Guild Wars 2

So i recently start a guardian and im actually quite enjoying being tanky so i’ve decided to dedicate myself almost entirely to being a tanky guardian, now im having some issuses with deciding what to go with weapons wise because of some traits, at the moment i run m/s m/f to get as many blocks as possible so i can get the proc from the mace trait wich gives healing power and to get the added bonus from the shield trait wich gives more toughness and less cooldown, this is the best i’ve come up with so far and im not quite sure if its the way to go, i obviously try to get as high of a protection duration as i can, when i get the focus trait i will get a little bit under 25 seconds of protection.

Pretty much the reason im making this topic is to see if more experienced guardians have better build for pure tanking and just not dying overall, im not too worried about dammage though a little bit wouldn’t hurt.

Pve is almost entirely dps focused at the moment so being tanky might not feel too useful. There is no mechanic to make sure mobs stay only on you and even then you aren’t inherently super tanky because of the low HP pool.

Nonetheless you should look at WvW guardian zerg builds as they are passable in PvE and good in WvW zerging. I believe the weapon sets are hammer or GS and staff. Mace torch is also viable right now if you go into zeal and take the symbols deal damage and the Radiant fire? trait in radiance. Shield is really really weak. I suggest you run supportive shouts over weapon sets. The only real supportive weapon is staff and if you can’t run that then you are just gimping yourself and the team by running shield.

Armor is soldiers with soldier runes but hoelbrak(more expensive) works with the right sigils.

The best tanking build is for Spvp using clerics with soldiers and running mace/focus/shield with staff but you deal very low damage. Not advisable for general pve content.

Im planning on running full soldier’s gear (from temples) with a full set of dolyak runes on it and maybe assassin/zerker trinkets depending on what i find out from there

For more of a pure tank build (similar to traditional trinity mmo’s) I honestly would recommend a Warrior over a Guardian. Not saying that a Guardian is incapable of Tanking, but we bring Guardians to fights because of their high defensive support and utilities.

If you’re wanting to stick to Guard and try to tank I would recommend running Hammer/Staff with Altruistic healing. Hoelbrak runes would be the more offensive version where Melandru has high defensive capabilities. Valor would provide you with most of your defensive traits, Honor would give you more endurance and symbol support, and Virtues would have the majority of your utility traits.

LiMeKim.7198:

Im planning on running full soldier’s gear (from temples) with a full set of dolyak runes on it and maybe assassin/zerker trinkets depending on what i find out from there

well no one use temple armor for the simple reason that you can’t salvage them .. so if you use VERY expensive runes on them … well say byebye to your runes you can’t get them back to use on another set of armor … your only option is the extractor on the gem store but anyone with a half brain will not buy this.

While I must say that being a tanky guard is almost near useless in pve. You can still have fun with it I guess. I would recommend playing full clerics or nomads with water or monk runes on because healing power scales very nicely with guardian. You should run valor/honor/virtues with supportive traits. You won’t do any damage but you most likely will never die and you will keep people alive. Once again I tell you, dps is the way to go in pve and most people will not like it if you are tanky.

LiMeKim.7198:

Im planning on running full soldier’s gear (from temples) with a full set of dolyak runes

If you use gear bought from temples and put runes on it you won’t be able to salvage it and recover the runes in a future, Dolyak are not expensive but still you won’t be able to recover those 2 golds (I think???)

If you’re positive about using Soldier stats buy it from dungeons or craft it. This link might be useful

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats

Tip: Try Knight gear, lot of toughness (Tanky) and way better damage output than Soldier wich is reserved for WvW zerging.