Guild Wars 2

I’ve been having a blast playing my new guardian, he’s only 24. But i wanna know what build would be best for me, as i will get to level 80 fast.

I’m really into the shout abilities

I also like to do plenty of damage, but be able to hold my own so i can do a little bit of soloing too.

I was thinking of… 0/10/30/30/0

Will that build be okay for what i need? It seems to be very defensive, but should do plenty of damage too?

I’ve only played my thief to 80 and had a break from the game so im very unsure what to go with even with all the suggestions in this forum.

But basically i wanna be able to DPS!!

Use shouts effectively, and be able to survive!

Please help, thanks in advance.

It’s not terrible, but don’t get your hopes up for dealing massive damage. Guardians can put out fairly consistent damage, but you sure as hell aren’t going to be worrying anyone with your “High DPS”.

Guardians strength is in their ability to do a bit of everything. We can provide some damage support while buffing and healing everyone. Warrior’s can kind of do it with a shout heal spec, but I’ve played both at 80 and found Guardian’s : A) Way more fun. B ) Better at supporting. That’s my opinion.

We can do a bit of damage, but it’s not that amazing. I enjoy doing my job of providing lots of buffs, condition removal and in general being a pain in the kitten for other classes to fight.

The fastest clears I’ve had in CoF speed runs are with 3 Warriors, 1 Mesmer & 1 Guardian. Everyone forgets that Tome of Wrath can provide Quickening, in fact you can use it twice if you time it right.

Guardian damage isn’t bad, to be fair I’m being a bit harsh comparing it against a Warrior… the only class that comes close to Warrior’s damage is a Thief. Just keep in mind when you play a Guardian, people aren’t bringing you for your imba DPS. They want you for the support you provide and the utility you bring to the group.

The question can’t be answered without knowing what you want to play. World Events? Dungeons? High level Fractals? sPvP? WvW?

I would make a slight change.

0/5/30/30/5

You want the virtues to give the buffs when they are activated. The buffs are really nice, and it will trigger Altruistic Healing.

Bare in mind you won’t do that great a damage compared to other classes. I run 0/5/30/30/5 Shout Guardian using Berserker gear for PVE Dungeons, swapping to Clerics / Knights when I need some more survivability. To be honest though, if you have Empowering Might with Altruistic Healing, you will be triggering the heals quite a lot which will give you a slow steady rate of healing.

I’ve not had any problems at all with my survivability while running that trait spec with Berserker gear. As with all things, knowing when to roll can save your kitten so much.

Currently that’s my go to spec for Dungeons and Soloing. WvW it kind of works, but you would want to look at using Clerics / Knights instead. In WvW I focus a lot more on condition removal, healing and soaking up some damage.

Also, in WvW I would take the 5 from Radiance and stack it in to Virtues – 0/0/30/30/10. Then take the ground targetting consecration trait so you can place wall of reflection. WoR is absolutely evil in WvW, coupled with the staff’s line of warding, it’s quite amusing.

Sorry, forgot to add that, but thats cause i wanna do everything. I realize i will have to switch skills here and there if i wanna do pvp or wvw other than dungeons and world events.

But i just want a good build that will allow me to use shouts effectively and have decent damage aswell as survivability.

as i want that kinda play style in all aspects of the game

Thanks Xylith, But i think guardians have decent damage just not as much burst as other classes I love the GS.

But for a guardian will that spec you just gave me have some good damage in it as well as the survivability for dungeons?

Their damage is OK, but nothing compared to say a Warrior or Thief.

You get your damage from the berserker stats, the traits balance your survivability out. If you’re looking for more damage then you might want to look at a different profession. You can go glass cannon if you want, but that’s just stupid on a Guardian IMO.

Nah I enjoy Guardian, i have a level 50 warrior and 80 thief, thief was too spammy for my liking which made it get really annoying to play. But i had good survivability which i liked, with all their escapes/evasions. stealth was too good

My warrior was fun to play at the start but just got boring after a while, not a fan of their toolkit.

But guardian’s are my thing for sure as i am having a blast, I dont mind not beeing the biggest damage dealer, but so far while leveling him up the damage seems fine if not higher than at least the thief to start off with, but thats probably cause i played a fully defensive p/d thief.

I just love all of the guardian’s abilities so i just wanna meet the middle ground of being good with damage enough to back up all the other DPSers, and setting up my traits to make the most use out of my shouts as i really do enjoy using them.

So your first build would be my best choice? Or should i tweak it for a lil more damage?

Sorry to be a pain, just wanna get the most out of my guardian. I really appreciate all the help.

I thought exactly the same as you, while levelling the Guardian I thought “Wow I’m absolutely wrecking things with this guy, I bet he does loads of damage at 80” then you hit 80 and realise it’s not the case… at all. Use the first build I gave you. Pure of Voice, Altruistic Healing, Empowering Might, Shout cooldown trait, toughness in to precision trait, remove a condition every 10 seconds trait. Think that’s about it.

Thanks, I’ll give that build a go.
The weird thing is though I’ve heard plenty of times that guardian’s damage is good, just not as good as warrior’s… which idc for as warriors tend to bore me.
But if you say Guardian’s damage is bad and every other profession outperforms them. Then it kinda puts me off as i rolled Guardian to damage things while putting out a ton of support.

Thanks for all the infomation, it’s really helped a lot.
What you just said is basically the whole reason why i prefer Guardian’s in this game compared to Warriors. It’s only right Warriors can do more damage, but as long as we can still do “good” damage I’m happy to continue leveling my Guardian up.

I’m also happy to see that so far i can actually be 100% melee at all times with the Guardian, I hope it stays that way? Or at least most of the time, as with my Warrior I’d have to whip out my rifle quite often in some situations which disapointed me.

Anyways, thanks for the help. I’m off to continue leveling my Guardian!!

I am also a new 80 guardian using a shout build (mostly based on the Paragon build). The 0/5/30/30/5 build is certainly a good one, but since I am still soloing quite a bit (finishing zones, farming for ectos to buy more exotics, etc.) I switched to 0/15/30/20/5. Being able to use Virtue of Justice on every mob is great and I still feel fairly sturdy with full knights armor and soldier runes (full berserker jewelry and weapons). However for grouping (dungeons or Wv3) it may be best to switch to the other build (to add Pure of Voice and a bit more health).

Thats kinda funny, i logged back on just to ask if it would be best for me to take some points out of honor and put it in raidiance for extra crit.
0/15/30/20/5 sounds good. Is there really a noticeable survivability loss going to the build you just posted?

Not for what I am doing currently, but my survivablity shot up anyway when I hit 80 and started upgrading armor/jewelry/weapons. It will keep getting better as I add more exotics. This build certainly works great for running around Orr. BTW I am using hammer and scepter/focus. I leveled mostly using the GS but I have grown to like the hammer.

In response to your question about whether you can stay in the thick of it at 80.

The short answer, Yes.

The long answer. As a Guardian you’ll often notice you’re actually the last one standing in just about every situation. If you’re good at timing your dodges then you’re laughing. I run a staff as my switch weapon and a GS or Hammer as my main. When things get hairy I switch to my staff and trigger the 4th ability. Due to the awesome amount of might stacks, it procs Altruistic Healing like crazy! Not to mention the final heal at the end. I’ve been nearly dying, used that and been back in the fight within 2 seconds.

You’ll also end up putting Regen on quite a lot so you have a consistent trickle of healing. As long as you dodge in the right places you won’t ever need to disengage from melee. Good thing too, because our ranged weaponry is severely limited.

Also while leveling it doesn’t hurt at all to take some points out of your survivability traits and put a bit more in Radiance or something, if you want the extra damage. Guardian was by far the easiest profession to level in my opinion.

Cheers Xylith, you’ve been a great help.
Now, rather than creating a new thread i just wanted to post a possible new build, and wondering if its viable at all

0/30/30/5/5

As you have enough defence with the valour traits and plenty of damage too.

maybe i shouldnt worry too much as im not lvl 80 yet. i tried it in mists and it seemed pretty strong but if anyone else wants to try it out for me please do and let me know if its any good.

This is more of a pvp/wvw build, but would like to know how it plays in PVE too :P

I havnt done any high level dungeons yet….