Guild Wars 2

Let me preface my entire post by stating that I’m not a new player, however I’ve taken a few months break over time. I have a lot of experience with the build I’ve been using for a while. I’m looking for suggestions or areas I could improve it. I believe what I’ve come up with is the best I can do for my playstyle. Based on the information below, is there anything I can do to make it more effective? I’m totally open to suggestions, but I think these traits are as good as I’m going to get without completely changing part of the build. Please understand that I mostly PvE and hardly do any WvW or PvP.

A short history of my experience with the Guardian:

I’ve mained the guardian since Pre-release launch. I struggled to choose a race, and ultimately chose a sylvari after I found charr to be too bulky and hard to control in certain situations, jumping puzzles for example. I wanted something akin to the dervish or Retribution Paladin (WoW), and something that could fill that protective support role like the Paragon in GW1. So, the Guardian was a perfect (or nearly perfect) match for me. I leveled up my Sylvari Guardian to 80, doing map completion, I almost exclusively avoided dungeons. I found I died a lot playing as a GS/Berserker Guardian. I knew something was wrong, so I went to the drawing board and reviewed everything. I didn’t know where to start, so I ventured to the forums in search for something that could combine DPS, with tanking ability, that focused largely on Support. I found that Brutaly’s Hammer guide was a good starting point. That’s what my build was based on, and it still is, somewhat, though I don’t use a hammer at all.

What I looked for in the build:

-Good DPS (Not Major DPS)
-Good/Excellent Support Capability
-Good/Excellent Survivability

Build link since I can’t get the formatting to work properly: http://bit.ly/1DAaRpa

I’ve left utility slots 8 and 9 open on purpose as I change them depending on the encounter. Generally speaking, I’ll use “Hold The Line!” or “Stand Your Ground!” in conjunction with Purging Flames or Hallowed Ground. The gear setup shows as I’m currently geared, instead of full Ascended gear (which I don’t have).

I’ve found through time that Knight’s gear was the best bang I was going to get for what I was looking for. Plenty of Power to whack things with, Plenty of Precision to interact with traits and abilities, and enough Toughness where it would keep me alive, since Guardians were somewhat squishy at the start of the game, with their low health pool. I chose to go with the condition removal traits and skills, so I can consistantly cycle boons while removing conditions with shout abilities. This works great for me. Initially I was using 6-set Lyssa runes, but somewhere along the way, the set bonus was nerfed (I think), so I switched over to 2x Monk, 2x Water, 2x Traveler for the boon duration increase – since I was constantly using boons, I may as well play to that increase the duration of them.

I’ve tried just about all weapons with the build, so I can switch them on the fly. I’m considering dropping Empowering Might for Two Handed Mastery, but we’ll get back to that in a bit. I use a staff for most content. I swap to scepter/offhand (which offhand depends largely on the encounter) if the encounter calls for ranged damage. I don’t have any of the weapon traits.

I’ve chosen to stick with Shouts/Consecrations with Altruistic Healing, as opposed to Meditation builds. I don’t use the Tome elite skills because I don’t find them to be nearly as useful as Renewed Focus. I abuse Virtue activation for obvious reasons.

The build works with all races as it doesn’t call for any racial abilities. I currently have a Sylvari and Human at level cap and I’m slowly working on the other races as I find the patience to level them.

I have one infused ring and my backpiece is also infused. For whatever reason the calculator doesn’t show that. I have a total of 50 AR with the staff equipped.

I’m considering trying out a PVT gear setup and swapping out Empowering Might for Two-Handed Mastery with the Staff. I don’t know how much if a difference that recharge would be to change the traits like that. I’m considering using Rune of the Trooper in place of the condition removal traits and picking something else, since I’m already using Shouts with the build.

I’m also considering a Cleric’s gear setup as well. However, I don’t know how effective Healing Power is nowadays (It’s been quite some time since the Healing Power change). I’ve been told that it’s a good gear setup to choose for high-level Fractals, but otherwise it’s not really worthwhile.

I’m working on a legendary and I’ve considered using AR/stat infusions once I’ve obtained everything else I wish to obtain.

Well, it seems like a classic Altruistic Healing setup which is technically used in WVW frontlines minus a bit of power and slightly more healing.

If you do switch out for PVT, I believe it will be better for your build in this case. For the time being, I dont think you should switch out empowering might as your crit chance and might stacking seem essential for your damage output. If you do switch to PVT though, I’d say choose Two handed mastery over Empowering might as you’d have far less crit chance but your base power would be alot higher.

IMHO, healing isn’t anywhere near as important as condition removal in this game as healing feels a bit… meh compared to other MMOs. The meta right now for a build like this is to use runes which capitalize on might such as runes of Hoelbrak (although soldier runes are very powerful on a PVT set up).

But don’t be put off by Meta, I only find Cleric’s effective with traits like Symbol of Mercy/ Persistent which revolves around the mace (and not hit like a wet noodle). It’s fun, but then again I feel it’s a very restricted setup to play and could be very frustrating with inexperienced pugs.

After looking at your build and seeing how you Mainly do PvE You can definitely afford to drop some toughness 3400+ Armor is definitely excessive for environment play. If you have problems staying alive I would suggest not going over 3000 you get a much better return investing in some power and crit damage to complement the high crit chance that you Already have.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVUQNAR7dlsAbgaF+72vDnhwP8HORCBl1Mw+DPPFXHgLcAA-TxCEABJcFAKUJYK7P8kyuoUKQwBUwgHQQIaY6Q3AAHMAXU/JAACATsEn4EnYpA8aqF-e
Note this is not the most optimal build for dungeon running but judging by your last build you seem to want survivability this will give you optimal survivability but still allow you to do much better DPS than your previous build.

Suggestions as the game is currently Try to avoid using multiple sets of sigil’s on armor stick with one set or you’re just hampering your own Stat gain. You don’t need 2 stacking sigil’s on your weapons one will suffice also keep in mind having a single weapon have conditioned damage on it when you have no other conditioned damage on your build is a waste of stat.

The scepter I’m using is from the Tequatl chest. If the increase in weapon damage is negligible, then I’ll probably swap it back to an exotic with more beneficial stats. I don’t have the necessary crafting level to being making Ascended gear, but I’m working on it.

As far as changing the build, I may try that. I’ve been slowly easing myself out of having so much Toughness, and I started looking into boosting Precision and Power. I think I’ll ditch the triple rune setup and go with the Might duration stacking set instead. I’m not going switch out all of my gear yet, however, I may try those different traits to see if I like it or not.

I was not aware of the apparent change to stat stacking sigils. I will definitely change that up. That’s news to me – I must’ve not been active when that change occured. So thanks for bringing that up.

I seldom ever run meta builds. What you see here is what I was able to come up with starting with a guide and then branching out and changing things as I saw fit.

Thanks!

FrenzyCat.9614:

I seldom ever run meta builds. What you see here is what I was able to come up with starting with a guide and then branching out and changing things as I saw fit.

Either you started with a terrible guide or you destroyed the hell out of it. As long as you stay out of Triple Trouble, Indigo Breach at SW, dungeon and fractal you should be fine.

Is this for PvE? Thought it was for WvW. Just to point something out with all due respect: Why do you need so much toughness and healing (AH) if you’re using ranged weapons? If you want ongoing healing with AH you use hammer, do A LOT more damage and give permanent protection (even more tnakiness) to you and your party. Something that gets on evberybody’s nerve is having a camping staff guardian in their party, check this thread

PvE-wise, this is my humble opinion:

I should have said something.

I had a nice chat with Kagak about it. Based on his suggestions and my prefered playstyle, we were able to come up with something that had survivability and could dish out more damage than what I was running.

Using a half-zerker/half-PVT armor set with Power-based runes, I’m already seeing a difference. I’ve still gotta replace weapons, but it’s noticeable, which is good.

He explained why I was doing not-so-stellar damage, and pointed out different little things that synergize much better for a build I’m looking for. He told me along the lines of “If you’re using a staff, you’re already causing downtime”. Case in point: Empower. It’s a might stacking ability, but it takes 2 – 3 seconds to cast. That’s 3 seconds I could be doing damage. Sanctuary interacts much better with the blocking traits. I gain a lot more from using blast finishers (Focus 5, Hammer 2, etc) and would be better off doing that instead of using the staff.

I’ll be keeping my staff and Knight’s gear if I ever decide to jump back into WvW again. For now though: Changes. Many changes.