Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen a lot of people post their stats on this forum, and it has come to my attention that going beserker’s (at least in the accessories) is the way to go. Sometimes they throw some soldier’s or knight’s in there for at least some survivability.

Is this the most useful way to go for PvE? I ask because I was thinking about going full knight’s but now I’m questioning it.

Edit: I am looking for the MOST EFFIECENT stat spread, so any recommendations are more than welcome!!

depending on what quality accessories you are going for there are better ways to mix things…

Remember that exotics rings and ammy are a bad place to start trading knights/soldiers for zerkers…

lLobo.7960:

Remember that exotics rings and ammy are a bad place to start trading knights/soldiers for zerkers…

What do you mean by this?

And by the way, I am looking for the most efficient stat spread, so any recommendations are more than welcome (:

Efficiency is dependent on what role you want to be, what encounters you plan on doing (dungeons or high fractals), and how skilled you are as a player. Also to an extent, how organized your group is.

In terms of stat spread, to quote Brutaly who has it spot on:

25-60%% crit
2800-3400 Attack
14k-18k health
2400-3300 armour
200-1200 heal power
51-105% critdamage

If you can hit the minimum or inbetweens of those stats, you’re pretty much golden.
However, you need to adjust them depending on typical roles specified below.

A typical anchor guardian would be sporting Knights armor w/ Berserker accessories with a 0/0/30/30/10 trait build along with either soldier runes or boon duration with shouts. Knights give you enough survivability without compromising on DPS too much. Plus, the boon duration, shouts, and AH from 30 Valor will give you great sustain and support.

A typical support guardian would be full clerics along with 0/X/X/30/X traits, boon duration runes and shouts. While this stat-build has great healing power through Selfless Daring party heals, you will deal low-mediocre DPS. This build seems to be deemed quite ineffectual in general PvE and dungeons as the low DPS may prolong fights which can cause mistakes for both you and your team. However, this has great potential in the PvP game type.

If you drop 30 Valor and let go of Altruistic Healing a whole slew of new builds will open up for you, which are basically the Pure, or Almost-Pure type roles.

A very offensive DPS role but still with support, is easily X/30/X/20/5 with Right-Handed Strength. Deals extreme DPS for a guardian and is still robust and supportive with the right kind of rune and stat spread.

And a very supportive role would be 0/0/X/30/20-30. Supplement with boon duration runes and shouts, with Pure of Voice as needed.

And for the record, I run a boon-duration supportive anchor with Berserker Armor, but with Knights Chest & Legs along with Ascended Zerk amulet with Ascended Cavalier Rings/Trinkets and an Ascended Soldier Backpiece. Plus Knights GS with +5% crit rune and Cleric Staff.

Brings me to unbuffed stats of:

3K-ish Attack
3.1k Armor
43% Crit
79% Crit DMG
15K HP
50% Boon Duration
350 Healing Power

Works completely fine in any sort of dungeon or general PvE without any hiccups.

Olaf Soul Can Haz.4689:

lLobo.7960:

Remember that exotics rings and ammy are a bad place to start trading knights/soldiers for zerkers…

What do you mean by this?

I mean that base stats (pow/tough/vit/agi…) and secondary stats (crit dmg / healling Pow / Cond dmg) dont have the same ratio on different slots and for different qualities…

For example:
If you trade a knights upgrade gem for a berserker gem you trade 5 points of stats per point of crit dmg. If you trade an ascended ammy, you will trade 9.44 pts for point in crit dmg. If the ammy is exotics it will be about 13pts ratio.. and this goes on for every different slot… so you need to know where you are going to put things if you want the best mix…

So what type of accessories are best for their given stats?

To me it’s really simple, you push your damage as far as you can for whatever dungeon situation you’re getting into without compromising being able to stay alive/relevant in the fight.. in high level fractals i’ll go anywhere from mostly power/tough/vitality to full berserkers, and change my traits in similar ways..

It comes down alot to your teammates and how well you can avoid damage with positioning/projectile blocking/dodging, my gear shifts constantly, to me when it comes down to whether you want survivability or raw dps the answer is a clear BOTH, start with somewhat survivable as you learn the encounters, don’t stop collecting gear.

NorthernBlackwell.2836:

Efficiency is dependent on what role you want to be, what encounters you plan on doing (dungeons or high fractals), and how skilled you are as a player. Also to an extent, how organized your group is.

In terms of stat spread, to quote Brutaly who has it spot on:

25-60%% crit
2800-3400 Attack
14k-18k health
2400-3300 armour
200-1200 heal power
51-105% critdamage

If you can hit the minimum or inbetweens of those stats, you’re pretty much golden.
However, you need to adjust them depending on typical roles specified below.

A typical anchor guardian would be sporting Knights armor w/ Berserker accessories with a 0/0/30/30/10 trait build along with either soldier runes or boon duration with shouts. Knights give you enough survivability without compromising on DPS too much. Plus, the boon duration, shouts, and AH from 30 Valor will give you great sustain and support.

A typical support guardian would be full clerics along with 0/X/X/30/X traits, boon duration runes and shouts. While this stat-build has great healing power through Selfless Daring party heals, you will deal low-mediocre DPS. This build seems to be deemed quite ineffectual in general PvE and dungeons as the low DPS may prolong fights which can cause mistakes for both you and your team. However, this has great potential in the PvP game type.

If you drop 30 Valor and let go of Altruistic Healing a whole slew of new builds will open up for you, which are basically the Pure, or Almost-Pure type roles.

A very offensive DPS role but still with support, is easily X/30/X/20/5 with Right-Handed Strength. Deals extreme DPS for a guardian and is still robust and supportive with the right kind of rune and stat spread.

And a very supportive role would be 0/0/X/30/20-30. Supplement with boon duration runes and shouts, with Pure of Voice as needed.

---

And for the record, I run a boon-duration supportive anchor with Berserker Armor, but with Knights Chest & Legs along with Ascended Zerk amulet with Ascended Cavalier Rings/Trinkets and an Ascended Soldier Backpiece. Plus Knights GS with +5% crit rune and Cleric Staff.

Brings me to unbuffed stats of:

3K-ish Attack
3.1k Armor
43% Crit
79% Crit DMG
15K HP
50% Boon Duration
350 Healing Power

Works completely fine in any sort of dungeon or general PvE without any hiccups.

This is grade A advice.

I favor the “Anchor Guardian” with boon duration runes in PvE and the “Healway” type cleric build in WvW. Both work great in these roles.

NorthernBlackwell.2836:

Efficiency is dependent on what role you want to be, what encounters you plan on doing (dungeons or high fractals), and how skilled you are as a player. Also to an extent, how organized your group is.

In terms of stat spread, to quote Brutaly who has it spot on:

25-60%% crit
2800-3400 Attack
14k-18k health
2400-3300 armour
200-1200 heal power
51-105% critdamage

If you can hit the minimum or inbetweens of those stats, you’re pretty much golden.
However, you need to adjust them depending on typical roles specified below.

A typical anchor guardian would be sporting Knights armor w/ Berserker accessories with a 0/0/30/30/10 trait build along with either soldier runes or boon duration with shouts. Knights give you enough survivability without compromising on DPS too much. Plus, the boon duration, shouts, and AH from 30 Valor will give you great sustain and support.

A typical support guardian would be full clerics along with 0/X/X/30/X traits, boon duration runes and shouts. While this stat-build has great healing power through Selfless Daring party heals, you will deal low-mediocre DPS. This build seems to be deemed quite ineffectual in general PvE and dungeons as the low DPS may prolong fights which can cause mistakes for both you and your team. However, this has great potential in the PvP game type.

If you drop 30 Valor and let go of Altruistic Healing a whole slew of new builds will open up for you, which are basically the Pure, or Almost-Pure type roles.

A very offensive DPS role but still with support, is easily X/30/X/20/5 with Right-Handed Strength. Deals extreme DPS for a guardian and is still robust and supportive with the right kind of rune and stat spread.

And a very supportive role would be 0/0/X/30/20-30. Supplement with boon duration runes and shouts, with Pure of Voice as needed.

---

And for the record, I run a boon-duration supportive anchor with Berserker Armor, but with Knights Chest & Legs along with Ascended Zerk amulet with Ascended Cavalier Rings/Trinkets and an Ascended Soldier Backpiece. Plus Knights GS with +5% crit rune and Cleric Staff.

Brings me to unbuffed stats of:

3K-ish Attack
3.1k Armor
43% Crit
79% Crit DMG
15K HP
50% Boon Duration
350 Healing Power

Works completely fine in any sort of dungeon or general PvE without any hiccups.

What rune do i use for this extreme dps build?

hellokittyonline.7532:

What rune do i use for this extreme dps build?

I direct you to a very good guide made by Red Falcon:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Frac40-High-DPS-Support-build/first#post1611521

In order to keep the guardian grade-A support without compromising the said extreme DPS, boon duration runes will suit you fine along with the shouts. Soldier runes will also work if you prefer party condition removal.

You CAN drop the whole idea of augmenting your supportive utilities with runes with Ruby Orbs, but I feel the added +12% Crit and what nots aren’t that great compared to greater uptime in all your boons. Guardians do have the easiest access to them after all.

Plus, the loss of additional DPS from the choice of Ruby Orbs to Boon Duration/Soldier runes can help keep your party alive even longer, and alleviate both parties’ possible mistakes. Which basically indirectly keeps sustained DPS alive and well.

Strength runes. Great damage bonus, and you get might duration increase. Best of both worlds.

For PvE content zerk along with a few pieces of knights/soliders (Amulet, chest, pants) work extremely well. The reason is that I find PvE content to be easy to the point that you don’t really need the extra defenses like you would in PvP. On top of that, if you do like Orr farming there are usually other people so mobs will die really fast either way and you will not need the extra defense.

You can use the same set for most dungeon paths simply because the mob and boss mechanics are predictable where you can dodge to avoid specific attacks. And if you kill a boss or mob fast you do not have to worry about extra defenses besides your blocks, aegis, and dodges since the boss will not have a lot of opportunities to do damage to you.

PvP is a different story.

all sound advice in here. i want to echo that it entirely depends on what you want to achieve. by that i mean to a certain extent, even if your focus is purely PvE for now, who’s to say you won’t ever delve into WvW, or even PvP (which is completely different from PvE/WvW though).

one of the most important things when it comes to building your Guard, or any profession for that matter i assume, is to pick out the traits you want to run with, and then compliment that with gear/jewelry/sigils/runes, etc. though of course, that’s not to say, once you set your traits, you can’t ever change them.

what Incomingray said about “don’t stop collecting gear” is too true. for my guard now, i have 7 sets of armor + runes and then different weapon sets for each of those. and even then, i’ll chagne my trait setup depending on how i feel like, which dungeon i’m about to head into, or even for boss encounters. definitely switch it up a lot in WvW depending on what i’m about to do – zerg / solo roam / to be as mobile as possible / as tanky as possible / as DPS as possible.. the list goes on.

that being said, just to add some more “solid” information in this post.. i do quite enjoy the following setup.

Knight’s – Head / Chest / Legs
Valkyrie – Shoulders / Gloves / Boots

Jewelry if i am playing “all around”, i go knight trinkets with valkyrie upgrades. if you have enough HP, go for berserker upgrades. the jewelry upgrades are spots i ALWAYS have crit dmg % stats on, i.e. zerker and valky. unless if i am going full healing, or something else specialized.

in terms of runes, soldiers is great for the extra vit / survivability. i quite enjoy Pack or full Ruby Orbs or Ogre for some DPS builds. Boon duration runes are also almost always a good go to on the Guard though. especially if you’re keen on playing shouts or if you went for a tratied symbol bomb build.

and in general, stats i like to aim for.. and then tweak according to the type of build / style / gameplay i’m looking forward to.

Attack: 3k+
Crit chance: 38-40%+
Armor: 3k+
Health: 16k+

of course, i’ll give or take here and there depending. hope this helps a little as well.

hellokittyonline.7532:

What rune do i use for this extreme dps build?

Heh, extreme dps build.

Rok.5074:

NorthernBlackwell.2836:

Efficiency is dependent on what role you want to be, what encounters you plan on doing (dungeons or high fractals), and how skilled you are as a player. Also to an extent, how organized your group is.

In terms of stat spread, to quote Brutaly who has it spot on:

25-60%% crit
2800-3400 Attack
14k-18k health
2400-3300 armour
200-1200 heal power
51-105% critdamage

If you can hit the minimum or inbetweens of those stats, you’re pretty much golden.
However, you need to adjust them depending on typical roles specified below.

A typical anchor guardian would be sporting Knights armor w/ Berserker accessories with a 0/0/30/30/10 trait build along with either soldier runes or boon duration with shouts. Knights give you enough survivability without compromising on DPS too much. Plus, the boon duration, shouts, and AH from 30 Valor will give you great sustain and support.

A typical support guardian would be full clerics along with 0/X/X/30/X traits, boon duration runes and shouts. While this stat-build has great healing power through Selfless Daring party heals, you will deal low-mediocre DPS. This build seems to be deemed quite ineffectual in general PvE and dungeons as the low DPS may prolong fights which can cause mistakes for both you and your team. However, this has great potential in the PvP game type.

If you drop 30 Valor and let go of Altruistic Healing a whole slew of new builds will open up for you, which are basically the Pure, or Almost-Pure type roles.

A very offensive DPS role but still with support, is easily X/30/X/20/5 with Right-Handed Strength. Deals extreme DPS for a guardian and is still robust and supportive with the right kind of rune and stat spread.

And a very supportive role would be 0/0/X/30/20-30. Supplement with boon duration runes and shouts, with Pure of Voice as needed.

---

And for the record, I run a boon-duration supportive anchor with Berserker Armor, but with Knights Chest & Legs along with Ascended Zerk amulet with Ascended Cavalier Rings/Trinkets and an Ascended Soldier Backpiece. Plus Knights GS with +5% crit rune and Cleric Staff.

Brings me to unbuffed stats of:

3K-ish Attack
3.1k Armor
43% Crit
79% Crit DMG
15K HP
50% Boon Duration
350 Healing Power

Works completely fine in any sort of dungeon or general PvE without any hiccups.

This is grade A advice.

I favor the “Anchor Guardian” with boon duration runes in PvE and the “Healway” type cleric build in WvW. Both work great in these roles.

agreed that this is grade A advice. I go with the “Anchor Guardian” as well for PVE/Dungeons, but utilize Soldier runes and PoV to keep the clean the party of conditions.

I run an ‘extreme dps build’. Don’t forget the 10 in zeal for Fiery Wrath. 10/25/0/30/5 using Hammer and Scepter/Focus mainly.

I’m running full zerker armor and weapons and 4/6 zerker, 2/6 soldiers trinkets for PvE. 2x Superior Rune of the Earth and 4x ruby orbs.

Protection full time here makes up for lost toughness.

I know when I’m playing my squishy non-guardian characters, I like having a guardian that can take an okay amount of punishment. Especially as a squishy D/D backstab thief. When you get a glass cannon 1h sword guardian in your group, you just wish he was a warrior instead. On my guardian I run knight’s armor, a couple soldier trinkets, and the rest berserker. I find that in most dungeons this offers just enough survivability to make you a solid front line while still being able to dish out some respectable damage.

Obviously this changes in high level fractals where things are different. It also changes if you don’t ever run with anything but your extremely capable berserker geared mesmer and 3 warrior buddies who know exactly how to burn down everything in the game quickly enough that defense doesn’t matter. But I’m willing to bet most people don’t find themselves in that situation most of the time, let alone 100% of the time.