Guild Wars 2

Currently I have been using a random build and I am not sure if I am just hurting myself or what anymore. I try to play a Tank Type style but I use Gsword more than anything and often switch to a Sword/Shield for knockbacks, blind, and a teleport. Been using Meditations as my off skills and healing Signet for the higher heal.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#7|0|3527|12641|12643|1311|4501|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|30|1389|2175|1396|20|866|1400|0|20|2177|2176|0|2|9|0|61745|28040|49966|53497|49963|53496|53498|21025|48789|48789|48789|48789|48789|

I need help lol. Any advice given would be great.
I’m just used to playing Ret/Prot Pally from WoW days I need to stop comparing Guardian to pally and come up with a build that works best for me that i can use without feeling like I am kittening myself.

I’m by no means an expert, but here’s my thinking (I’m assuming you’re talking pve)

I personally find no use in using retaliation in PvE. Most of the time the battles are too short and don’t deal enough damage to cause a huge impact, so I’d take the 10 from virtues. If you want to be a support Guard I’d say put the 10 from virtues into Honor and get Pure of Voice and then switch Monk’s Focus for Altruistic Healing. Then you can use Hold the Line and Stand Your Ground to support your team and heal yourself. Now with this set up every third strike of GS chain will heal you because of might, using any virtue will heal you twice, and using Symbol of Wrath gives you Aoe Pulse heal. It’s not a lot per boon but it adds up.

Or if you want you can switch gear to have high crit chance and do the same thing with Empowering Might, but have slightly higher damage with lower health/toughness.

It’s all preference but there’s a lot of different combinations

CnaeusDane.2938:

I’m by no means an expert, but here’s my thinking (I’m assuming you’re talking pve)

I personally find no use in using retaliation in PvE. Most of the time the battles are too short and don’t deal enough damage to cause a huge impact, so I’d take the 10 from virtues. If you want to be a support Guard I’d say put the 10 from virtues into Honor and get Pure of Voice and then switch Monk’s Focus for Altruistic Healing. Then you can use Hold the Line and Stand Your Ground to support your team and heal yourself. Now with this set up every third strike of GS chain will heal you because of might, using any virtue will heal you twice, and using Symbol of Wrath gives you Aoe Pulse heal. It’s not a lot per boon but it adds up.

Or if you want you can switch gear to have high crit chance and do the same thing with Empowering Might, but have slightly higher damage with lower health/toughness.

It’s all preference but there’s a lot of different combinations

Well I mostly do PVE and WvW. So that might help.

Greatsword is pretty much undebatably the best guardian weapon. It has the best DPS and AOE control and benefits from the most traits. I would just stick with whatever you’re doing with it since you’re not going to get anything better for the most part (although I haven’t looked at your actual build). The only other real option for DPS is scepter, but you need 30 in Radiance for that to really maximize DPS, and it drops off a lot for multiple targets due to the way Smite works.

I wouldn’t worry about “tanking” in this game, at least not with guardian. 30 in Valor gives you Altruistic Healing as well as extra crit damage, so it’s basically your best bet for both offense and defense. You can spec full DPS and still be tanky as can be so long as you have at least 5 points in Honor for Vigorous Precision.

In fact, going too “tanky” or “supporty” actually makes you a liability to your team, since you do less damage and thus the rest of your party will be taking more since nothing is dying. You’ll also be a liability to yourself since you’ll take days to kill anything, and that’s no fun either.

As far as trait spreads go, I recommend going 10/0/30/30/0. The only “mandatory” traits are Altruistic Healing and Empowering Might, although i recommend you take Fiery Wrath as well. It’s a very strong DPS-oriented spread (if not the strongest, at least for GS) that just happens to have a lot of extra defensive buffs as well. Can’t go wrong.