Guild Wars 2

I am fairly new to Guild Wars 2 and upon searching for a way to build my Guardian I have found that many suggest that the best way to build one for PvE is to maximize DPS (by way of Power, Crits, Might and Fury and so forth) and then make as many defensive compromises as you are comfortable with.

The idea being that if everybody does this you will kill enemies quickly and easily.

However I am wondering if the opposite would be better. That is to say build for as much healing and support as you can, namely Magi stats, (Healing pwr. Vitality Precision) defensive boons, support and healing skills. allowing other classes to focus on damage.

Like I said I am new to this game and would appreciate any advice and/or Corrections

If u´re able to stay alive at the end of the fight (100% or 10% it doesn´t rly matter) as much dps as possibel (for u) is they best way to go.

If you survive a fight with more than 1 hp that means you went with to much survivability in PvE.

Hi Teshtestyes & welcome to gw2.

“allowing other classes to focus on damage” – this part of your post is vital. To understand why you don’t need to spec healing etc you need to understand what will actually allow other classes to focus on damage.

Reflects : Less damage taken by the group, less time wasted dodging. Shield of the avenger, wall of reflection.
Aegis : It’s like a smart dodge. If the player dodges anyway, aegis isn’t used up. If they fail a dodge, the aegis saves them. Virtue, retreat.
Protection : 33% less damage taken is huge. If you have this, surviving in zerker gear is a lot easier. With hammer you can give your group perma protection.
Blinds : Like an inverse aegis. You completely negate an enemy attack. That’s like having infinity toughness or outhealing it. We can spam aoe blinds with F1 and 15 points in radiance in big fights, and our best weapons have nice blinds on short cooldowns.
And finally to enable the group to do more dps – Fire fields : AoE 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds. Very nice amount of damage. Usually about 5% for the group. All of a sudden purging flames, hallowed ground and hammer #2 look very attractive.

If you could rate your ‘adding to group survivability and therefore damage’ ability between 1-10 as long as you are running with some of the above, your rating will be fairly high. If you put all your stats into healing, precision etc in an attempt to sit there being tanky and providing support, that rating probably wouldn’t even budge up by 1 point. The core mechanics outlined above are by far the best ways you can contribute to your group, stats alone can’t touch them.

the best support in this game is killing. defensive support in this game boils down to: projectile defense, blinds/aegis, and AOE defensive boons like protection (vigour is nice but only warrior can give AOE vigour and most classes already have some access to extra dodges).

all of this can be provided in a full offensive builds. heals aren’t worth speccing for as you’re really better off just killing things faster.

Thanks for the replies and advice. I think I have the general idea of how to play a good Guardian now.

DPS in PvE
Tank in WvW (unless I am solo roaming).

That is how I roll. :P

You can be very high damage and very high support, that is the beauty of Guardian. You can run a 10,30,0,5,25 dps sword focus build using full zerk gear, bring shield of avenger and wall of reflect, along with all your blocks and blinds and natural healing/condition removal from virtues you are very survivable. You are able to hit your enemies hard and protect your allies well. Don’t be fooled by pugs opinions on every guardian should be a tank and can’t deal dps.

Painbow.6059:

You can be very high damage and very high support, that is the beauty of Guardian. You can run a 10,30,0,5,25 dps sword focus build using full zerk gear, bring shield of avenger and wall of reflect, along with all your blocks and blinds and natural healing/condition removal from virtues you are very survivable. You are able to hit your enemies hard and protect your allies well. Don’t be fooled by pugs opinions on every guardian should be a tank and can’t deal dps.

Don’t like to breake your bubble but, virtues don’t have natural condi removal. They require 20 points in Virtues to cleanse 3 condi on up to 5 people(yourself will always be one of those) every 60 second(-20% for the traits passive effect so 48 sec recharge.)

The natural healing will be with 0 healing power you will reach the number of 80 but assuming the trait above +25% so 100 each second. Until you decide to activate it to cure allies and/or yourself from condi, then you lose the passive regen.

The blocks will be 5 blocked attack every 45 second assuming you trigger Virtue on Courage everytime it and the focus go off cooldown.

And so far you only have two blinds, but i assume you have the Traits Justice is blind and renewed Justice so those will add up a really nice ammount of blinds on foes.

Yeah I that is included with 25 in virtues, you don’t need any more most of the time and if you do just bring purging flames

or even more use renewed focus and pop it again

Perikittenor.1892:

Painbow.6059:

You can be very high damage and very high support, that is the beauty of Guardian. You can run a 10,30,0,5,25 dps sword focus build using full zerk gear, bring shield of avenger and wall of reflect, along with all your blocks and blinds and natural healing/condition removal from virtues you are very survivable. You are able to hit your enemies hard and protect your allies well. Don’t be fooled by pugs opinions on every guardian should be a tank and can’t deal dps.

Don’t like to breake your bubble but, virtues don’t have natural condi removal. They require 20 points in Virtues to cleanse 3 condi on up to 5 people(yourself will always be one of those) every 60 second(-20% for the traits passive effect so 48 sec recharge.)

The only things with natural condi removal on guards are focus #4 and purging flames (and PF is boosted via MoC). I’m not sure what was your point.

My point was the wording of natural is slightly miss leading, since you do need traits for it. Should he have worded it “Traited condi removal from virtues”, i would have been fine with it.

Sorry for the mid edit during the post, realized i had more on my mind than i wrote at start.

No tank or healing meta in this game. Or so the story goes. That being said PvE = DPS.

Before you enter PvE make sure to learn when to stop, drop, and roll (dodge). In other words, know the encounter and go full DPS. There is no reason to go either tank or heal. There are, however, a few traits or elites that will help. So change accordingly

Crapgame.6519:

There is no reason to go either tank or heal. There are, however, a few traits or elites that will help. So change accordingly

This. While ever class is expected to do it’s share of the DPS I do view a line between pure DPS classes and support DPS hybrids.

Classes like warrior can start and end a dungeon without having to change a single skill on their bar alot of times as they are all geared towards DPS.

Guardian however has to know the situation and swap out skills as needed. Need condi removal? get purging flame. Need reflection? get wall of reflection/shield of the avenger. Need stability? Stand your ground/hallowed ground. Nothing special happening in a fight? bring bane signet/fire fields for extra DPS.

When your unsure what is needed, bring both reflects and condi removal to be safe. Remember the encounter and if you don’t find yourself needing one or the other, feel free to sub out for another skill next time. Alternatively look up information on the path before hand so you know what to bring ahead of time.

Teshtestyes.5419:

Thanks for the replies and advice. I think I have the general idea of how to play a good Guardian now.

You never fully know how to play a good Guardian unless you make yourself clear with Combo. >.>

durend.6237:

This. While ever class is expected to do it’s share of the DPS I do view a line between pure DPS classes and support DPS hybrids.

Well, that’s pretty much nonsense. Warrs and eles, on which I switch stuff pretty rarely, are as much support as guards and mesmers, on which I switch all the time. It’s just the type of support that differs.