Guild Wars 2

Nina Guardian (WWW build)

Update:

-Added Ascend Gear setup. Added info section.
-Gear changes. Trait changes. Food Changes. Skill Change.
-Minor change to gear. Going to test hammer instead of greatsword and possibily replace the knight’s pieces with zerker for testing.
-Changed skills and gear based after some math based on all the discussion
-Changed Gear round some more to increase DPS keeping durability. Tested out different runes and Sigils.
-Changed gear around to make it more durable.

I appreciate everyones criticisms, ideas, and encouragement in this thread. Thanks to Bash for his great ideas. Thanks to Relentliss for the scepter suggestion.

Traits:

Zeal 10 – II
Radiance 25 – II / VII
Valor 30 – I / VI / XII
Virtues 5

Skills – Signet of Resolve, Smite Condition, Judge’s Intervention, Save Yourselves, Renewed Focus

Gear:

Exotic Knight’s Helm w/ Ruby Orb (please note the two ruby orbs, while the rest are beryl)
Exotic Berserker’s Shoulder’s w/ Ruby Orb
Exotic Knight’s Coat w/ Beryl Orb
Exotic Berserker’s Gloves w/ Beryl Orb
Exotic Knight’s Legs w/ Beryl Orb
Exotic Berserker’s Boots w/ Beryl Orb
Exotic Soldier’s Back w/ Exquisite Beryl
Exotic Valk’s Amulet
Exotic Soldier’s Accessories w/ Exquisite Beryl
Exotic Soldier’s Rings w/ Exquisite Beryls
Exotic Berserker’s Greatsword w/ Superior Sigil of Generosity
Exotic Berserker’s Sceptre w/ Superior Sigil of Generosity
Exotic Berserker’s Torch w/ Superior Sigil of Perception

Stats w/o buffs
Attack: 3177
Crit Chance: 37%
Crit Damage: +80%
Armor: 2832
HP: 14825

Food: Omnomberry Pies
Oils

With the Sigil full and the proper Maintenance Oil crit chance should be at 60%.

Ascended Gear Setup:

All orbs are Beryl
Exotic Soldier’s Helm/Legs/Accessories w/ Exq Beryl/Weapons
Exotic Knight’s Chest
Exotic Berserker’s Shoulders/Gloves/Boots
Ascended Berserker’s Amulet, Rings, Back

With Food, oils, sigil your final stats are:
3245 Attack, 61% Crit Chance, 86% Crit Damage, 2816 Armor, 15065 HP

Condition Removal:
- Sigils of Generosity (technically a transfer, even better), Passive on SoR, Active on SoR, Smite Condition

Healing:
SoR, Omnomberry pies, Monk’s Focus

Stun Breaks:
JI, Save Yourelves

Support:
- Virtues with the traits improving them.

Gameplay Info:

I’m not the type of person layout how to play this build. Idealy, its a high pressure constant DPS build that has low cooldown weapon sets with direct and condition damage applications. In this section I’ll just point out some of the usefulness of certain skills. I generally start off using my scepter/torch to start my attack from a distance to gauge the situation before jumping in with my opening move.

Big hit combo: Zealot’s Flame/Zealot’s Fire, Chains of Light, switch to GS, WW, JI

Your survivability: Attacking is how you survive. Critical hits means you are transferring conditions and healing yourself.

Cleansing Flame: Great damage, ranged, tracking, hits multiple targets, can strafe while channeling. With a high crit chance and omnomberry pies it becomes a 1-2k heal.

Zealot’s Flame: You can actually activate it and switch to your greatsword and it will continue to pulse burning. The range of the pulses is very small.

JI: You can use this as an escape skill by targeting a mob and teleporting to them.

SY: For this build its going to be a situational skill. Against a skilled player and a well built profession, its usually the skill that helps you down them. Its also your 2nd stun break. Finally, its an emergency button. Use it wisely.

Smite: It can be used to create space between you and a melee opponent. Dropping it in front of you and strafing around it will annoy people.

Dungeons: Most builds work in dungeons including this one. I’ve run AC, SE, CoF, HotW, Arah, and Fractals 10 with ease. You get to see a lot of big numbers too =) especially in CoF. Its nice to see 10k damage while playing a guardian.

I was looking for a guardian WvW build, cheers ill try this out, looks good and fun

It looks pretty fragile for WvW in my opinion. But worth trying out at least.

I agree on the frailty. I’ve changed some of the gear around.

I would suggest trying Scepter and Torch out. IMHO they are better than Sword and Torch.

Frailty can be corrected by a good read of the battlefield, wall of relfection and pretty much just having enough guts.

Should you favor the kamikaze style glass canon guardian route of no return

/smoke

/Says WvW guardian with 0 pts in Honor and Virtue running full berzerker and ruby gear

i’ve recently put together a build similar to this. and definitely more squishy, but killing a LOT faster. have yet to put together a proper rotation that maximizes my time spent in the presence of an enemy. having shelter and renewed focus along with all virtues available again does help if you do need a few extra seconds to get to the back of your lines and re-group.

same problem with my build, minimal condition removal and trying to find a way around it. : pp

I found another build very similar to this one done by Bash: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Swordmaster-build-WvW.

I was thinking about switching out hammer with greatsword.
I’m doing the math to see if using certain runes will provide better damage then the ruby orbs.

After playing around with the numbers some more. Like Bash’s build I decided to use the Greatsword. I also changed the gear around to bring up my crit chance and power while keeping similar survivability.

The ruby orbs actually out DPS a lot of runes. The rune of scholar does better (not by much) only if you are above 90% health. Surprisingly Wurm under performs compared to the ruby orbs.

I changed the sigils. Fire outpaces force in DPS. If fire is too expensive the rankings for DPS of sigils for this build is as follows: Fire, Air, Blood, Accuracy, Force.

I’m becoming more satisfied with the build. I’m still working on saving up more gold to finish off some of the items.

Too much focus on DPS. You would get 2 shot by any glass cannon thief and 1 shot by any glass cannon warrior. You shouldn’t be playing guardian as a warrior. I also see a huge lack of condition removal.

Archer.1658:

Too much focus on DPS. You would get 2 shot by any glass cannon thief and 1 shot by any glass cannon warrior. You shouldn’t be playing guardian as a warrior. I also see a huge lack of condition removal.

Actually you are wrong, love getting jumped by thieves since I can 2 shot them, also I have never been one shot by a warrior even when eating a full 100b. And how about we let people play the class how they want to. Instead of telling people what they should or should not do with the class.

Annnnnyways. I should update that guide some. I switched some sigils and went to omnomberry pies to complement the monks focus on the build. I run accuracy/generosity on sword/focus and run generosity on my GS as well. I dropped contemplation of purity for bane signet, and switched my valor traits to condition removal, toughness to perc and kept monk’s focus.

Also i dropped the sword damage trait for signet cooldown, but could also replace it with signet removes condition if you still feel you suffer conditions too much. Also i switched to straight beryl orbs in my armor, since i wanted the added vit/crit damage. And finally I moved to sharpening stones because it was an overall damage increase over the oil.

So now the build has 3 forms of condition removal (2 every 10 seconds and a 20 second on demand, 2 healing sources (food/ meditations) and added passive power with an on use CC that does decent damage (crits for about 1.5k for me) I sit around 70% crit with 1hand sword and about 45 ish with the GS. 3k attack with 1h, 3.1 with gs, 2800ish armor and 13.5k health with 1h and around 15k with GS (gs is valk, cant rember if i mentioned that in the build)

Bakitten291:

Archer.1658:

Too much focus on DPS. You would get 2 shot by any glass cannon thief and 1 shot by any glass cannon warrior. You shouldn’t be playing guardian as a warrior. I also see a huge lack of condition removal.

Actually you are wrong, love getting jumped by thieves since I can 2 shot them, also I have never been one shot by a warrior even when eating a full 100b. And how about we let people play the class how they want to. Instead of telling people what they should or should not do with the class.

Annnnnyways. I should update that guide some. I switched some sigils and went to omnomberry pies to complement the monks focus on the build. I run accuracy/generosity on sword/focus and run generosity on my GS as well. I dropped contemplation of purity for bane signet, and switched my valor traits to condition removal, toughness to perc and kept monk’s focus.

Also i dropped the sword damage trait for signet cooldown, but could also replace it with signet removes condition if you still feel you suffer conditions too much. Also i switched to straight beryl orbs in my armor, since i wanted the added vit/crit damage. And finally I moved to sharpening stones because it was an overall damage increase over the oil.

So now the build has 3 forms of condition removal (2 every 10 seconds and a 20 second on demand, 2 healing sources (food/ meditations) and added passive power with an on use CC that does decent damage (crits for about 1.5k for me) I sit around 70% crit with 1hand sword and about 45 ish with the GS. 3k attack with 1h, 3.1 with gs, 2800ish armor and 13.5k health with 1h and around 15k with GS (gs is valk, cant rember if i mentioned that in the build)

By all means play the class the way you want. Just note that it isn’t going to be effective. No matter how good a “dps” guardian seems, a balance will always outshine it. My Stats just to brag: 3050 Attack, 3100 Armor, 70% Crit Damage, 31% Crit Chance, 17k Life. No Food either. Not only am I more “tanky” but I dish out practically dish out the same dps. But again, its impossible to impose the way you play on others. So go ahead and play a guardian like a warrior.

Not totally true

Even ignoring our superior offensive stats.
Dps guards can get more than 25% burst just from zeal and radiance traits alone over balance guards without points in Zeal and Radiance. Not taking into account our blind vulnerability procs with leap of faith and Voj procs. And Leap of faith procs are a bit buggy in that it sometimes gives more than 3 vulnerability procs.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind_Exposure

And also your skill choices affect the results too
I also charge up with staff 4 and pop save yourselves before i go in.

So realistically we dont do the same dps

And here are the stats of a true glass cannon guardian hitting you in WvW
complete with staff 4 buff, save yourselves, sigils, food and oil

Most people just roll over and die in face of 3800 attack, 96%crit chance and 107%crit damage

Archer.1658:

By all means play the class the way you want. Just note that it isn’t going to be effective. No matter how good a “dps” guardian seems, a balance will always outshine it. My Stats just to brag: 3050 Attack, 3100 Armor, 70% Crit Damage, 31% Crit Chance, 17k Life. No Food either. Not only am I more “tanky” but I dish out practically dish out the same dps. But again, its impossible to impose the way you play on others. So go ahead and play a guardian like a warrior.

See, you dont dish out the same damage, not even close. We have the same attack, I have more crit damage. but i have about 40% more crit than you do with 1h sword and it matters big time. I don’t think you realize how much more that scales between the attack/crit damage. Even more, assuming you are running a standard bunker build with AH/EM you most likely don’t have fiery wrath which gives me 10% extra damage on burning foes, and the Blind Explosure trait like ICC mentioned. I can get 12 stacks up on the sword while using focus before I even use burst skills, Thats 22% extra damage I can burst on someone 25% if I switch over to GS in the process. at about 6-9 stacks my sword auto attacks are doing close to 2k damage with a 3k last hit, Even higher on glass cannons.

As far as defenses go yes, you might be more tanky up front but I have a TON of health regen through crits, virtue, and meditation healing. Of which the crits only become stronger with more targets. Thieves have never one shot me, 100b has never even come close, even while getting jumped out of nowhere with it.

Honestly this will most likely be my last post in regards to you, as I am rather sick of arguing the effectiveness of these types of builds. Countless people have said and shown otherwise. And as far as “playing like a warrior” No, We are playing like a damage build guardian. I’m sorry if you can’t grasp that concept, but to go into almost every thread about a guardian DPS build and tell everyone they are playing the wrong way is ridiculous, and I honestly think you are doing nothing more than trolling with it at this point. If it does not match how you feel the guardian plays, why do you even go into threads like this? You seem so adamant against them, why bother with them?

lcc.9374:

Not totally true

Even ignoring our superior offensive stats.
Dps guards can get more than 25% burst just from zeal and radiance traits alone over balance guards without points in Zeal and Radiance. Not taking into account our blind vulnerability procs with leap of faith and Voj procs. And Leap of faith procs are a bit buggy in that it sometimes gives more than 3 vulnerability procs.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind_Exposure

And also your skill choices affect the results too
I also charge up with staff 4 and pop save yourselves before i go in.

So realistically we dont do the same dps

And here are the stats of a true glass cannon guardian hitting you in WvW
complete with staff 4 buff, save yourselves, sigils, food and oil

Most people just roll over and die in face of 3800 attack, 96%crit chance and 107%crit damage

So…. much….. zerkers…..

I could not even think of going that dps orriented personally, Like to charge into groups to break lines a bit too much for it, but god those are some pretty nice stats. I would ask if maybe sharpening stones are better than oil in that case, but I guess with the low defensive stats the swing would not make that much of a difference. Also what food? I am assuming butternut squash soup?

I really appreciate all the discussion guys =). Thanks! Bash thanks for the update on your build, and the extra insight. Gives me some things to think about. And holy crap Icc that is some powerhouse stats =).

ICC i want to see a video of you burninating people in WvW. GO!

I have been playing a support dp/support guardian since launch and its growing stale. Time for change.

Like many people said on this thread, play however the hell you want, but most experienced WvW guild/squads will not use DPS guardians with a single piece of zerker at any case, if they have half a brain.

The thing is- guardians fill a role of support, tank and control a lot better than other professions such as warriors or thieves. No matter how you build your guardian to do more DPS, other professions will always outshine you in terms of DPS when they build their class appropriately.

To me, this seems more like a PvE build where you can just faceroll everything.

lcc.9374:

Not totally true

Even ignoring our superior offensive stats.
Dps guards can get more than 25% burst just from zeal and radiance traits alone over balance guards without points in Zeal and Radiance. Not taking into account our blind vulnerability procs with leap of faith and Voj procs. And Leap of faith procs are a bit buggy in that it sometimes gives more than 3 vulnerability procs.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind_Exposure

And also your skill choices affect the results too
I also charge up with staff 4 and pop save yourselves before i go in.

So realistically we dont do the same dps

And here are the stats of a true glass cannon guardian hitting you in WvW
complete with staff 4 buff, save yourselves, sigils, food and oil

Most people just roll over and die in face of 3800 attack, 96%crit chance and 107%crit damage

This is WvW we’re talking about. With zero healing power, 10k hp and 2.3k armour you will melt faster than thieves. Yes you will do damage and yes you are awesome. But are you really bringing your best to the team?

kuora.5402:

Like many people said on this thread, play however the hell you want, but most experienced WvW guild/squads will not use DPS guardians with a single piece of zerker at any case, if they have half a brain.

The thing is- guardians fill a role of support, tank and control a lot better than other professions such as warriors or thieves. No matter how you build your guardian to do more DPS, other professions will always outshine you in terms of DPS when they build their class appropriately.

To me, this seems more like a PvE build where you can just faceroll everything.

See I don’t run into that at all, normally the heavy bunker guardian in my guild roams with me because of the damage I can do. Also I really disagree on the control part. we lack ALOT of control, mostly because Wards are pretty broken and need to be fixed. and our control utilities are very lack luster, (spirit hammer is useless now, bane signet is good, signet of wrath has a horrible passive) outside of that we have almost zero control.

As far as other classes’ dps builds I cant really say much. I think the issue is that most people compare guardian damage to warrior and the fact is that most guardians dont go glass cannon like a warrior. I know my damage range is 6k+ on ZD and 5-6k on WW but I really do not know what a warrior’s would be using the same gear as me, and if it would really be higher or not.

Bakitten291:

kuora.5402:

Like many people said on this thread, play however the hell you want, but most experienced WvW guild/squads will not use DPS guardians with a single piece of zerker at any case, if they have half a brain.

The thing is- guardians fill a role of support, tank and control a lot better than other professions such as warriors or thieves. No matter how you build your guardian to do more DPS, other professions will always outshine you in terms of DPS when they build their class appropriately.

To me, this seems more like a PvE build where you can just faceroll everything.

See I don’t run into that at all, normally the heavy bunker guardian in my guild roams with me because of the damage I can do. Also I really disagree on the control part. we lack ALOT of control, mostly because Wards are pretty broken and need to be fixed. and our control utilities are very lack luster, (spirit hammer is useless now, bane signet is good, signet of wrath has a horrible passive) outside of that we have almost zero control.

As far as other classes’ dps builds I cant really say much. I think the issue is that most people compare guardian damage to warrior and the fact is that most guardians dont go glass cannon like a warrior. I know my damage range is 6k+ on ZD and 5-6k on WW but I really do not know what a warrior’s would be using the same gear as me, and if it would really be higher or not.

If your bunkers run with you because you do DPS, wouldn’t it be wiser for you to run other professions that can do more damage with zerker armour? What kind of edge do you have over other DPS professions? You have low HP and very bad escapes, and you have to compensate that with some kind of defensive stats.

I dont run zerkers at all. well other than one earring. I run knights chest/helm/legs, soldiers gloves/shoulders/boots, Trinkets are valk amulet, 2x knights rings, karka shell, and zerker earring. I still have 2885 armor, and 2 forms of healing (meditation healing and omnomberry pie). I am actually very durable while still being able to damage, and decent damage at that. just because I can’t burst like a warrior doesn’t mean my 1.6-2k sword auto attacks don’t hurt like hell.

Bakitten291:

Archer.1658:

By all means play the class the way you want. Just note that it isn’t going to be effective. No matter how good a “dps” guardian seems, a balance will always outshine it. My Stats just to brag: 3050 Attack, 3100 Armor, 70% Crit Damage, 31% Crit Chance, 17k Life. No Food either. Not only am I more “tanky” but I dish out practically dish out the same dps. But again, its impossible to impose the way you play on others. So go ahead and play a guardian like a warrior.

See, you dont dish out the same damage, not even close. We have the same attack, I have more crit damage. but i have about 40% more crit than you do with 1h sword and it matters big time. I don’t think you realize how much more that scales between the attack/crit damage. Even more, assuming you are running a standard bunker build with AH/EM you most likely don’t have fiery wrath which gives me 10% extra damage on burning foes, and the Blind Explosure trait like ICC mentioned. I can get 12 stacks up on the sword while using focus before I even use burst skills, Thats 22% extra damage I can burst on someone 25% if I switch over to GS in the process. at about 6-9 stacks my sword auto attacks are doing close to 2k damage with a 3k last hit, Even higher on glass cannons.

As far as defenses go yes, you might be more tanky up front but I have a TON of health regen through crits, virtue, and meditation healing. Of which the crits only become stronger with more targets. Thieves have never one shot me, 100b has never even come close, even while getting jumped out of nowhere with it.

Honestly this will most likely be my last post in regards to you, as I am rather sick of arguing the effectiveness of these types of builds. Countless people have said and shown otherwise. And as far as “playing like a warrior” No, We are playing like a damage build guardian. I’m sorry if you can’t grasp that concept, but to go into almost every thread about a guardian DPS build and tell everyone they are playing the wrong way is ridiculous, and I honestly think you are doing nothing more than trolling with it at this point. If it does not match how you feel the guardian plays, why do you even go into threads like this? You seem so adamant against them, why bother with them?

Actually I do, in no way am i a bunker build lol its a “balanced” build which is a lot more effective. More crit damage? congrats, Lemme just add on the food and nourishment and all other things like you do (easily putting me to 80% crit damage and 40+ crit chance kitten . You run a lot of crit chance to no point other then the fact it heals you through food. Brb putting on full berserk and acting like you wouldn’t die in 2 hits. There is absolutely no reason to play a dps orientated guardian when warriors fill the role better. I realize that a lot of people will be disgruntled after putting so much effort into their guardian only to realize that we were not ment for DPS. Thanks for playing.

lcc.9374:

Not totally true

Even ignoring our superior offensive stats.
Dps guards can get more than 25% burst just from zeal and radiance traits alone over balance guards without points in Zeal and Radiance. Not taking into account our blind vulnerability procs with leap of faith and Voj procs. And Leap of faith procs are a bit buggy in that it sometimes gives more than 3 vulnerability procs.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind_Exposure

And also your skill choices affect the results too
I also charge up with staff 4 and pop save yourselves before i go in.

So realistically we dont do the same dps

And here are the stats of a true glass cannon guardian hitting you in WvW
complete with staff 4 buff, save yourselves, sigils, food and oil

Most people just roll over and die in face of 3800 attack, 96%crit chance and 107%crit damage

2.3k armor and 10k life. You must be joking. You’re even squishier than a glass cannon thief who does even more burst than you. In addition, you have to prep yourself a lot just to get up to that point of damage, and by the time you are up there you would be dead, case closed.

My build and playstyle was inspired by that old guerrilla guardian video you can still find on YouTube. Of you are curious how a glass cannon guardian runs in wvw. I suggest you look at that video. It’s basically what happens usually for me in open field fights on my guardian too.

I’d be lying if I said our survivability is good. But look at the video. You can see that guy doesn’t really die. Not before sniping down many people at least.

Let’s just say I can go in and walk out alive a majority of the time.

You guys might have a point though in that guardians should focus more on support. But you have to take a bit of my wvw history into account.

I’m on kaineng, previously a low pop server. This type of build originated when I realized that I’d always be outnumbered by my opponents at that time. The goal of my guardian changed from trying to tank 20 people alone which is a futile effort to counting how much of that 20 man group I could down before I got what’s in store for me.

And since we used to be a very pug oriented server. I usually don’t have the liberty to have teammates which could reliably dish put enough damage to kill anyone at all. In those days, me going tanky could well be the difference of killing that group. Or letting them all run free.

And then it’s sad to say I have never been in a major guild to care about coordination in wvw.

This build has pretty much been what I’ve been using for months because of all these circumstances. And now I’ve become molded into somewhat of an assassination type specialist in wvw.

I had my doubts with this build when we started to move up the tiers. But I’m happy to say that at least even in tier 3, it still does it’s job which is sniping players in enemy zergs. The only thing that’s changed is that wall of reflection is now nearly always on my bar thoough for escape. Lol

I’d probably agree that support builds are best for guardians in big coordinated wvw guilds though. But hey puggers like me need to make the most out of the situation.

Bakitten291:

I dont run zerkers at all. well other than one earring. I run knights chest/helm/legs, soldiers gloves/shoulders/boots, Trinkets are valk amulet, 2x knights rings, karka shell, and zerker earring. I still have 2885 armor, and 2 forms of healing (meditation healing and omnomberry pie). I am actually very durable while still being able to damage, and decent damage at that. just because I can’t burst like a warrior doesn’t mean my 1.6-2k sword auto attacks don’t hurt like hell.

Oh then we don’t have to talk anymore. I was talking about OP’s build.

After digesting all the thoughts and discussion I made some more changes.

Bash per your suggestions:
- I changed to using Sigil of Generosity for a condition removal
- I changed to SoR for another condition removal
- I changed to retributive armor as the increase in crit chance is worth it
- I changed ruby orbs to beryl orbs

I changed SY to Signet of Judgement. Using this signet with this build means I’m running around 3150 armor (based off the math). I decided to use oils over the stone because it is more DPS, it isn’t by much so either does suffice. I also switched to some valk pieces for the added Health. With any WWW bonuses you should have plenty.

As for the discussion on the ideals of the guardian; well, I agree that we an amazing support profession. I currently have two builds that I run, an offensive orientated / support build and a bunker support build.

After months of playing these two ways, I want something different. Anet gave us the tools to be DPS focused and I want to try and utilize them.

Actually the OP has 2k more health than me due to running soldiers trinkets. I just have more crit instead. I do need to go through though and look at my gear to min/max stats since I kind of just bought my gear and went from there without thinking about what values are best where.

Bakitten291:

Actually the OP has 2k more health than me due to running soldiers trinkets. I just have more crit instead. I do need to go through though and look at my gear to min/max stats since I kind of just bought my gear and went from there without thinking about what values are best where.

I had to edit the post and fix some math errors. The hp is a little less then what was originally posted. It is about 300 less.

Blasino.3128:

After digesting all the thoughts and discussion I made some more changes.

Bash per your suggestions:
- I changed to using Sigil of Generosity for a condition removal
- I changed to SoR for another condition removal
- I changed to retributive armor as the increase in crit chance is worth it
- I changed ruby orbs to beryl orbs

I changed SY to Signet of Judgement. Using this signet with this build means I’m running around 3150 armor (based off the math). I decided to use oils over the stone because it is more DPS, it isn’t by much so either does suffice. I also switched to some valk pieces for the added Health. With any WWW bonuses you should have plenty.

As for the discussion on the ideals of the guardian; well, I agree that we an amazing support profession. I currently have two builds that I run, an offensive orientated / support build and a bunker support build.

After months of playing these two ways, I want something different. Anet gave us the tools to be DPS focused and I want to try and utilize them.

Signet of judgement is another good choice, and one I ran with for a long while. Once you get used to the more offensive style gameply though i found that bane signet was also very much worth it as it gives 90 more power, and gives you that added cc. Also the damage is pretty decent, being able to crit at about 1500 damage.

As far as SoR goes i am up in the air on it. It heals more and gives the added condition removal, but shelter also makes you almost immune for its duration and the synergy with valor 25 is crazy. Timing it during an enemy’s multi hit attacks can net you and easy 8+ stacks of might that lasts for 15 seconds. I love using it on guardians when they WW because it is pretty much the fight ender.

Bakitten291:

Blasino.3128:

After digesting all the thoughts and discussion I made some more changes.

Bash per your suggestions:
- I changed to using Sigil of Generosity for a condition removal
- I changed to SoR for another condition removal
- I changed to retributive armor as the increase in crit chance is worth it
- I changed ruby orbs to beryl orbs

I changed SY to Signet of Judgement. Using this signet with this build means I’m running around 3150 armor (based off the math). I decided to use oils over the stone because it is more DPS, it isn’t by much so either does suffice. I also switched to some valk pieces for the added Health. With any WWW bonuses you should have plenty.

As for the discussion on the ideals of the guardian; well, I agree that we an amazing support profession. I currently have two builds that I run, an offensive orientated / support build and a bunker support build.

After months of playing these two ways, I want something different. Anet gave us the tools to be DPS focused and I want to try and utilize them.

Signet of judgement is another good choice, and one I ran with for a long while. Once you get used to the more offensive style gameply though i found that bane signet was also very much worth it as it gives 90 more power, and gives you that added cc. Also the damage is pretty decent, being able to crit at about 1500 damage.

As far as SoR goes i am up in the air on it. It heals more and gives the added condition removal, but shelter also makes you almost immune for its duration and the synergy with valor 25 is crazy. Timing it during an enemy’s multi hit attacks can net you and easy 8+ stacks of might that lasts for 15 seconds. I love using it on guardians when they WW because it is pretty much the fight ender.

You make a great point on shelter and realized that is why I chose it in the first place =). So I switched back to it, and decided to try Inscribed Removal for now. I may try Bane Signet later for the added power and a CC.

I almost have the gold to implement it make changes as needed. Math only does so much =).

Thanks for your help!

No problem. If you find the build doesnt suit your tastes i would look up amins and oozo as both of them run different dps builds as well. Im not sure what oozo runs other than a hammer build, bit amins runs a 30/10/30/0/0 build with the same weapons I use. However he runs more offensive stats than I do and has close to 100 crit damage. But both him and oozo have drawn some attention as far as dps goes so i would totally look them up.

Edit: oops my bad Oozo runs a offensive support, still his stats are more damage based though so it might be an option for you.

Something I tested out last night if you prefer to use a hammer instead of sword/offhand, go with 10/25/30/0/5 and switch to AH and run SYG and HTL. along with judges. Works very nicely in a group set up compared to the 10/30/30. Also with burning on your target you can get some nice 5-6k MB crits also the added control from the hammer is good against people you just cant burst down that quickly.

sort of on the side but still related ; ))

@Bash – crazy, cause one of the builds i was experimenting with is exactly 10/25/30/0/5. i don’t plan to focus on one handed weapons, so i went up to the traits that give extra dmg to foes with conditions / burning. and this is actually my variation of the “coldhearted” build from that thread a while back. the survivability is pretty decent (running with mix of valkyrie and knight’s gear for this build). glacial heart trait and hydromancy sigils to maximize “chill” / condition uptime. so i try to switch when i can. so far it’s been rpetty fun and hit hard enough! still experimenting to make it more effective.

and iirc Oozo runs 0/15/20/15/20. and yes, DPS support. hit’s like a truck still, great survivability (watch his videos to see his movement and skill rotation, use of terrain) and offers lot of utility and control to his group.

myself, i’ve been running standard AH build (which i still go back to every so often) but been recently medding with other builds, some more bunker, some more DPS and having a lot of fun. ; )) so keep at it and keep tweaking your build so something that you find both enjoyable and effective.

Bakitten291:

Something I tested out last night if you prefer to use a hammer instead of sword/offhand, go with 10/25/30/0/5 and switch to AH and run SYG and HTL. along with judges. Works very nicely in a group set up compared to the 10/30/30. Also with burning on your target you can get some nice 5-6k MB crits also the added control from the hammer is good against people you just cant burst down that quickly.

You know after playing this build for the past few days I was missing the hammer. Matter in fact the dps from sword/torch was so impressive that I sometimes forgot to switch to my greatsword.

I admit I am still clunky with this offensive gameplay instead of bunkering or running a hyrbid support build.

I was thinking of switching out Greatsword with the Hammer mainly for the control options like you said. This build lacks the control options and the hammer work so dang well with JI.

I’m glad you offered the sigil of generosity advice, because it is a really nice sigil. The transferring of conditions is great. Makes sense why its not in pvp.

The one thing I’ve tried and did the math on is signet of judgement vs bane signet. Signet of judgement is really good… I mean really really good. It outpaces bane by a significant amount. If I wanted to I could switch out all the knight’s pieces for zerker and still have more survivability and and do more dps then running the current build with bane signet (something I’m considering).

I’m surprised no one has looked that deep into signet of judgement and if they did I missed it.

akamon.2769:

sort of on the side but still related ; ))

@Bash – crazy, cause one of the builds i was experimenting with is exactly 10/25/30/0/5. i don’t plan to focus on one handed weapons, so i went up to the traits that give extra dmg to foes with conditions / burning. and this is actually my variation of the “coldhearted” build from that thread a while back. the survivability is pretty decent (running with mix of valkyrie and knight’s gear for this build). glacial heart trait and hydromancy sigils to maximize “chill” / condition uptime. so i try to switch when i can. so far it’s been rpetty fun and hit hard enough! still experimenting to make it more effective.

and iirc Oozo runs 0/15/20/15/20. and yes, DPS support. hit’s like a truck still, great survivability (watch his videos to see his movement and skill rotation, use of terrain) and offers lot of utility and control to his group.

myself, i’ve been running standard AH build (which i still go back to every so often) but been recently medding with other builds, some more bunker, some more DPS and having a lot of fun. ; )) so keep at it and keep tweaking your build so something that you find both enjoyable and effective.

Thank you for your encouragement =). I appreciate it!

So update:

-I miss the hammer a lot and this build lacks control options. I’ll be replacing the greatsword with the hammer for testing.
-Signet of Judgement is kitten good (I actually wrote kitten haha). The scary thing about it? The more armor you have the better it scales. For example, with the current armor of 2832, running signet of judgement is basically giving 3146 armor (314 difference). If you were to have 3200 armor let’s say then with the signet you are at 3555 (355 difference). And it takes off 10% from condition damage =).
-Torch is a pretty nice off-hand. I’m a torch newbie so new things are amazing to me. I’m trying to see if right-hand strength applies to it. More testing is needed. The number 5 attack is ranged and it has tracking which is pretty nice.
-I changed one of the orbs to ruby. Its for a ticky tacky reason, but this is to maximize stats. I had a .7% cut from the crit chance with the orignal setup. By moving one orb to ruby it pushes it to the next percent leaving only a .4% cut.
-Like I said above, I’m considering changing out some of the knight’s gear. Signet of judgement will make up for the lost toughness.

I really wish I could record my crappy gameplay =), but alas I lack the real-life resources.

Off-note: I’m very happy on how accurate my spreadsheets were in calculating the numbers before actually implementing it.

Archer.1658:

Bakitten291:

Archer.1658:

Too much focus on DPS. You would get 2 shot by any glass cannon thief and 1 shot by any glass cannon warrior. You shouldn’t be playing guardian as a warrior. I also see a huge lack of condition removal.

Actually you are wrong, love getting jumped by thieves since I can 2 shot them, also I have never been one shot by a warrior even when eating a full 100b. And how about we let people play the class how they want to. Instead of telling people what they should or should not do with the class.

Annnnnyways. I should update that guide some. I switched some sigils and went to omnomberry pies to complement the monks focus on the build. I run accuracy/generosity on sword/focus and run generosity on my GS as well. I dropped contemplation of purity for bane signet, and switched my valor traits to condition removal, toughness to perc and kept monk’s focus.

Also i dropped the sword damage trait for signet cooldown, but could also replace it with signet removes condition if you still feel you suffer conditions too much. Also i switched to straight beryl orbs in my armor, since i wanted the added vit/crit damage. And finally I moved to sharpening stones because it was an overall damage increase over the oil.

So now the build has 3 forms of condition removal (2 every 10 seconds and a 20 second on demand, 2 healing sources (food/ meditations) and added passive power with an on use CC that does decent damage (crits for about 1.5k for me) I sit around 70% crit with 1hand sword and about 45 ish with the GS. 3k attack with 1h, 3.1 with gs, 2800ish armor and 13.5k health with 1h and around 15k with GS (gs is valk, cant rember if i mentioned that in the build)

By all means play the class the way you want. Just note that it isn’t going to be effective. No matter how good a “dps” guardian seems, a balance will always outshine it. My Stats just to brag: 3050 Attack, 3100 Armor, 70% Crit Damage, 31% Crit Chance, 17k Life. No Food either. Not only am I more “tanky” but I dish out practically dish out the same dps. But again, its impossible to impose the way you play on others. So go ahead and play a guardian like a warrior.

Screenshots or it didn’t happen on those stats.

I used signet of judgement for a while back when vigor on crit had no cd. I mess with it every now and then but was never a fan of having a utility that I am too afraid to actually use. i may look back into it with my current build but im not sure when I will have a chance to mess with it next.

Relentliss.2170:

I would suggest trying Scepter and Torch out. IMHO they are better than Sword and Torch.

I just did that and you are right, Scepter and Torch are MUCH better. I love it. Thank You for the idea.

So for my other changes:

- Tried Hammer, and even though I love it: Its a no go. GS outshines it in this build.
- Took five away from Radiance and put it into Virtues. The trait is just too powerful to ignore. Its so helpful for yourself and your allies.
- Changed Radiance Traits to: Signet Mastery and Incribed Renewal
- Changed from Shelter to Signet of Resolve
- Changed from Signet of Judgement to Save Yourselves
- Changed to Omnomberry Pies. Bash you are right these help a ton.
- Changed another Beryl orb to Ruby. Dumb Crit Chance Cut off again.

This setup is pretty awesome now. The sceptre and torch applies pressure from a distance and torch can hit pretty dang hard. The Zealot’s Chain attack applies vulnerability due to the skill and trait.

I have plenty of condition removal.

Omnomberry Pies help with survivability a lot.

The build will be final soon. Currently I’m looking into the math to include ascend items.

Made some updates to the build. Added ascended gear and info section.

I’m really enjoying this build and its pretty flushed out now. I hope others will use it and enjoy it also.