Guild Wars 2

Hello all!

I have a lev 80 guard (main character) with 0/0/20/30/20 traits, Hotw armor set with 2x monk, 2x water, 2x sanctuary (all for boon duration %) and all trinkets with tou/pow/vit stats. I generally use staff for self/party buffs and GS for killin times. I switch sometimes to shield + scepter for long range dps and for more def setup.
At the moment this setup works great, it’s quite hard to be knocked off, I heal a lot and I have tons of utility to spam for keep the party alive
I use him for PVE, fract and dungeon. I’m not a PvP or WvW fan, at least not with this beauty guy.
Any suggestions or ideas to improve him? The build i followed it’s quite old, like 6+ months, and I never changed it till I reached lev 80.

Thanks all

“Still” viable?

I’m sry, english is not my first language and maybe I’m quite rusty at writing.
What about that “still” ?
The build I posted is working, what’s the problem? It’s cause I’m not allzerkomgidotonzofdmg?

He means that it never was viable

Well, if I totally fail with my build come on, I’m here to listen all the experts of this forum.
Tell me what in your opinion I have to change

Most of the forumites here believe you should be all zerker, 10/30/30/0/0 or some other form like it for PvE and nothing else.

However, do not listen to them, play how you want to.

Don’t come here for build advice unless you really want to get into it. The only thing you’ll hear is that you’re a bad player unless you can run full Berserker gear and time dodges perfectly. According to this forum you’re a bad player if you actually get hit by enemies, and good players avoid all forms of damage which would harm the speed of their dungeon run.

In other words, develop your own method. Test it for yourself. Change things around, see how you like it the best. If you are most comfortable playing with the build you have now, stick with it. It’s about fun, not efficiency.

However, I will offer one thing: PVT offers the best defense a Guardian can have as far as pure survivability is concerned, but it really lacks damage. If you swapped your PVT stuff for Knight’s (power, precision, toughness) you would keep a lot of your defense but also gain a boatload more damage.

Tip: You can buy level 76-78ish exotics which are VERY close in stats to level 80 exotics. You’ll be missing a few dozen attribute points and nothing more. Very good way to test out different configurations.

I’m currently running Berserker’s armor and trinkets with boon duration runes like you have, 30 points in Valor (for Altruistic Healing and 30% crit damage). With AH I am able to survive just as well as I am with more defensive armor, and I get rewarded for tossing out all of these boons to my allies. I have 89% crit damage and a 38% chance to crit using this build, in addition to all of the utility that Guardian offers.

If you want the optimal setup, berserker gear in all slots is the way to go. The better you are, the more redundant defensive stats are; this is just how the game is designed. If, however you want some kind of a balance, then you can mix and match some gear pieces which have Power on them to find the medium that you like.

As for traits, if you like GS and sword+focus, I would recommend either:

10/30/0/5/25 or 10/30/0/10/20

If you’re a fan of hammer, and maybe mace (mace isn’t so great, but you can use it):

15/15/0/20/20

These traits combined with berserker/power gear will allow you to maintain high damage output, as well as have a bit of extra team utility via traits (condi removal, cooldown reductions on spirit weapons, shout cooldown etc).

I would highly recommend that you seriously consider running full berserker gear and getting used to it; but I get called an elitist whenever I try to make that suggestion, so play how you want I guess.

Feel free to message me ingame or on the forums if you’d like to talk about build(s) and gear; I’ll give you information which is related to getting the most out of your class in dungeons and fractals. I won’t continue replying here, because people get really upset when it comes to the topic of min/max’ing.

You build is viable.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

If you want the optimal setup, berserker gear in all slots is the way to go. The better you are, the more redundant defensive stats are; this is just how the game is designed. If, however you want some kind of a balance, then you can mix and match some gear pieces which have Power on them to find the medium that you like.

As for traits, if you like GS and sword+focus, I would recommend either:

10/30/0/5/25 or 10/30/0/10/20

If you’re a fan of hammer, and maybe mace (mace isn’t so great, but you can use it):

15/15/0/20/20

These traits combined with berserker/power gear will allow you to maintain high damage output, as well as have a bit of extra team utility via traits (condi removal, cooldown reductions on spirit weapons, shout cooldown etc).

I would highly recommend that you seriously consider running full berserker gear and getting used to it; but I get called an elitist whenever I try to make that suggestion, so play how you want I guess.

Feel free to message me ingame or on the forums if you’d like to talk about build(s) and gear; I’ll give you information which is related to getting the most out of your class in dungeons and fractals. I won’t continue replying here, because people get really upset when it comes to the topic of min/max’ing.

Best advise here. Take it or leave it, I wish you luck.

@Danson: thanks so much for your reply. I’ll try soon to swap my equip for Knight stuffs and try some dungeon runs. U told me that u have Valor 30, can u link me your trait setup on a calculator’s page?
@The Mexican Cookie: I have a question. I have a war 80 full full zerk gs + axe/axe – axe/mace. High dmg is fun, but he’s weak. A bad valutation on a dodge, a bad camera position, small lag or a failed res on a teammate….and I’m on the floor. Why I have to change my solid (but nooooooob ) build for a glass cannon one? I asked how to improve mine, not how to raise my dmg output at maximum level.
I appreciated your tips, but I think your suggestion were OT. Thanks

You’re essentially asking to polish a turd; which you may or may not have realized, so I gave you the alternative. If you want to continue running a spec like that, then go for it. However, you’ll struggle to make ‘improvements’ on it without changing the core.

@empty words
I dun understand what advice are u seeking. What do you want from your guardian?
Do you want more damage or more survivability or more support?

In what way do you wish to improve your character? As it is now, it is still viable and will work in all areas of the game. But if you want to improve, if you’re specific on that area, we can comment in it more properly.

Like some of those mention above will work wonders in pvp, dungeon, or fractals but will be a rally bot in wvw, or will be a dead build in pvp.

I wrote all the areas of improvement. With this char I run only dungeons, fractals, world bosses and PVE in general (except champ farm and other killing stuffs..he’s too slow).
I’m asking here if there’s something i can change on my build, maybe lowering a bit his survability for some extra dmg but keeping in mind that I don’t want a squishy zerk.
I answered some questions?

You could at least run knights or valkyrie armour with zerker trinkets. There is no PvE content that justifies anything that defensive and the only thing you’re doing is slowing down dungeon runs. You can support just as well in zerker gear but if you really don’t want to run that do what I suggested above.

Your crit chance is too low and thus you’ll hardly make use of Honor 5; two times as many dodges will improve your survivability more than the Vitality/Toughness you have to give up for it.

Your points in Valor are wasted; you already have Absolute Resolution and have the option to take Pure of Voice so losing 1 condition every 10 seconds is redundant. 150 more Toughness when you already have a lot of Toughness makes little difference; it’s somewhat useful for a Berserker (group), though.
Better spend 15 points in Radiance for AoE Blind, Vulnerability and recharge on kill; it helps your teammates too and is great in open PvE. The remaining 5 points to into Virtues for more damage:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQBYCJnBAgg2HAIsHYEAsRA-jAyAJ/ioxW1KiGrqmIqWXjZvRM4RzinarOAA-e
The unused traits depend on your utility and weapon choices.

EmptyWords.5612:

I wrote all the areas of improvement. With this char I run only dungeons, fractals, world bosses and PVE in general (except champ farm and other killing stuffs..he’s too slow).
I’m asking here if there’s something i can change on my build, maybe lowering a bit his survability for some extra dmg but keeping in mind that I don’t want a squishy zerk.
I answered some questions?

Cookie gave you a high-survivability build lol. There’s a difference between ele/thief squishy and guardian “squishy”.

armor knights – rune of lysa
berserker/cavalier/valkyrie trinkets infused with your stat of choice for fractals
weapons berserker/valyrie (sigil of fire/perception/force/energy/battle)

This is what I use for fractals. Pretty decent and kills fast with your trait distribution. (though I normally run 0/0/10/30/30 now)

You can play as you wish that is truth. I will just give my opinion.
Guardian does not need PVT gear to have high survival ability. Even in full zerk you can be hard to kill with advantage of higher dps then in PVT. If you fear you would be week in survival with zerk gear just trait more defensively.
You can test it. Keep your traits as they are and use zerk gear. Rare is enough for testing. According to my experience you will have no problem to survive and you will see significant boost in dmg.
Just give it try. You cant loose more then some gold :-)

Thanks all guys for your replies.
In few days I’ll try a couple of alternative configurations:
1) 0\15\0\30\25 knight equip and maybe zerk trinkets and wep.
2) cookie setup, all zerk with gs+ sword-focus. Can I have some trait details for this one? Let’s try this high survability build

Here is GS and sword focus.
This is best in organized groups. It may be hard for to stay alive in begining if you will be in pug groups becouse you will be new to beserker. But look at other videos from ShadeusGlavor and you will se what Organized zerk run can do :-)
Forgot to post link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_2o7HAqO74 …:-D

EmptyWords.5612:

cookie setup, all zerk with gs+ sword-focus. Can I have some trait details for this one?

This is my open PvE build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAsdWlYg6CHFyKEfIFSmCRCBteAQHk/UVIewKgRA-e
Secondary weapon and some skills change when I go into a dungeon.

The 2H build uses the same traits, the Honor 20 trait is VII, VIII or IX, depending on which weapon you mainly use.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYg67mFyKEf4Eh9BAizAjZ86hDpIDB-jgzAYfA0PElBgKBl8KiGbltIasq5Irrx0uJV9CYvRM4RzinarOAA-e

I mixed some guides, tips and personal ideas on calculator. And this is version 1.0 of my future build.
What do u think about it?

……………………..Bump

If I would run AH I would use Hammer because it grants Protection 3 times for up to 5 players roughly every 3 seconds so AH gets triggered very often.
If you use Hammer I would use longer symbols (if you have no boon duration runes) or Empowering Might instead of 2H Mastery.
You’ve pinpointed yourself to Shouts but can’t take PoV if you want to get some condition remove (you have Soldier runes to compensate for that, though).

Overall your build needs allies to maximize it efficiency but you’re not giving much back, especially if you don’t use Hammer.

Can I have an AH translation pls?
I cannot use hammer, cause I have a Sunrise, it’s cool and I wanna use it
So my main 2H wep is GS. No way

Edit : Altruistic healing, got it

I don’t like Greatsword on a Guardian so I’m not that well-versed how to make a good build using it but what I would run:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYg6CHFyKEfIFSODRCBtPAQVFiHMFYUGB-jgzAYfA0PElBgK
or 0/15/0/30/25.

It gives you the ability to bring Consecrations, Shouts and group-wide condition remove, in other words what’s often expected from Guardians.

Ins’t 30/25 way too much condition removal, Rose? I mean, right now we have the same amount of condition removal that we had with PoV from Purging flames and absolute resolution (just in a less controlled way, since you’ll clear 3 conditions at time, instead of 2). You could just put these 20~25 points elsewhere.

Edit: Just realized he don’t want to use hammers, which means more traits points to allocate. lol

The 30 points in Honor would be for Empowering Might, not for Pure of Voice.
But I’ve noticed that putting those 10 points from Zeal to Radiance would make far more sense; it’s far more likely to face a foe with a condition than a foe that is burning. Sadly none of the Radiance master traits are overly useful for a GS guardian, maybe this:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYg6CHFyKEf4ESODRCBtZAQEEmCMKjA-jwwAYfA0PEVAAA-e

About your build DesertRose I have some considerations:

- Wall of reflections and Retreat are 2 skills situational, ihmo. Both very nice on some dung (CM) and fractal (Harpy’s instance). But generally I think that Save yourself and Hold the line are more versatile and easy to use.
- According to what I wrote above, 25 points on Virtues aren’t too many? I don’t have consecrations skills so a 20% recharge increase is useless, also I remove conditions each time i shout with my soldier runes and with my staff’s sigil. I know that AB is good, but in this way I can save some points for Valor and take AH, one of the best sustain trait of this class.

I think a 0/15/30/20/5 can be a good mix of dmg and sustain, I have perma vigor, good healings cause 3 shouts and Virtue of justice’s high refresh combined with AH, blind and vulnerability.
I missed something?