Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
New Guardian Tips? - What Should I Know?
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With the exception of Retreat, all other shouts are situational.
In your case I would move out SYG for something else. Both bane and retreat can be used universally, and the third slot you’ll want as your floater depending on the encounter. Slot SYG when you know you need stability. If you highlight a mob/boss you’ll want to look for keywords such as knockdown, knockback, pulls, etc. The retaliation from this skill is not worth your while. If you come across something that is projectile heavy Wall or Reflection (WoR) is going to take up that third slot. There will be dungeons/fractals that will call for more specific set ups, but that’s not too important right now, and we can explain those to you as you get close to the dungeon.
Alright, level 35… Well, 34 and about a tenth of an experience bar from 35…
I have just one trait at the moment. So builds aren’t exactly priority for my first dungeon romp that’ll be upcoming this week…
Short and sweet, what should I look to do in my first dungeon run?
Here’s my thought process:
Hammer + Sword/Focus
Utilities: Shelter, Retreat, Save Yourselves, WoR/SYG, Renewed Focus
Hammer for the symbol + 2 skill (and if I need to I have a utility root and knock back)
Sword + Focus for DPS/Blinds/Shield
Shelter for the blocks.
Retreat for blocks + swiftness
Save Yourselves to draw boons
WoR/SYG for projectiles/stability situationally…
Any suggestions? Rotation I was thinking Auto on Hammer then MB then switch to blind with 2, auto, blind with 4, shield with 5, auto until hammer is ready, back to 1, 2.
I’m feeling a bit more confident now in my abilities, but I know I’ve still got a lot of learning to do!
AC will be the first dungeon up on the list. At 35 you’ll be appropriately level’d for both the story and Explore mode of the dungeon. Retreat, as usual, deserves one of your slots. WoR will be great as there is quite a lot of projectiles through the paths. Purging flames is going to be another skill you’ll want to bring into dungeons as Guardians generally get the task of condi clearing.
Overall, you got a good setup going. SY isn’t as useful in a group setting as the boons you get from that skill are granted by your allies (assuming a decent team comp).
Without certain traits you’ll want to AA on hammer only when you feel you need its protection boon. MB contributing most of the damage. As far as Sw/F your Focus 5 starts to require more attention. As far as burst damage you’ll want to activate it as soon as you swap to that weapon as it is insta-cast and does not require channelling. Defense wise you’ll want to keep it for those extra blocks. Blinding, on the other hand, starts to become very picky. Bosses are more or less immune to blind (that 10%) so it is not advisable to aim for blind uptime of them. Mobs tend to attack you in decent number so you’ll want to make your blinds count. As you do not have certain Radiance traits yet you cannot effectively “spam” blinds.
AC will be the first dungeon up on the list. At 35 you’ll be appropriately level’d for both the story and Explore mode of the dungeon. Retreat, as usual, deserves one of your slots. WoR will be great as there is quite a lot of projectiles through the paths. Purging flames is going to be another skill you’ll want to bring into dungeons as Guardians generally get the task of condi clearing.
As you do not have certain Radiance traits yet you cannot effectively “spam” blinds.
Alright, so my utility bar will be: Shelter, Retreat, Purging Flames, WoR.
Question: What exactly do you mean with the blindness stuff? I guess I’m asking because if the blinds are ineffective, would I be better off running scepter + focus or mace + focus?
AC will be the first dungeon up on the list. At 35 you’ll be appropriately level’d for both the story and Explore mode of the dungeon. Retreat, as usual, deserves one of your slots. WoR will be great as there is quite a lot of projectiles through the paths. Purging flames is going to be another skill you’ll want to bring into dungeons as Guardians generally get the task of condi clearing.
As you do not have certain Radiance traits yet you cannot effectively “spam” blinds.
Alright, so my utility bar will be: Shelter, Retreat, Purging Flames, WoR.
Question: What exactly do you mean with the blindness stuff? I guess I’m asking because if the blinds are ineffective, would I be better off running scepter + focus or mace + focus?
The blind stuff is the combinaison of 2 traits.
Justice is Blind : When activating Virtue of Justice, nearby foes are blinded.
Renewed Justice : Virtue of Justice is renewed when you kill a foe.
Virtue of Justice is your F1. Each time you press it you blind people around you and it recharge each time you kill someone. That mean that you can spam it when you fight a group of mobs. Meaning that you can spam blind in some fight. It have nothing to do with your weapons. Blind is ineffective only against boss, but then you can’t spam F1 anyway. The F1 is really against groups of mobs, which are affected by blind. In these situation blind is extremely powerful.
Scepter have only two role. 1) It’s the highest dps weapon against large slow mobs (there is really few of those and you won’t see them until you reach level 80) 2) It’s a secondary weapon for those that need a range weapon to survive. So your goal will be to only use scepter in those specific fight, but the majority of time you don’t want to have a scepter. Of course since you start and you won’t be able to stay in melee all the time, scepter is a good traning weapon. You can go in range if you are in danger.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
WoR will be your floater as not every encounter in the AC dungeon paths will require projectile control. PF can also be seen as a floater, but when you need it, you NEED it. PF can also be used as an awkward fire field in case no one else brought it to the team. SYG will be used quite a bit for both its proactive stability and stunbreak.
Regarding blinds: Radiance offers two minor traits that synergize well to effectively create perma-blinding. Champion-level’d mobs and and higher have a buff called Defiant. One of the features of this buff is that it makes then only miss 10% of the time when affected by blindness. Otherwise, blindness still retains its effectiveness as normal on all other mobs that do not share that buff.
How do I know when to change my utilities? May seem like a dumb question, and I’ve watched a guide on AC on youtube, but I know I’m going to be totally unaware of what’s coming up next my first and maybe even second time through. I’m going to guess that it just becomes kind of a “experience it and figure it out” kind of situation…
Beyond that, it sounds like Retreat should be the only skill that is permanently on my skill bar for AC…
Any recommendations on when to swap what? Or is it again just a “go by the feel” kind of situation?
For the most part it’s an “experience it and figure it out”. After running paths enough times you’ll automatically remember what did and didn’t work last. Bane and Retreat are my personal perma-slots in AC, and I float WoR, PF, and SYG. Depending on how a group runs through the paths and your level of comfort you may need to throw Bane into the float rotation to free up that second slot.
Later on in higher levels Traits start to make more of an impact and influence what utilities you should slot in. Builds will also be one of those topic where there’s a build that works for the majority of content vs builds for specific tasks.
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