Guild Wars 2

Looking over many posts/guides from players who have streams and play in all kinds of PvP it seems to me its a chocie between Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing, is this correct or did I get it wrong?

I am not asking what is viable rather what is the best for those who play against the most competitive/hardest setups?

I guess what I am asking is it mandatory to have Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing assuming playing against the best/hardest teams and players? Or can a Guardian play without Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing and be the best she can be?

There are reasons not to take them but generally it’s a pretty big tradeoff. You’d be losing 30% critical damage and a ton of healing, and there’s not really a whole lot else in the other trait lines to compensate.

I’m not sure about “the best s/he can be”, since I don’t have a dedicated sPvP team and can only play free tournaments, but I play a Shout build that has neither of those traits and I’m still very, very effective.

The thing to remember here is that defensive Guardians are (as Eveningstar describes it) are “meta-good”, which means you’ll see a of Guardians that spec in deep Valor (Yeah, Toughness!) so it would be silly not to take those traits.

I would almost say Monk’s Focus and Altruistic Healing is mandatory for most defensive builds simply because they’re amazing.