Guild Wars 2

Hey all, I have just came back after a few months of playing a different game, and decided to roll a Guardian since I have never gotten one to level 80 before, but always wanted to!

I have seen several videos and read through some guides, but would like to know some honest opinions on what builds do and do not work, and what might be best for leveling and good for me to aim for when I get to level 80.

With my Guardian, as with any of my toons really, I enjoy all facets of GW2 gameplay, be in Open-PvE / Dungeons / Fractals / WvW / s/tPvP, I really like it all!

So I need to know some Builds that work well for those parts of the game, and since I’m not rich, I need to kind of center in on a few builds that would work great.

I prefer Dmg/Crits over Condi dmg, and prefer not to be too glassy so that if I mess up, or not paying 100% attention all the time, I don’t get steamrolled over, lol…

Thanks in advance to those who post!

People run a build you may like in WvW right now (at least on top tier servers). It’s Zealot armor + Celestial trinkets, 0/0/2/6/6 or 0/0/6/6/2, superior sigils of life, renewal and energy. You get fairly high power, crit chance and crit damage with a benefit of extra support provided by powerful dodge roll heals.

Right now the PvE meta is zerker and for a good reason, it will give you fastest dungeon clear times if used right but will offer you zero margin of error so if you’re planning to run it – find a good PvE guild.

Never run full zerk in WvW – you will get melted in 0.00005s by everything (even ambient mobs ;] ).

For PvP it’s all about bunkering down at point, and trying to decap. There are many variations of this build but most commonly I see full cleric mace + shield/hammer with 0/0/2/6/6. Basically you knock the enemy out of the point repeatedly to decap/cap and then sit there for as long as you can. Don’t forget t yell at your team to cap while you’re at it!

Personally I’ve been running full Cleric gear 0/0/2/6/6 in every game mode for months now and have no complaints. In PvE it’s the only build that can make dungeon/fractal pugs work consistently so if you’re a PvE pugger like me try doing what I’m doing. Though seeing as you like more damage the first build I wrote about may be a better option.

1. Read Brutaly’s stickied guide as a good backbone in Guardian education and how a lot of the skills and traits work.
2. Read Obal’s stickied guide for PvE, though he does tend to favor the meta PvE build which does require a degree of skill and good group play.
3. Read Harbinger’s stickied guide for WvW builds.

4. If you want a “do it all” build, and you might get PvE elite gripes for this, look towards some of the hybrid builds.

5. As I always add, play how you want, and if you play with a group, consider their needs as well. If the group is okay with your build, play it. If they want you to change it, you either need to or find a different group.

For pve you can run the hammer build. It let’s you be glassier since it gives you perma protection, a bit more hp, and blind spam along with all your blocks and projectile defenses. It’s best for fractals but it’s fine for dungeons too and helps keep pugs alive. It does comparable damage to gs+sword/focus so it’s not like your dps will tank in comparison.

3/5/0/4/2

Does any Race really shine as a Guardian, I know the majority of the time you won’t be using Racial skills at all, but do any of the Racial abilities have any use in builds that a Guardian would be using at any given time?

Odokuro.5049:

Does any Race really shine as a Guardian, I know the majority of the time you won’t be using Racial skills at all, but do any of the Racial abilities have any use in builds that a Guardian would be using at any given time?

The elite norn snow leopard for running away in WvW can be handy. Other than that no

If you want to do pve and wvw without changing to much, you’ll need to find a good balance of gear, as retraiting is free and fast. Using a good combination of berserker, cavalier, knights, and anything else will allow you to keep much of the damage of a full pve build, and allow you to retrait for wvw. I would aim for 2.5k to 2.7k armor, and then stack as much power, prec, and ferocity as possible. Then for wvw, traiting 6 into honor for force of will (and guard stacks if you have them) should be sufficient health, while putting 6 into valor will bring you to that 3k armor number and grant another 20% crit damage.

For weapons you can keep hammer and greatsword for both modes. Read obal’s sticky for hammer/gs in pve, and watch amins’s videos for wvw hammer/gs. This kind of setup allows you the versatility of going into either game mode and being competative. You won’t be at the top of the charts, but you won’t be a liability either because of gear choices.