Guild Wars 2

I have never played a guardian before.
I would like to know which weapon combinations are best for solo leveling via quests from level 1 ?

Probably scepter/torch for condi damage focus and sword/focus for power focus. Scepter is your only ranged weapon until you reach Dragonhunter, so I’d recommend that.

Scepter/Torch is actually very good damage output for Power as well.
More than anything your Traits are gonna decide a lot of how well you do out in the world and your weapon is supplementary. Getting good use out of your Virtues is nice too.

Scepter – Guardians’ only ranged weapon till Elite Spec. Its a good ranged weapon, arguably better than DH’s Longbow for both Power and Condi damage.
It has a Soft CC, and a low cooldown AoE in its Symbol.

Sword – Straight forward melee weapon. It has good power DPS. It has an AoE Symbol that also doubles as a teleport to your target, it also has a projectile destroyer on its 3 which tends to help a lot in higher areas where ranged enemies become a pain.

Greatsword – Go to PvE Power DPS Weapon, more so with its recent buff. This thing hsa a bit of everything! Movement skill with a blind on Skill 3, a unique DoT/Grouping ability on Skill 5, an Auto attack that grants might, a symbol, and a heavily damaging skill 2 on a short Cooldown.

Mace – Its pretty much a sword but catered to more defensive abilities. Blocking and granting Aegis while also having a Symbol and Auto attack that heals you or grants regeneration. Its not the best but its also not the worst. Its nice if you want some extra survivability.

Torch – It offers a hefty DPS boost through its burning and raw damage on skill 4. It can be a bit finnicky at times and Skill 5 is largely useless except in very rare situations.

Focus – Defensive skills. Skill 4 lets you gain regeneration and Skill 5 lets you block the next 3 attacks.

Shield – Projectile defensive. Skill 4 grants Aegis to you and allies hit while Skill 5 will destroy projectiles and heal you when you end it early.

Lately ive been running Greatsword with Scepter/Focus. The Scepter for range and the Greatsword for grouping up enemies and then nuking them with either Greatsword 2 or Scepter 2. But really its what ever you feel you need at the moment, try experimenting a little.

I think for leveling the good old GS Sword/Focus power build does the job very well and the recent buff to GS makes it even better

Anything for leveling. I mean really, ANYTHING. Just try everything and stick with what you like. When you move onto more challenging content, you will be familiar with your character and can make informed decisions for yourself.

I would recommend going for this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR8dlsAhyhY/OwUIQQEHxDVOFfxYEfBJRWUDgGoeB-e

1st Emphasis: Mobility
-When leveling, mobility above everything else. It will make going from place to place that much easier. Hence the 2 shouts that give Swiftness, Judge’s Intervention, Greatsword(#3) and Sword(#2) on the off-set.
Remember to ditch “Save Yourselves!” when entering group content such as dungeons(important to remember as when used wrong, this is a suicide button), or if you go for Pure of Voice in Honor as then Retreat can cover your Swiftness needs. Equip another shout or a meditation in it’s stead. Bane Signet or Purging Flames work as well.

2nd Emphasis: Damage
-Gear for maximum DPS which means power, precision, ferocity and condi damage, importance in that order. You don’t need vitality, healing or toughness until you are level 80 and go to HoT maps, arguably not even after that. Guard is a burst class so don’t hold back your weapon skills. Sword 2+3 will most likely drop a single foe instantly even in HoT maps. When your cooldowns are up, swap weapons.

I put a focus in the link, but torch might be better, and certainly my preferred choice.

3rd Emphasis: Traits
-This is where guards defense comes from. Go for either Honor or Virtues 1st, Zeal 2nd and then you can go for whatever as 3rd. Honor for self-healing and PoV (better Swiftness uptime), Virtues for a variety of utilities.

For early levels/starter zones: As these zones have higher population densities than later maps, you can equip a staff for the purpose of mob tagging in events, especially popular ones like Svanir Shaman.

Advice for leveling in general:
-Use every XP boost you possibly can. Foods and buffs that give +exp, XP Boosters you can use atleast 2 different ones at a time, guild xp buff, and there’s Lunar fireworks too.
-Do events rather than sticking around hearts. If you can get both, even better! Hero Points also provide lots of XP, and vistas, when they are easily available, are easy XP.

I farm xp to level my chars for fun. I’ve probably leveled 25 chars, each around 24 hours game time (my record is 1-80 just under 13 hours) without using crafting or tomes. A notable exception is tomes earned in wvw/eotm. If you have a good karma train map you can get tomes from the reward tracks at a pretty decent rate. Here’s some advice I can give:

Priority 1: AoE damage. It doesn’t matter how you get it, but sustained aoe allows you to kill more mobs faster. Every aoe weapon will suffice for single target, but the opposite isn’t always true. Fortunately for you and Guardian every weapon has a symbol, so you can choose literally anything. I personally like Sword, GS, Hammer, and Staff for their aoe capabilities.

QoL 1: Speed. Having an IMS (increased movement speed) is always useful, and you can afford to, at minimum, slot Retreat! somewhere in your bar. At worst it provides around 22% IMS. With Staff or Save Yourselves, you can reach that delicious 33% IMS, but if you don’t want to add those options you don’t need them.

Priority 2: Damage type (Power, Condi, Hybrid). The mobs you end up fighting will determine which damage type performs better. If you are are equal to or a higher level than the mobs you fight, Power is preferred. If the mobs outlevel you, then conditions win out (they’ll grant more xp up to a limit of +9 levels. 10 levels above you and you won’t apply conditions and you won’t get kill credit). I prefer to get hybrid armor anytime I’m leveling just for the flexibility, but being able to apply the conditions is generally more important than stacking a lot of condition damage (its hard to stack to useful levels early on, but once you get tri-stat gear it pays off more).

QoL 2: XP boosts. These are so incredibly useful. Buy as many cheap boosts as possible. Halloween food gives 15% and any nourishment gives 10%. The Gemstore XP Booster can grant you 150% for 2 hours, so make good use of that prime mob farming time. Speaking of mob farming, try to go to maps and kill mobs that you don’t think anyone has killed recently. Mobs that haven’t been killed start accumulating an additional XP reward on death up to an extra 250% after 2 hours, so combined with all the other xp boosts you can stack you can get some really heafty numbers. When all the starts align and you’re killing mobs 9 level above you, they’ve been untouched for 2+ hours, and you have max reasonable xp boosts, you can gain a level every 8-10 minutes. That’s extremely fast leveling only outshined by crafting money sinks and pre-earned tomes.

Have fun.