Guild Wars 2

I was redirected here while asking for some general advice about the game as some of my questions were Guardian specific. Basically I’m a new player and looking to see how viable what I run with as a guardian is. I’ve got full berserker gear, a mix of exotic and ascended. As for traits I run with 6 points in Honor and Virtue each. I put the final 2 points in Valor to pick up strength in numbers. The traits I chose for Honor are superior aria, pure of heart, and battle presence. The traits I chose for Virtues is master of consecrations, indomitable courage, absolute resolution. I chose this because I see a lot of utility in it and it makes my virtues even more helpful when I activate them. Skill wise my 6 is Signet of Resolve and my 7 is always Signet of Judgement. My other slots are usually filled with whatever shout or consecration is applicable to the current fight/boss fight. My elite skill is always Renewed focus. Before I was running or more dps focused build but with my group of friends I found myself unable to throw out stability, reflects, or retaliation as quickly as was needed in boss fights.

Saw your post in the frac/Dung forums. Welcome to Guards!

(Following up with the post in his other thread that made mention to MB and high dps zerk builds).

What you’ll notice is that sites such as metabattle will offer builds that work the majority of the time based on the content you’re playing in PvE (PvP and WvW, the builds will remain fairly static). In PvE, excelling in the class will require knowledge of your different traits and skills to come up with various builds to tackle game content.

That being said, in PvE the more favored builds are those that bring more damage as the meta-concept being that if the party can kill the mobs faster there’s less to worry about. Though, this is very true both in theory and in application the hard part is learning to stay alive.

What I challenge you with is to lean the fights. Some fights are as easy as slotting in Bane signet, and you’re good to go with weapon skills rotations. Other fights get a bit more complicated requiring specific weapons, skills, and even traits to get the timing right. Learn the mob mechanics. Do they apply conditions, do they have cc, do they have a “kill shot”, etc and slot a build accordingly.

To answer your question about your build viability I would have to ask in return “what is your goal”. If your goal is to stay alive I would recommend hammer builds or taking the Honor GrandMaster trait Altruistic healing. If your goal is DPS then I would suggest you take a look at the metabuild site. Though I would recommend the utility variation (45005) as you seem to prefer dishing out boons.

….why in gods name would you use battle presence with zerker gear?

Pro Tip: Check the wiki and see how stuff scales with healing power. if it has a high scale rate you shouldn’t be using it with anything offensive

Other tip: Don’t bother with ANY of the aegis traits

Super duper tip: if you wana heal you allies grab the healing symbols