New, unsure of what build(s) to use.
I use knights armor and celestial trinkets (or berserker) with 0/0/30/30/10 which works pretty well. The trick in fractals is to know the agony animations rather than gear for survival though.
Looking around a bit it seems AH is the go-to tank I guess, I really don’t know much about this game yet but it seems everyone likes it.
Would that sticky at the top suffice to know how to build if I go that route?
AH has some crazy healling, but is not a good “solo” build, it shines in group battles, but solo is pretty weak.
My advice is, think about what role you want to fulfill in sPvP or WvW, then look for what stats/traits would help you achieve it, then create your own build, taking “pre-made” builds works fine, but i think is not optimal.
To achieve awesome “tankiness” you need mainly two things (or one, but depends on gear):
Altruistic Healing when you’re in a group / Monk’s Focus when you’re solo (use Meditations!) and Selfless Daring with a decent Healing Power.
Some can pull great tanking with just Selfless Daring (and massive Healing Power) and constant Vigor uptime.
To enhance it further, look for ways to get Protection and Regeneration.
Mace & Shield are great for this.
A 0/10/30/30/0 build with Mace & Shield and these traits: Signet Mastery, Purity, Honorable Shield, Altruistic Healing/Monk’s Focus, Writ of Exaltation/Shout Mastery/Pure of Heart, Writ of the Merciful, Writ of Persistence and a Soldier gear with maybe some Knights mix until you have a decent crit % for constant Vigor uptime is one of the most bulky builds I can think of, though this is really overdoing it…
Test it out in the Mists, and work on using your active defense skills when you’re down on utilities (alternate blocks, pushback, try to get most of your healing symbols, etc) and you can see for yourself how much you can tank…
Thanks for the posts so far! I’ve been trying out hammer and loving it, so I’ll be trying the AH build out for my first time through the game. Though outside of valor I’m honestly confused on where to spend points and what traits to get, utilities… I’m also not too sure what to take for my Guardian.
I guess after looking around all day I’d love to support a team in both PvE and WvW/SPvP while still being really difficult to kill, something on the front lines I guess, helping my allies, which AH seems to provide. I’ll be shooting for full knight gear when the time comes if any of that info helps me decide on what utilities to take :s
Also for the second weapon, I really don’t know what to use, I really do fancy the great sword/mace (unsure of offhand to compliment it) and staff. I’d love some input on that as well!
Well since you mentioned being tanky, nothing beats mace in that respect as it’s hard to beat a weapon that comes with a skill that casts protection and another skill that heals allies while hurting foes in a symbol. Shield/focus is a tossup I agree both come with good skills and I recommend trying both out to see which you like more. Mainly focus on getting 3k armor and 1k healing, there are many ways to get your stats to match that and the choice is yours. The most important traits are Valor and Honor, you will want 30 in each as both Altruistic Healing and Battle Presence are quite good and complement each other well. Where you put the 10 remaining points is up to you, usually all 10 in radience or virtues, but some people put 5 in both.
Personally in WvW I run 0/0/10/30/30 with mostly cleric gear and some soldiers using a Greatsword with Sword/Focus for mobility and single target damage. I find that it is very tanky and capable at handling multiple enemies at once.
For a most support approach I would run the hammer and either instead of the Greatsword and maybe swap out sword for scepter. AH build (x/x/30/30/x) is good for support through the trait Altruistic Healing.