Guild Wars 2

Hello All

First off, Guard is not my mian character, had enough mats lying around for a full ascended armor set, so thought i should give a heavy armored toon a try.
I was also curious about why my thief and necro tended to blow up when i came across a good guard player with weird weapon sets (aka not zerglings)

Anyway have been playing guard (both the zergling AH and medi) for about a month now. Have been testing out alot of builds, ofc the meta builds but also weird made up builds.
I found (in my experience) that the standard GS – sw/f (sc/f) has incredible burst but against good players who now about medi guards, they tend to avoid the big skills with ease. In small team roaming i feel very dependant on other players CC to get the full effect out of the standard medi build.
All of this is ofc because im new to guard and dont have the muscle memory down yet, and YOU should be dependant on other classes in small team roaming.

For pug roaming and solo i am now testing out a new build that i would love some feedback on:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAsdSlsApboVDxcI8DNR8QZ9I0CbQVBw1/wTmDA-TVDEABQcIAY4IAQxDAwu9H0THggKBxUtiEVVhJlUSpEpJlDtpNAgTAApAiYrF-w

The above is the build im trying out right now, have been playing a 0-6-6-1-1 with sigil of incapacitation instead of nullification and blind exposure over searing flames.
But wanted to try out the “on paper” 2 boons stripped every 10 sec
The build looks alot like a normal 2 × 1h weap (sw/f – sc/t) but with hammer instead of sc/t.
The idea was to make a build with some soft CC and control + a short cd burst rotation.
The damage output/sustain from sw/f is great with all those multipliers high crit chance and very high crit dmg and the burst when switching to hammer (sigil swaps+mighty blow) seems to me like being alot more instantaneous than GS?
I also like the fact that JI has been freed up for different things, can chain it with a ring, banish or mighty blow etc.

Anyway would like some feedback on Searing Flames+Nullification rune, have any1 tried that out. Is it to situational and should i just go back to Incapacitation or just Air?

2-6-6-0-0 or 0-6-6-1-1 more durps or more sustain? I guess this is just a personal preference and situational. Or is this build just plain bad and i should go back to
2-1-6-1-4? I do like that radiance line though

Hammer? WTH dude why you using hammer you scrub! GS or GTFO

Glacial Heart vs Focused Mind in this build? My thought was that i have 65% base crit with sw/f and sigil of intelligence on hammer so glacial heart was better.

Armor/jewelry/rune feedback also welcome.

Also would a setup like this be anygood in pvp with a zerker ammy?

I play Hammer – Sword/Focus in pvp and I like the weapon combo a lot. I don’t really like to use scepter tbh. I use the 2/1/6/1/4 with zerker ammy/travelers. Inteligence-air on hammer and fire-air on Sword/focus.

Your stats don’t look bad on paper but are you sure you don’t need Absolute resolution? Extra condi removal is really helpful, especially in WvW.

I haven’t tried to solo roam with hammer, but I think in a small group this could work great. It’s up to you if you need extra condi removal.

Btw, you reminded me I need to craft myself some Furious Sharpening Stones.
Also curious if the regen from Mango food is worth it over Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup. I know it works pretty great on warrior.

Ye those furious stones are pretty good, wonder if there is any number braniac that can do the math on those compared to sharpening?

I do miss Absolute Resolution, that trait gives alot of condie clear coupled with Renewed Focus. But those multipliers from the radiance line are tasty though coupled with the ekstra crit chance. And i do feel like i can get by with CoP and Smite in most situations especially if i change food to – condie duration.
I guess its a matter of circumstances and who you fight and ofc who you are playing with.

By not going 4 into virtues i loose condie clear, retal on virtue, lower cd virtue and boon duration. I plan on going back to 0-6-6-1-1 i think so inspired virtue is still on.

Radiance gives me either boon strip or vuln on blind (still testing what i find the most usefull) renewed justice which is awesome i have to say, a 20% dmg multiplier on sword and 10% everything else. And ofc around 30% extra crit chance on sword 15% everything else.

Well i dunno need to play more and maybe try it out in pvp aswell, will look into that mango food also ty for tip.
Question regarding your sigil choices in pvp, your fire/air on sw/f seems like the way to go especially if the idea i had for boon removal proves too situational. I just wonder why air and not hydromancy on hammer?

I’ve tried also with hydromancy and leeching, but on Sword/focus not on hammer. I like Air sigil on hammer because running 2/1/6/1/4 your only dmg multipliers are UC (not really reliable) and Fiery Wrath, so Air sigil get’s you that extra dmg. Plus it procs pretty often considering you are spamming symbols on multiple enemies all the time.

The Question is, why not 5/1/6/x/x for an offensive hammer build? Imagine the vuln you can stack with symbolic exposure + Binding Jeopardy and you have 2 dmg multipliers as well (Fiery wrath and Symbolic power). The answer to that is, still Absolute Resolution.

With the amount off condis out there, we are punished too hard for us to have a complete build because of our squishy nature.

Either go Cavalier/Knights Amulet and use Retributive armor and AH with shouts and trooper either Zerker and meditations but I still think Absolute res is a must nowadays.

If only we could have Vigorous Precision in the same trait line as Absolute resolution or on the same line as Symbols. Guardian Traits are scattered too much for us to have a solid build. I hate that.

Edit: I think moving Vigorous Precision in Zeal to replace Zealot’s Speed (because that trait is trash) and combining Symbolic Exposure + Symbolic Power into a single Master Major trait would go a very long way and could free the master and grand master minors for something more interesting to play with.