Guild Wars 2

First of all, let me say that, despite my overall lack of knowledge of GW2, I have already gathered that there is no “tanking” in the traditional RPG sense of the word in this game. With that, my goal with this build is to be durable enough that I can afford to draw the ire of enemies for long enough to give my allies some breathing room while at the same time contributing enough damage to the group to not feel like I am more of a hindrance than help. I’d also like to have a build that can do well in PvE as well as hold its own in the smaller WvW battles (spec ops kind of stuff, not so much the zerg). Finally, I prefer 2H weapons, though I do carry one of everything in my bags for those times when a situation (especially in dungeons) requires a different approach.

The build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mccz0M0zmrnRmmrnRm0GxG0Mszobcs

As far as gear, I’m still pretty fresh to 80, and most of pieces are still mid-70 cleric gear from an older spec. My short term goal is to acquire the full Vigil set (which I want to do because I like the design anyway) which has Power/Vitality/Toughness, a rare combination on PvE gear. I’m not sure whether Knight’s or Cleric’s makes more sense for jewelry, and I have only an inkling of what kind of runes I should try to get (Soldier’s seems like a safe bet, but a good one?). That brings me to my questions:

1) Do I need some semblance of Healing Power from gear in order to make the Meditation Mastery/Monk’s Focus combo really worthwhile?

2) Does my current gear goal make sense? If not, what would be better? What would make sense for jewelry and runes?

3) Is my current build too “selfish” to be worthwhile in a group? Or, put another way, if you were in my group and could see my spec, would you be concerned about the fact that I have focused on personal livability rather than group buffs?

4) Is there already a better build out there that does exactly what I want better than what I’ve created?

Thanks in advance for the help. Also, I hope that someone else out there who came to the forums looking for an idea of how to build their Guardian gains something of use from this thread!

1.) I’ve played a Mediation Guardian in PvP and with 0 points in Honor the Meditation skills healed for something around 1.5k to 2k health; I doubt you need even more Healing Power.

2.) A Guardian has already strong armor and you get +300 Toughness from your traits but has the lowest health pool of all professions so you want to prioritize Vitality a bit more than Toughness.

3.) I would rather see a Guardian that can bring Shouts or Consecrations along but you still bring Cleansing Bolts and a Blast finisher on a short cooldown; still, not being able to bring no team support is the reason why I stay away from Meditations in PvE, even though they are awesome in sole PvE.

4.) You might want to switch the major Valor trait with the instant Meditation trait but because that can be changed freely.

DesertRose.2031:

1.) I’ve played a Mediation Guardian in PvP and with 0 points in Honor the Meditation skills healed for something around 1.5k to 2k health; I doubt you need even more Healing Power.

Good to know, thanks.

DesertRose.2031:

2.) A Guardian has already strong armor and you get +300 Toughness from your traits but has the lowest health pool of all professions so you want to prioritize Vitality a bit more than Toughness.

Is that true in both PvE and PvP? I definitely understand that for PvP, where battles are usually short, but wouldn’t it be the case in the longer PvE battles where you don’t have the opportunity to get out of combat that Healing Power and Toughness would actually play a greater role? Do I need two sets of gear if I want to be really effective at both?

DesertRose.2031:

3.) I would rather see a Guardian that can bring Shouts or Consecrations along but you still bring Cleansing Bolts and a Blast finisher on a short cooldown; still, not being able to bring no team support is the reason why I stay away from Meditations in PvE, even though they are awesome in sole PvE.

I definitely understand your concerns as I share them; I don’t want to feel like I am not bringing much to the team, however, I think the argument can be made that personal survivability combined with battlefield control (Greatsword 5 and Hammer 5) that often results in being the target of enemy attacks is actually a great asset to the group.

That being said, with only a little bit of tweaking, the same point values in each trait line can actually make what looks like a pretty solid shout build as well: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#MccM0V0zmNvammNvam0GxG0MsVoqMs. That makes me like the setup even more, since I can change on the fly based on the circumstances.

DesertRose.2031:

4.) You might want to switch the major Valor trait with the instant Meditation trait but because that can be changed freely.

Smite Condition and Judges Intervention always seemed pretty instant to me, which is why I didn’t take that trait; is that just my imagination?

As a general rule of thumb a build geared towards pvp will be worst at PvE as same rate and vice versa.

PvP its not that fights are short, it’s the fact you’re playing against different style and more often than not you’re going to be recieving incoming debuffs/damage because Guardians are generally vanguards. Personally I feel the thing that kills me the most are all the debuffs. Even with all the conditional damage cures, guardian’s biggest weakness is their lack of HP against the defence piercing conditional damage.

PvE, against common mobs almost any build would suffice. The long winded battles are the ones with either Events or Champion mobs. In both scenerio it is a rare occurace (outside of dungeons of course) for any player to literally “tank” damage from the powerhouse mobs for any long duration of time. In most cases simply paying attention with the dodge skill will afford you the hp you would have to have made back from the healing power.

2 out of 4 meditation are already instant. The stun breakers. Was changed in one of last stress tests.

As far as the instant meditation trait, from my observations, none of the meditations can be used when kd’d if the trait is not active (this could be wrong, but smite condition and contemplation of purity definitely cannot), I have noticed that with the trait, meditations can be cast while knocked down

I have also noticed that I can cast smite condition while casting/channeling without interrupting my current action. I can’t explicitly test right now, but I beliece that the interventions will disrupt casting. I can test this later.