Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I’m a new Guardian. Anyone have any tips?

I want to high level Fractals, but I’m not sure what role I should be fulfilling for my team or how to equip. Am I a healer? Or do I go Berserker because I block so much? I’m really not sure… What weapons are notable? Hammer+Altruistic healing?

Furthermore and more importantly: Appearance. I REALLY want to capture a very “icy”-looking Guardian, using a Coldsnap wand, Jotun Greatsword, and Jormag’s Breath sword. Problem is, what race and armor should I use to make an “icy” Guardian?

And should I roll a human so I get Prayer to Dwayna? (Superior to all the Guardian self-heals if not signet traited?)

Thanks!

NO zerker set! Worst thing you can do on a melee class!

Also, Have you considered Charr Guardian? :O

I disagree with the above poster. I have seven sets of gear that i rotate between depending on how i’m feeling or what the situation needs, however, I have ran full berserkers with Lyssa runes with extreme success and still had great survivability. In my strong opinion guardians are the only class who can get away with full berserker’s in melee range without hitting the floor every 30 seconds, however, I’ll also say that it is NOT for new guardians. You have to be very experienced with guardian and its strengths to pull it off.

Any “icy” armor you guys can recommend? And is Prayer to Dwayna useful enough on a guardian to use human over other races?

Vanguardian.4921:

I disagree with the above poster. I have seven sets of gear that i rotate between depending on how i’m feeling or what the situation needs, however, I have ran full berserkers with Lyssa runes with extreme success and still had great survivability. In my strong opinion guardians are the only class who can get away with full berserker’s in melee range without hitting the floor every 30 seconds, however, I’ll also say that it is NOT for new guardians. You have to be very experienced with guardian and its strengths to pull it off.

I have multiple sets also, including this one.. And no matter how you look at it, it’s not ideal. It’s great for AC runs and etc, but for doing anything that requires real survivability.. it’s not fun.

I am with you, I would not recommend this as his first set.

I have 1091 hours played on guardian so I guess I count as experienced

Kain Francois.4328:

Any “icy” armor you guys can recommend? And is Prayer to Dwayna useful enough on a guardian to use human over other races?

Try TA set dyed celestial and a light blue of some sort, saw a guy a while back running that, looked chilly :P

I do fractals 40+ with full berserker’s no problem, i do wvw with full berserker’s and i’ve done arah in full berserker’s. I’ts 100% viable, as long as you got the right traits and you know what you’re doing, but again, i really wouldn’t reccomend it until you have 1000+ hours with guardian.

I wouldn’t necessarily relate survivability with time played either. Running full berzerkers require you to concentrate on playing defensively to stay out of trouble, it doesn’t provide enough buffer to people who’d rather play aggressively in big encounters.

Heinel that’s not exactly an accurate assumption. I wouldn’t wear full berserker’s, EVER, if i did not intend to play aggressively. When i wear berserker’s, i play aggressive, and i don’t use scepter (meaning i’m full melee) and i’m not the only Guardian who can pull it off and still be tanky. Ask Trungalung.

Can be done =/= is the general norm. It’s about managing risk. Also, you being able to do it only means that the PvE content is too easy for you. It does not mean what I say is not true.

I’ll take it a step further. Can be done, nah. Viable. In fact, it’s a strong choice. Guardian and full berserker’s is an amazing combo in the right player’s hands. Sure, bad players won’t be able to handle it. But good one’s can. And I’m confident anyone can be good enough to go with it. Also, giving an example of content being too easy, try lvl 30 fractals. From major mobs you can only take 1 (2 at the most) more hits in full defensive gear, as opposed to full beserker’s, So my advice: Learn to dodge, play your angles, and avoid damage, instead of speccing to take more of it. I do tons of challenging PvE and WvW, and there are no facts to prove Berserker’s isn’t a viable and strong option for a half decent player.

Vanguardian.4921:

I’ll take it a step further. Can be done, nah. Viable. In fact, it’s a strong choice. Guardian and full berserker’s is an amazing combo in the right player’s hands. Sure, bad players won’t be able to handle it. But good one’s can. And I’m confident anyone can be good enough to go with it. Also, giving an example of content being too easy, try lvl 30 fractals. From major mobs you can only take 1 (2 at the most) more hits in full defensive gear, as opposed to full beserker’s, So my advice: Learn to dodge, play your angles, and avoid damage, instead of speccing to take more of it. I do tons of challenging PvE and WvW, and there are no facts to prove Berserker’s isn’t a viable and strong option for a half decent player.

I’d like to say something about elitism but that’d be hypocritical.

To everyone else, if you’re looking for advice, do not take his advice.

I mean it’s fair enough if YOU can’t make it viable because you’re simply not good enough with the class, or because you’re playstyle for example: standing there and taking more hits than is advised doesn’t allow it. But a lot of us are seasoned dodgers and blockers and know how to be just as survivable and aggressive with full Berserker’s and do a lot more damage as the result. I’m not (like i said before) advocating it to new players, but I’m letting him know, it’s an option, and it’s a kitten good one provided he wants to go this route and learn to adapt to the lower hp pool and lower toughness.

Heinel.6548:

Vanguardian.4921:

I’ll take it a step further. Can be done, nah. Viable. In fact, it’s a strong choice. Guardian and full berserker’s is an amazing combo in the right player’s hands. Sure, bad players won’t be able to handle it. But good one’s can. And I’m confident anyone can be good enough to go with it. Also, giving an example of content being too easy, try lvl 30 fractals. From major mobs you can only take 1 (2 at the most) more hits in full defensive gear, as opposed to full beserker’s, So my advice: Learn to dodge, play your angles, and avoid damage, instead of speccing to take more of it. I do tons of challenging PvE and WvW, and there are no facts to prove Berserker’s isn’t a viable and strong option for a half decent player.

I’d like to say something about elitism but that’d be hypocritical.

To everyone else, if you’re looking for advice, do not take his advice.

I’m giving my opinions and helpful advice, and all you have to counter them with is “don’t take this guy’s advice” that’s not only pretty sad, but not constructive at all. I’ve given a lot more worthwhile advice than you have in the guardian forums. And furthermore if you’re going to try to disprove other’s opinions or advice, try to use facts instead of hollow insults.

It’s pretty basic so as to not worth mentioning, but if someone is unsure of how to equip their character, they are not ready to glass cannon fractal lv 30. How hard is it to grasp? Now stop derailing the thread.

You must have missed my entire post by making that comment.

Vanguardian.4921:

You must have missed my entire post by making that comment.

Before you give advice, you should think about what kind of people are receiving these advice. Teaching newbie players to go glass cannon is the same as griefing them. Give them enough buffers so they can actually learn the controls, then they can make the decision to go glass cannon themselves if and when they’re ready.

Again, you must have missed the “I’ll also say that it is NOT for new guardians. You have to be very experienced with guardian and its strengths to pull it off.” and the “I’ts 100% viable, as long as you got the right traits and you know what you’re doing, but again, i really wouldn’t reccomend it until you have 1000+ hours with guardian.” oh, and the “I’m not (like i said before) advocating it to new players, but I’m letting him know, it’s an option, and it’s a kitten good one provided he wants to go this route and learn to adapt to the lower hp pool and lower toughness.” So before you give advice on the simple grounds of “Don’t take this guy’s advice, it’s bad” you should probably read it for yourself, and take into account that my advice includes all the proper warning and clarification it needs, unlike yours. I’m simply providing advice, that no one has to take if they don’t want to. You however, are not providing anything contributive.

This guy is a new player. So yes, what you’re talking about is irrelevant to him.. this has just turned into ‘look at me and look what I do, and if you cant do its because you aren’t as good as me.’ thread.

If you really cared for helping him, you would at least post the build you use in it’s entirety, or you would post one that would actually be suitable for him.

What are you doing in a thread titled “New Guardian – Tips and appearence?” besides showing off the fact that you are not a new guardian?

I mean, besides your first post being woefully off topic, you also think you’re entitled to be responding here, there’s definitely something missing.

Edit: And… I’m being ninja’ed X)

Heinel.6548:

What are you doing in a thread titled “New Guardian – Tips and appearence?” besides showing off the fact that you are not a new guardian?

I mean, besides your first post being woefully off topic, you also think you’re entitled to be responding here, there’s definitely something missing.

Edit: And… I’m being ninja’ed X)

I glanced over and noticed this thread going downhill fast -_-

ANYWAY.

Sorry Mr Kain, we aren’t all like this If you want a build whisper me in game and I’ll help you out depending on what you want to do.

vangaurdian idea is completly viable and makes sense give him challenge and let him know what experienced gaurds can do u just cuz u couldnt pull it off dont dissmiss it

I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that I am not entitled to post on public forums, did i miss that memo? I don’t think any Guardian new or old should just play what people say is t he best, I think, they should be aware of all their options, try them all for themselves and pick what they want. I was trying to say that Berserker’s on a guardian is one of those options, and despite that you both keep saying, i think he should check it out, give it a try and see what he thinks himself. My point’s where not to empower my own self and boast on a newbie topic, my points where meant to illustrate the viability and potential that such a gear set has. Furthermore, it’s in the game to be used, it’s there for a reason. Point and case.
I’ve come to the conclusion that taking any of Heinel’s posts seriously aren’t going to do me or anyone else any good, so i’ll reply to Swiftpaw’s.

With full berserker’s I run a 0/20/30/15/5 build, and in most circumstances i find Berserker’s armor and trinkets, as well as weapons to be a great combination seeing as the traits themselves arent overly offensive and provide the needed boost in defense. Protection is a HUGE thing when considering damage mitigation when using an aggressive set and playstyle. And the boon itself will go farther than toughness ever will, and any experienced Guardian will tell you that large pools of HP isn’t needed, especially if you play Altruistic Healing, in which it’s actually a setback. 15-17k is usually the sweetspot, but find your own. Aegis helps block the larger attacks, but more than anything you want to dodge, so i always take vigorous precision for the 100+% Endurance Regen.

If you want a build you should just look at what people are using then make your own version. Play how you want. Also following meta-game is probably the worst thing to do.

You should PM me for builds.
This is what I run:

10/30/0/0/30
Revolving around spamming Virtues and using full Knight on every piece of gear.

I could go way more into detail on my build, and why berserker’s+Honor/Valor is an awesome choice, but if i’m just going to be told i’m not entitled to reply on a public thread, and that my advice is purely boasting i’m not going to bother. anyone interested in my build, or to see it in action can pm me on forums or ingame, and id be happy to help out.

I’ve done alot of fractals, currently doing level 30’s, in PVP I use gs/ham usually but as I started to get into PVE a bit with fractals I gradually ended up using greatsword, hammer, scepter, torch, shield and sometimes staff… all depending on what fractals map is up…

For gear I see lots of debate above, personally I run with mixes of berserkers and power/toughness/vitality depending on whatever, really stats are just like a how much damage can you take or deal slider its not so complicated, do you feel confident you can handle a million dredge zerging you and run in and melee and use blinds/blocks/dodging to live, well it’s possible, gotta know when to duck out it’s not easy, don’t know why people debate about gear, there’s too many different situations especially in a place like fractals, like on bloomhunger or the frost guy no point wearing anything with extra survivability for me, all berserkers.

Traits are all flexible on the fly too, it’s not like past mmos where you’re totally stuck with a build, sometimes I change my scepter damage 5%, torch cooldown 15%, 20% damage while under aegis to all spirit weapon related traits, I change my utilities every map too..

So my advice is to try to be flexible and put in effort to be flexible and change things on the fly, it makes the game more fun for me now that i’m used to doing it, I wish there were things like dual spec or utility presets but oh well.

2 most important utilities imho to consider in fractals: wall of reflection and shield of the avenger

If I want to be a healer, is it a good idea to spec full Cleric-spec with Healing Power? And can someone please recommend me a build?

Or is my role different as a Guardian? It does too many things at once, I’m not sure how to spec it in Exotic gear.

Please help me out with this. Thanks!

I don’t see the point of going as a full zerker guard… if you want a higher dps… why not just bring another higher than max guard dps class instead? I’m not saying it’s BAD, just that there are other classes that can do dps better… so why not play towards your particular class’s strengths?

Aberrant.6749:

I don’t see the point of going as a full zerker guard… if you want a higher dps… why not just bring another higher than max guard dps class instead? I’m not saying it’s BAD, just that there are other classes that can do dps better… so why not play towards your particular class’s strengths?

What are those strengths? I don’t know what role I’m supposed to fulfill that a Warrior or Water Elementalist cannot fulfill better.

Also, I like how my posts are going completely ignored so people can argue about zerker Guardian!

I primarily play a healing support Guardian.

First thing first, we are not well known for being super good healers. We can heal ourselves really well (it’s our primary way of survival) but as far as easy mode group healing, Warriors probably have higher group heal output and all they need to do is press 3 buttons, no targeting or aiming or timing needed. It’s all instant. If you are into super duper micro, Engi is the class with both rapid blast finishers and water fields in one build, in addition to healing effects from actual heal skills and traits. If you are looking for strictly group healing, guardians may not be the best choice, we aren’t bad, however, thieves have this tougher than us

But Guardians do have a niche, wards. We also have very good projectile shields.

What to do:
1. Lead the charge into the lord room in stone mist against ballistae. The ballista hurts and go through your projectile shields, but aegis works and you can reflect all those pesky fireballs and arrows. With HP and some vit, blocks and invulnerability, you are in a very good position to simply barge through, as long as you go in as a group, and attack siege first. If your group is organized enough for stealth and/or portal bomb, then you can instead push people off sieges to instantly neutralize them with more or less the same build.

2. Prevent people from charging through corridors, be it stone mist, dungeons, or any choke points. This is where sanctuary, line of warding and ring of warding comes into play. PvE mobs will not counter this and just bang their heads against your ward (except unshakable bosses). In WvW 95% of the people do not know how to get through your wards either. And for the remaining 5% that do, just make sure you use it when they least expect, are out of cooldowns, or just plain don’t have time to deal with it.

3. In mass aggro situations with mobs, whether melee or ranged, the wards and projectile defenses are also golden. Guardians are one of the few classes who can just stand still against mass gravelings and lava elementals AND kill them all by yourself. Or hold your own against mass dredges without stealth. Simply out heal the little hits (achievable just by auto-attacking), reflect the projectiles, and block the rest. Anything that’s wasting their attacks on you are doing nothing to your allies, which makes healing them unnecessary.

4. This is more forced than by choice, but as a Guardian you have no escape skills, so if you are slow to retreat you’ll fall behind, and everyone in the entire enemy zerg will focus you because they know you can’t escape and they want their loot bags. So this is the time when you throw down all your cooldowns and try to hold them for as long as you can. With a bunker build you should be able to hold 10-20 seconds regardless of the size of zerg. That’s enough to give your allies enough of a headstart that the pursuers will give up, so you can stall a zerg on your own, and if none of them managed to CC’ed you (aegis aegis aegis) then you can even live through it all. (Not applicable to norn guardians as I’ve seen them go leopard form and stealth -_-)

5. When all else fails, there’s always the tomes. I personally do not use them as I would rather things don’t progress to that point to begin with, but the healing tome can be useful against the unavoidable agony at the jade maw.

So basically you act as the shield between the enemy and your allies, not necessarily as a “tank” but with a combination of defensive magic and healing.

Skills to watch for this role:

“Stand Your Ground!”, Sanctuary, Shield of the Avenger, Wall of Reflection, “Retreat!”

Armor stats:

As have already been said, it doesn’t really matter. There’s no magic number. If you want more healing you use HP gear, if you want more damage you use power gear. I used to use HP/Vit/Pre armor, Pow/Tuf/Vit weapon, and emerald jewels.

Many people say Healing gear is not worth it because healing don’t scale very well, but as a healing guardian with altruistic healing, you are constantly spamming heals on yourself, it makes quite a bit of difference over time. You can also take quite some beating, press the Empower button and watch your health shoot right back up (#6 healing skill not necessary). Your dodges heal, your auto attacks heal (if you use mace). You can quite easily keep both virtue of resolve and regenation boon going so pressure damage you can pretty much ignore. When the spikes come you can either block it (especially the rapid hit attacks, you should use Shelter, since they’ll stack multiple might on you) or dodge it. When it comes to bunkering up the guardian really isn’t lacking.

Though your damage do suffer, so keep a power set just in case.

Traits

Altruistic healing, empowering might, inspired virtue, the rest is up to you

Aberrant.6749:

I don’t see the point of going as a full zerker guard… if you want a higher dps… why not just bring another higher than max guard dps class instead? I’m not saying it’s BAD, just that there are other classes that can do dps better… so why not play towards your particular class’s strengths?

How does having berserkers gear on not play to our class strengths? I love doing bloomhunger for example, putting down walls, sanctuary, shield of the avenger, with 20% more damage under aegis, 5% scepter damage, 15% torch cooldowns, 15% crit with 1h, I think it’s great single target damage and the usual huge utility… just get 2 armor sets if you’re serious about PVE imo, just helps the group if you can step it up when you wont be taking damage.

@Kain – heh, /salute to you! for being such a good sport. “arguing” will be inevitable on forums. i’ll admit, i haven’t read ALL of their posts, but the bits that i did (first half maybe), both have viable points. i would recommend, don’t jump in with full berserker’s. at the same time, don’t completely dismiss it! the best thing about this game is that you can do so much.. and constantly evolving.

for the past good month and a half, i’ve been running something similar to Brutaly’s Altruistic Healing + Hammer crit build (you can find it stickied). it’s highly survivable, and helps your group, especially in fractals i want to say (though i haven’t hit that high level yet). and sustained dmg.

for starters, you can work towards full knight’s armour, and maybe soldier’s (pow/vit/tough) chest and pants for extra survivability if you’d like. full soldier’s runes are pretty good for dealing with conditions and if you like using shouts.

later on, once you get more used to the class, using dodges (a lot of our traits really buff up dodges! so learn early on even when it’s not “needed” for practice for future uses), blocks (ton of aegis at our disposal), utilizing blinds or other utilities, fo mitigate dmg.. wwhen you get good enough at that and being more situationally aware as a melee class, you can switch up your traits and go with more “aggressive” play stle / gear if you’d like.

right now, i’m building a couple more sets. one without altruistic healing and focused on boon duration. another more aggressive build focused on solo-roaming, and playing with meditations. and all different armour sets for these. so just get out there, while leveing, experiment a bit and find out what style you enjoy the most. : )))

Guardians are great at support – support as in giving out boons, staying alive to help others when they need it. often i find myself one of the last man standing, and being able to res your allies to bring them back into the game and turn the tide. not so much support as your traditional “healer”. but that being said, we do have skills that allow us to help prevent our allies from being downed at all to begin wit. ; )))

adding on to that, i mentioned dmg mitigation earlier – group wide aegis applications can help avoid big hits against our party. we have a lot of control skills (immobilizes on scepter #3 and hammer #3, areas of denial with staff #5 or hammer #5, pulls with GS #5, knock back with hammer #4) as well as reflection and absorb skills (Wall of Reflection utility can reflect projectiles and great for high levl fractals, shield #5 to push foes back as well as absorb projectiles, the spirit weapon shield helps protect as well!) all of these are great for higher level fractals i’ve heard.

check out Strife’s youtube videos and his build for some starting ground – know that he’s changed his setup since the original post:

Strife’s youtube – lot of dungeons vids with commentary included! some high level fractals as well. and even his build updates.

Strife’s build on gw2guru – useful for some analysis on his build. it’s good starting ground or something to work towards, but remember, play the build that YOU love and enjoy the most!

in general, i would also suggest, keeping all wapons on hand! and experiment with all of them. i currently have at least one of each type of weapon. and multiple of the ones i use more often. i also have 4 armour sets on me at any given time.

as for appearance:
it seems you’re more set on being a human? if you want to go for icy, why not a Norn? heh. since they’re born in the white lands. in terms of actual armour, depends if you want to actually have regular armour, just with icy dye or have the whole theme (texture, materials) to be acually icy and more “organic” as well?

i have the primevil armour set form the gem store, and i feel some of the pieces can make a decent “icy” look. one of the shoulders could be the skull of a mini slain dragon for lore if you’re into building a backstory for your character. ; )) someone mentioned the Twilight Arbor dungeon set and that seems quite viable as well!

After discovering Altruistic healing does not heal allies, I’m not sure what build I should run in FoTM.

What are my best options for buffing my team?

And does 1h sword have use?

All shouts as utility and empowering might.

And if you’re looking for raw healing output (it looks like by “buff” you don’t mean buff but actually “heal”), altruistic healing still helps you. With a shout build with staff as your second weapon, you’ll be able to heal yourself without using your #6 heal skill. Which means you can take heal breeze for that slot and heal others.

1h sword is best as a solo weapon.

A guardian with max healing output would have mace/shield and staff as weapons, heal breeze for #6, stand your ground, hold the line, and retreat as utility, tome of courage elite, traits: strength in numbers, honorable shield, superior aria, writ of the merciful, battle presence, vengeful, elite focus, full or mix of HP/pow/tuf and HP/pre/vit armor, jewel and weapons, superior sigil of water on main/two hand, superior sigil of life on shield, and soldier runes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlcgqDHDSLEmIFSmCWCBrKsPYP0oPajuKARA;ToAgzUeZASAktLnXyuWbM2Y+B

… Copy & Paste Link…

Aim for at least 650+healing. Everything else is up to you.

This should give you 100% uptime on Protection, constant ticks from both Virtue of Resolve + Symbols, and Retaliation every other cycle from Mighty Blow Combo.

With this build you have incredible Condition removal (bow & Virtue of Reslove) and huge Burst Healing: VoR, Bow, MI + SYG combo.

In addition, you have Tome for when things get real hairy.

This is a solid PVE build. You can change your gear to your taste: more dps / more healing, etc.

For Runes, I focus on Boon Duration. Reason being, you want Protection up 100% without having to sacrifce Symbol area/healing by having to spec for longer duration symbols. Additionally, it will help your Regen uptime from SYG and Retaliation uptime from your Light Combo.

That’s the just of a Guardian healer. It’s kind of misleading because the reality is, other classes are much better healers than a guardian… we’re really good at Protection / Retaliation / Dmg Negation (Consecrations/Spirit Shield/Shield).

Specing around Empowering Might is lame. To say that all we’re really there to do is to cast a 3s Channel ability every 16s… LAME. We have sooooo much more to our class than that.

Good advice in this thread. I am also a new guardian that like fractals and looking for an endgame build. One thing caught my ear, Prayer of Lyssa. I have chosen a Sylvari for my Guardian. Did I mess up?

Amins.3710:

Specing around Empowering Might is lame. To say that all we’re really there to do is to cast a 3s Channel ability every 16s… LAME. We have sooooo much more to our class than that.

Just in case people are wondering, Empowering Might is a trait, not a channeled ability, and has nothing to do with channeling abilities.

^^ Yes, I meant Empower.

Thank you for your incredible insight.