.z.18.1b.1i|e

Thankfully I already have a full P/V/T with Soldier Runes armor set, so now I would just need to get weapons and trinkets. I like the Knight with Ruby gem trinket combo since I already have 3.2k armor and I could boost my Crit Dmg with them. I like to have a weapon in my inventory with a Superior Bloodlust Sigil, then switch it out when I have a 25 stack. Consumables well I have a max level Chef, Artificer and Woodsman, and my Guardian is max Weaponsmith so I can make all consumables and just select one to suit the situation or play style I’m currently trying.

So what do you guys think? All feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance

Hi, really a great writeup. I’ve played my Guardian as my main for quite a long time and since then have been trying out other professions. I was thinking about changing to this build for WvW for both large and small scale fights:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1g.h1b|6.1g.h1b|1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x|1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1n.61.1n.61.1a.61|0.a2.u56b.k29.a2|39.1|v.17.18.19.1i|e

Would like to hear your opinion and any improvements I could make.

Xavi.6591:

Did anything in the last patch impact this build?

Just for the better since writ of persistence was fixed, allegedly.

phaneo.4597:

Hi, really a great writeup. I’ve played my Guardian as my main for quite a long time and since then have been trying out other professions. I was thinking about changing to this build for WvW for both large and small scale fights:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1g.h1b|6.1g.h1b|1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x|1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1n.61.1n.61.1a.61|0.a2.u56b.k29.a2|39.1|v.17.18.19.1i|e

Would like to hear your opinion and any improvements I could make.

Hammer isn’t a very good weapon for 1v1 PvP because so much of its damage output comes from the stationary symbol, which is easily walked out of. Sword or greatsword should definitely remain your go-to options for 1v1 fights, even if you’re specced for hammer otherwise.

For zerg fights, hammers are less than useless, due to how suicidal it is to try to sit in at melee range in a zerg for 3.75s charging a slow symbol that will hit no one, and which won’t even affect anyone because enemies will avoid it, and allies won’t be close enough to benefit from it. I actually recommend staff for zerg fights due to the large spread on the attack being very difficult to avoid, and having much better options in general. If all the naysaying is confusing, just keep in mind that 1h sword rocks face for PvP, and is always a safe bet.

tl;dr Don’t use the hammer for PvP except to CC and swap to your other weapon.

Hey – love the guide thank you.

The builds you link in your first post don’t appear to be loading for me. Is there an alternative link?

Thanks again.

@Perplexing – the links should be fine. if you mean the major traits aren’t picked, it’s because they’re mean to be that way. : )) the builds are mainly to display the trait point distribution. the details of the build specifics and synergies are for you to wokr out on your own and tweak to your liking or situation. hope ths helps answer your question!

@Guanglai – i beg to differ saying that the hammer is less than useless in zerg fights in WvW. in fact, i find it quite the opposite. the symbol may take time to drop, but if you’re saying that EVERY single person has their eyes on YOU and you only and will dodge the hammer strikes, i am calling major bluff. the symbol is way more than easy to drop because there are so many people and the PBAoE on the hammer is quite large actually. sure people will move out of the symbol, if they actually notice its there. or aren’t being CC-ed to oblivion by the hammer itself OR your allies. it’s easy to set up using the hammer to keep people on your symbols. that aside, mighty blow is extremely useful in zerg fights. setting up combos or just doing massive dmg and pressuring enemies. no one is telling you to just run into the middle of the zerg head on spamming #1. i don’t think there is any weapon / skill . build that would allow you to do that. nor would that be very fun. you can easily pick off stragglers that break off too far from the main zerg or even separate easy targets for your allies to chomp down on. it’s not bad for chasing runaways too if you know what you’re doing.

on the other hand, i do agree that staff is excellent in zerg vs zerg fights. and the sword is extremely effective in PvP (s or tPvP).