Guild Wars 2

Hey all!

So this is my Guardian SPVP/TPVP build for bunker/support.

VIDEO LINK:

BUILD CALCULATOR LINK:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeWlUg67mFyKEf4ESmCDMBxegRWUHdpwheIA-TsAgzCmIySllLLTWyssZN+Y9xsBA

Anyway, I hope to get some discussion going. What are others playing? Do we feel the Guardian meta has changed spvp wise much?

Cheers all!

Jebro – Official Shoutcaster

I personally don’t like Save Yourselves on any Guardian build that’s trying to bunker, easily can work against you. I also think if you want to do 20/30/20, Honorable Shield will help you much more than Mace of Justice ever will Healing Power simply doesn’t scale that well. Resolute Healer is imo the superior revive trait in Honors. If you can only pick one virtue to buff, Absolute Resolution will help you sustain much longer, the stability from courage is awesome, but not as crucial imo. With prioritizing, it’s hard not to have SYG up for when stomp/resses need to go out.

I personally think at this point, there are two ways to go about Bunker/Support Guard. AH with 0/0/30/30/10 which has the most sustain but is a more selfish build or 0/0/10/30/30 with jacked up virtues and imo the best support a Guardian can throw out. I used to run 20/30/20 like you do, but it became harder to justify the 20 pts in Valor and not grabbing AH or another virtues trait the more I played. The 20 pt valor trait just doesn’t have the same weight as the alternatives you could get.

Lastly, Clerics Amulet with Knights Gem (Barbarian) is the way to go, again due to how healing power scales, a bigger HP glob is better. Otherwise, I feel as though Guardians haven’t really changed much trait wise, but the weapons that you’d utilize certainly have gone through trends. Like you, I prefer Mace/Shield Staff now where as I used to do Hammer/Staff.

Agree 100% with everything Lumines said. SY! is only good in the AH build, where you don’t have any choice in order to achieve enough condition removal. I consider the AH build to be better in solo queue or lower ELO team queue, and the Virtues build pulls away in higher ELO where the additional support is most effective.

Thanks guys for the great feedback, will try all your suggestions! Is there anything new youve seen out there recently that could be added to this build?

I like SY. It can remove all conditions from your team. So if you are doing what a bunker guard should do, and in all the team fights. You can really turn the tide of a battle if 2 or 3 of your teammates are swapped with condi bombs.

SY! is ok, but I think the other options you have for the last slot are all better. From my guide:

The final utility slot will go to a consecration, and the choice of which consecration should depend on the enemy team composition. The reason you shouldn’t slot a third shout into this slot is because both of the other shouts are fairly lackluster for a bunker build, and the consecrations are much more impactful options for this remaining utility slot. Also, with Absolute Resolution, Purity, and your other two shouts, you typically have conditions fairly well covered already. So, what consecration should we put in this slot? For general purpose, the overall strongest option is Sanctuary, because it has multiple uses depending on the situation that I will explain later. Aside from Sanctuary, the other consecrations have niche applications. I will run Hallowed Ground when the enemy team has 2 or more members that rely heavily on CC as part of their build (example: 2 Hammer Warriors). Hallowed Ground is already a decent ability (access to extra Boon Duration and Stability is very strong in team fighting), and the additional benefit of negating CC/damage against those team comps puts it over the edge. Purging Flames becomes good enough to run when you are against teams with 3+ members that rely heavily on non-projectile conditions as part of their builds (example: condi Necro + bomb/nade Engi + spirit Ranger). Against less than 3 of those types of builds, you shouldn’t need the extra condi removal over Sanctuary. Lastly, Wall of Reflection is incredibly niche in sPvP, and I would recommend only running it against weird team compositions that rely almost exclusively on projectiles to do their damage. Otherwise, Wall of Reflection is very easy for good players to avoid and doesn’t provide any other useful effects.

http://tinyurl.com/kenguardguide

So, IMO if you really need another condi cleanse, Purging Flames is generally going to be better due to the shorter cooldown and the -33% to incoming conditions. Otherwise, Sanctuary is more general purpose, and still offers a way to deal with incoming projectile-based conditions.

I’ve always hated sanctuary. The cool down is painfully long, and I always laugh at enemies who use it, since I pop stability, and my team walks right into the bubble and kicks the crap out of the dude inside.

Also when fighting in the graveyard, purging flames radius doesn’t seem all that sufficient, where opposed to SY, I have 600 yard radius to grab condi. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

This discussion is all good food for thought, when deciding what skills to run.

It’s not just about area denial. Most of the time it’s used for peels vs enemy projectiles. This type of defense is really important when going for a team hard res. Also, you have 3 other cooldowns for longer range condition removal, at a certain point stacking more of a similar ability has diminishing returns.

But yes, to each their own. I think you’ll find Sanctuary more and more appealing as you reach higher ELO team arena. It’s a long cooldown, but also situationally very powerful.

I have to echo ken’s points here. If you spend anytime playing a necro (mained one before guard when game launched), you’ll have a better picture as to why SY isn’t the best idea. Conditions will be the biggest threat to you usually as a bunker guard. Using SY against any competent condi necro or one running well of corruption is just asking for trouble when they already counter you to some degree. It’s an unecessary risk that I feel is worth abstaining from. Like you getting a kick out of stability bumrushing a foe guardian in his bubble, I giggle like a school girl when I find a Guard running SY on my necro :>

And sanc can be super clutch even if the enemy pops stability. It means that they’re less likely to have stab up if they need to stomp/res. Against a veteran team, they will aoe and cleave the kitten out of you when someone goes down to punish resses, anything that can alleviate even a bit of that is a gamechanger.

so we saying basically guys that a swap out of SY for Sanctury may improve this build? I loved Sanctuary for many reason I used to run it in a hammer build I had a while back.

I like the Idea of the purging flames going in there. I think one reason I like save yourselves is its really for me aswell as removing condis on allies. All those boons when your looking like going down? Yes pls ! But yea logically I see the use of the other feedback.

Thank you all so much! What else could go in there instead?