Guild Wars 2

Hello!

I picked up GW2 about two weeks ago and my main is a guardian. I want to be a tank and I just dinged 35 today and found out I can do dungeons. Before I waltz in there and start hitting stuff I’d like to know the following:

1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?
2.) What is the best build?
3.)Any other tips?

Thanks for the help =)

At 35 your not going to be able to “tank”. You wont have access to the gear/traits it takes to pull that off. Your best best is to build with some toughness and vitality so you can survive as long as possible then build for support.

" I want to be a tank": there is no holy triad in this game. In that sense, there is no clear tanking like other mmos.
1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?: threat mechanism in this game is a combination of things. Its dmg, toughness, type of armor, proximity to mob… That is one of the reasons that everyone needs to tank some and some more than others.
2.) If u are interested in learning howabouts the class building mechanics work, read “hammer and altruistic healing gameplay” forum -it’s a sticky-. Though you may choose to deviate from Brutaly’s suggestions to suit your playstyle and favorite weapons, his post is an excellent starting point not only for the “hammer & AH” build, but for any pve dungeon “tanking” build and a “eye opener” on how to combine various abilities into a solid build even if u choose to go dps and condition damage or pvp.
3.) I think no2 is the best tip i can give u. Take it from there and reflect on what u read, dont just allocate points and skills and press buttons. Understanding mechanics is key in this game.

There’s no traditional tank in this game. Like SiNos said, you can’t really “tank” anything until you are a higher level. In general, your main goal should be staying alive and supporting your party. Damage doesn’t matter much if you’re dead or your teammates are dead.

Read about threat here > http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro
Best build is subjective, but you can’t go wrong with a hammer, staff, and shouts.
Don’t expect to be healed, and don’t let anyone else expect you to heal. Be upfront about what build you’re using so people know what to expect from you.

Zoe.6230:

1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?
2.) What is the best build?
3.)Any other tips?

1.) You can’t really do that in Guild Wars 2. Threat can be kinda random and you don’t have any skills dedicated to taking and keeping threat. You can “tank” a bit, but as soon as you lose the attention of the enemy, it can be hard to get it back.
2.) This is a difficult question to answer. Currently a lot of people are advocating Altruistic Healing as the basis of a build, but this isn’t really necessary to be successful. It might be beneficial for you to create a build that suits your playstyle, favorite weapons or favorite utilities and then come to the forums for feedback.
3.) Play what you like to play.

As other posters have noted, it’s not straightforward to tank, but it’s by no means impossible.

Whilst running dungeons I find in many cases I am able to draw the attention of multiple foes by dropping as much AoE on them as possible – the greatsword and staff are good for this – Binding blade can be used to pull mobs off your team mates and you can employ various area denial skills to keep them off for a while after – I suspect the DoT for binding blade also helps keep mobs interested.

While there are appears to be varying agro tables in the game, I noticed quite often mobs will go after players with low health or who drop a lot of group heals – this favours a healing spec’d guardian, since we naturally have lower health than anyone else ( if you slot for vitality you might find maintaining agro more difficult ).

For ranged mobs you can “tank” in a different way – with wall of reflection and various absorption shields.

The short answer: get in the thick of it, generate as much healing, damage mitigation and AoE as you can and quite often you will be the focus the party ( at which point you’ll have to concentrate on surviving )

Thanks so much for all the advice! ^_^

Is AH + Staff’s Empower basically a full heal even from 1hp? Seems like it’s an amazing synergy, especially since you get healed with each stack (12) and there’s a heal at the end of casting.

Seras.5702:

Is AH + Staff’s Empower basically a full heal even from 1hp? Seems like it’s an amazing synergy, especially since you get healed with each stack (12) and there’s a heal at the end of casting.

AH + Empower is basically 10-15k or more heal if done right. Theres been times i’ve just stood there on a champ waiting for my hp to hit 5-7k, i have 18k, and even with them hitting me ill be max health by the end of it. Its a great combo if you find your self with agro a lot. I’ve use it with a sword/focus off set for ranged block, block, regen, teleport, blinds, and fast attack so i can stack might for more self healing.

Even if Anet said theres no Trinity in the game, tank is actually viable and effective in dungeon, mostly in dungeon.

Both tanks and healers are unfortunately viable in the game. I find that to be one of the reason why pve content is to easy to do and not challenging at all tbh.

Brutaly.6257:

Both tanks and healers are unfortunately viable in the game. I find that to be one of the reason why pve content is to easy to do and not challenging at all tbh.

Well by the other way, a game full of similiar builds/stats is also bad, threre arent really tanks in the game, i know guardian can old a champ and some veterans at the same time but it is need more than the guardian alone to do it decently.

Aeolus.3615:

i know guardian can old a champ and some veterans at the same time but it is need more than the guardian alone to do it decently.

I havent played that many mmos but that is how it works in Rift and Age of Conan as well, you cant tank without help from others (healers) so what makes this game any different?

Im missing the uniqueness we was promised or have i totally misunderstood what anet was talking about during beta, bwe and after launch.

Guardians are damage dealing maintanks atm, just as a Dark Templar is in AoC, the similarities are obvious if we compare my Guardian with my DT back in AoC.

Brutaly.6257:

Aeolus.3615:

i know guardian can old a champ and some veterans at the same time but it is need more than the guardian alone to do it decently.

I havent played that many mmos but that is how it works in Rift and Age of Conan as well, you cant tank without help from others (healers) so what makes this game any different?

Im missing the uniqueness we was promised or have i totally misunderstood what anet was talking about during beta, bwe and after launch.

Guardians are damage dealing maintanks atm, just as a Dark Templar is in AoC, the similarities are obvious if we compare my Guardian with my DT back in AoC.

I think the big thing is while we can “tank” we dont have any agro snaps in order to pull the mob and keep it. In that reguard its true that there is not a tank.

Now that being said anyone with even a basic understanding of how agro works in this game can for the most part keep agro for as long as they want without issue. Which is where people such as brutaly get the saying that there is tanks in this game. To be honest im inclined to agree here. Its just a much looser form of tanking that requires skill to actually do. As for healing that one im up in the air about. I kinda view it like RIFT thief bard healers. While for most content you can heal as long as your skilled you are not going to be able to heal threw hard hitting mobs like a true traditional healer and instead need an intelligent reactive party to survive those encounters.

So everything said and done those who are skilled can infact pull of the tank/healer/dps groups without issue and they tend to be some of the most powerful group you will see but not because they are using that setup. Its because of the skill level of the players.

tank is very good in pvp but u r gonna have a hard time 1 on 1.

Mobs tend to attack whoever has the highest toughness and dodge does seem to be some sort of aggro reduction.At least Im usually zee myself tanki g coz I have 2K toughness

Check wiki for more info.

Zoe.6230:

Hello!

I picked up GW2 about two weeks ago and my main is a guardian. I want to be a tank and I just dinged 35 today and found out I can do dungeons. Before I waltz in there and start hitting stuff I’d like to know the following:

1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?
2.) What is the best build?
3.)Any other tips?

Thanks for the help =)

Look for Power/Toughness/Vitality gears (bought using AC tokens or trade on different Orr Exotic Karma Vendors), snap in Rune of the Soldier or Dolyak, try 0/5/30/30/5 traits, use AC weapons as well.

There you go, decent tank with decent damage.

knives.6345:

Zoe.6230:

Hello!

I picked up GW2 about two weeks ago and my main is a guardian. I want to be a tank and I just dinged 35 today and found out I can do dungeons. Before I waltz in there and start hitting stuff I’d like to know the following:

1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?
2.) What is the best build?
3.)Any other tips?

Thanks for the help =)

Look for Power/Toughness/Vitality gears (bought using AC tokens or trade on different Orr Exotic Karma Vendors), snap in Rune of the Soldier or Dolyak, try 0/5/30/30/5 traits, use AC weapons as well.

There you go, decent tank with decent damage.

Honestly that setup will be about useless with the traits you mentioned if your aiming at AH, given you have no crit. As for damage its not good damage. If your really wanting to tank aim for 3k+ armor, 35%+ crit, and 15k+ hp. Focus the rest into attack power and crit damage. That will be your best general tank setup for mitigating damage and being able to dodge/self heal. As for traits in general your tank like builds use a variation of the 0/?/30/?(20)/? build most focusing on AH with the Empowering Might master trait, which is where the ?(20) comes from.

SiNoS.2147:

knives.6345:

Zoe.6230:

Hello!

I picked up GW2 about two weeks ago and my main is a guardian. I want to be a tank and I just dinged 35 today and found out I can do dungeons. Before I waltz in there and start hitting stuff I’d like to know the following:

1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?
2.) What is the best build?
3.)Any other tips?

Thanks for the help =)

Look for Power/Toughness/Vitality gears (bought using AC tokens or trade on different Orr Exotic Karma Vendors), snap in Rune of the Soldier or Dolyak, try 0/5/30/30/5 traits, use AC weapons as well.

There you go, decent tank with decent damage.

Honestly that setup will be about useless with the traits you mentioned if your aiming at AH, given you have no crit. As for damage its not good damage. If your really wanting to tank aim for 3k+ armor, 35%+ crit, and 15k+ hp. Focus the rest into attack power and crit damage. That will be your best general tank setup for mitigating damage and being able to dodge/self heal. As for traits in general your tank like builds use a variation of the 0/?/30/?(20)/? build most focusing on AH with the Empowering Might master trait, which is where the ?(20) comes from.

Tank = low damage, high survival. Unless tank here have another definition.

The only way I’ve found to reliably “tank” a mob is to be the only one attacking it for an extended amount of time. Are there other ways to keep aggro on you?

knives.6345:

SiNoS.2147:

knives.6345:

Zoe.6230:

Hello!

I picked up GW2 about two weeks ago and my main is a guardian. I want to be a tank and I just dinged 35 today and found out I can do dungeons. Before I waltz in there and start hitting stuff I’d like to know the following:

1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?
2.) What is the best build?
3.)Any other tips?

Thanks for the help =)

Look for Power/Toughness/Vitality gears (bought using AC tokens or trade on different Orr Exotic Karma Vendors), snap in Rune of the Soldier or Dolyak, try 0/5/30/30/5 traits, use AC weapons as well.

There you go, decent tank with decent damage.

Honestly that setup will be about useless with the traits you mentioned if your aiming at AH, given you have no crit. As for damage its not good damage. If your really wanting to tank aim for 3k+ armor, 35%+ crit, and 15k+ hp. Focus the rest into attack power and crit damage. That will be your best general tank setup for mitigating damage and being able to dodge/self heal. As for traits in general your tank like builds use a variation of the 0/?/30/?(20)/? build most focusing on AH with the Empowering Might master trait, which is where the ?(20) comes from.

Tank = low damage, high survival. Unless tank here have another definition.

Sinos point was that the highest survivability in pve isnt with a low damage build but with a high damage build. AH, lots of crits, 3200 armor and with a coordinated team within your symbol then you have about 2k health per chain attack with the hammer and constant protection.

Extra hp adds more margin of errors, AH + crits gives you more survivability.

And since when has tanks been the same as low damage, in the mmos i played before this one the tanks did considerable amounts of damage and in AoC Dark Templars topped the parses on some encounters and not by retributive damage.

I’m not convinced what you’re suggesting is as efficient as a power/precision/toughness build to be honest but I guess it’s a matter of taste/gameplay too and if it suits you then it’s what matters.

With an Altruistic Healing build and Empowering might (not sure if you include EM in your build though), you need a decent crit chance to trigger EM(+ vigor) to proc AH. That means with knight gear (pow/prec/tough) you can survive really well even without a lot of hp because you heal a lot and mitigate damage really well with high toughness and on top of that, you do decent damage with the crit/might.

With power/vit/tough you’re gonna have more hp and power but less toughness and low crit which means less vigor/might proc and less AH/roll heal so you’re gonna have a harder time to get back to full health. You can use ranger runes for example to get decent crit though.
Then again, I don’t know which traits you are using but for an AH/EM build to be effective, you need this crit.

Having low hp can seem bad for some people but you mitigate damage so well and have so many options to remove conditions with a guardian that I never felt the need to have a huge hp pool. With runes of the soldier on a knight set, you have almost 16k hp which is enough imo.

Edit : kitten I was so long to write this that Brutaly posted before me.

Brutaly.6257:

knives.6345:

SiNoS.2147:

knives.6345:

Zoe.6230:

Hello!

I picked up GW2 about two weeks ago and my main is a guardian. I want to be a tank and I just dinged 35 today and found out I can do dungeons. Before I waltz in there and start hitting stuff I’d like to know the following:

1.) Do I need to keep threat. If so, how?
2.) What is the best build?
3.)Any other tips?

Thanks for the help =)

Look for Power/Toughness/Vitality gears (bought using AC tokens or trade on different Orr Exotic Karma Vendors), snap in Rune of the Soldier or Dolyak, try 0/5/30/30/5 traits, use AC weapons as well.

There you go, decent tank with decent damage.

Honestly that setup will be about useless with the traits you mentioned if your aiming at AH, given you have no crit. As for damage its not good damage. If your really wanting to tank aim for 3k+ armor, 35%+ crit, and 15k+ hp. Focus the rest into attack power and crit damage. That will be your best general tank setup for mitigating damage and being able to dodge/self heal. As for traits in general your tank like builds use a variation of the 0/?/30/?(20)/? build most focusing on AH with the Empowering Might master trait, which is where the ?(20) comes from.

Tank = low damage, high survival. Unless tank here have another definition.

Sinos point was that the highest survivability in pve isnt with a low damage build but with a high damage build. AH, lots of crits, 3200 armor and with a coordinated team within your symbol then you have about 2k health per chain attack with the hammer and constant protection.

Extra hp adds more margin of errors, AH + crits gives you more survivability.

And since when has tanks been the same as low damage, in the mmos i played before this one the tanks did considerable amounts of damage and in AoC Dark Templars topped the parses on some encounters and not by retributive damage.

Also to add to this one of our best scaling heals is dodge. Without a high crit chance your not going to activate vigor reliably enough to make proper use of this skill. So while you might have monster hp if you dont have enough endurance to activate dodge to avoid those hits that will one shot you its kinda pointless.

Also to note is i have played the power/toughness/vit only build. While yes it does do ok its not even close to a hybrid build. The extra crit is by far and away one of the best things you can do for your self if your running an boon healing build focused around AH. The only skill that i’ve seen that is of use and not improved by crit chance is staff skill 4. Granted thats one of the best heals in the game if your traited correctly.

To the OP if it hasnt been mentioned before check Brutaly’s build thread and you will be tanky and have decent dps to boot

And Thx Brutaly for that guide i have learnt so much from your build post you explain your ideas well.

I followed your suggestions in that guide and now i am a beast of the battlefield absolutely luv it link below

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Crithammer-one-way-of-playing-with-it