Guild Wars 2

I’ve played GW2 since it started with my first and favorite character a guardian, I have however spent the last few weeks levelling and playing new necromancer and warrior characters for variety and to get a different perspective on the game.

Coming back to my guardian I’m considering refreshing my build and would welcome any advice:
http://tinyurl.com/bpxv3mb

[edit: anyone know how to make my link work? I’m just using [url][/url] tags atm address works if cut and paste but Bad Link from above]

I mostly play PVE but some dungeon and WvW not often enough to merit a separate equipment setup.

Weapons:
Rampagers Greatsword (Power Precision Condition Damage) with Sup Rune of Force (+5%dam)
Rampagers Staff (Power Precision Condition Damage) with Sup Rune of Earth (Bleeding on Crit)

Armor:
I went for Arcon Karma Exotics as this was higher raw defence than rares and attainable when I was gold poor. (overall 101CD 146HP 68PW 176PR 120TO 152VI)

To this I added 6 Superior Runes of the Wurm as it seemed a good mix of Survivability & Damage (Vitality Crit Dam Dam)

Trinkets:
I went for pure Valkyrie (Power Toughness CritDam Healing)

Skills:
I always have Signet of Resolve, Save Yourself, Purging Flames and vary the other utility often Judges Intervention Retreat or Stand Your Ground .
I’ve not found an elite skill I really like but often default to Tome of Wrath.

Traits:
30/10/0/20/10
Honor 1 Virtues II and Save Yourself work together
Zeal II, Radiance III and Purging Flames work together
Other Traits buff my greatsword

Looking back on the build now it feels a little all over the place, it works but I’m sure could be better.
Reading many forum threads on guardian builds I can see many “This is the only way to build a good guardian” explanations but these tend to disagree with each other.

I would therefore welcome any advice or comments.

Many Thanks,

The thing about build suggestions is that it really depends on what you want to do. Guardian will never be a pure DPS class, so for dungeons, you’d want something more tanky/supporty than what you currently have. There are several good builds that all work for both dungeons and WvW, and also for solo PvE, but they tend to be worse at the solo PvE just because they’re more tanky, and therefore you don’t blow through the mobs as fast as you could. That being said, I think that a build that is good for dungeons/WvW and CAN do farming/solo PvE is still better than what you’re currently using, which seems like it would only be usable solo.

I think that the best choice for you would be this build http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASBFVhzCJFiPkiIXg9BAipAjZ86hDpIDB;TgAA1CtoyyklILbWuskZB . Brutaly (the author of the AH hammer guide sticked at the top of the forums) recommends this build, along with Soldier’s gear (Power/Vit/Toughness) as a good starting point. It provides you good solo power, and is still good for dungeons and WvW.

It depends on what you want to do. I assume you like great sword because you have it in your current build. Even though it looks nice on paper drop Zealous Blade. The healing isn’t worth it for what going 30 deep costs. Your stats also seem all over the place. I am running a build right now that uses Great sword and absolutely explodes all normal Orr mobs. I can solo vets easily and Solo Certain Champs depending on their irritating specials. BUT it is much more delicate than the usual AH build. You will have to pay attention to you shouts and dodges if you are trying to face tank.

http://tinyurl.com/c35cm6b

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice.

Yes I use greatsword because it feels better and while I appreciate hammer I just dont enjoy playing with a hammer anything like as much …. so I dont.

Good advice on dropping Zealous Blade, that’ll go when I next log in, the 0/15/30/20/5 setup Kalona suggests looks interesting, I’ll give that a try otherwise revert back to something closer to what I’ve got now maybe 20(II VII) 5 5 30 (I IX XII) 10 (IV)

In terms of updating my setup I guess the steps are:

1. Replace my Rampagers (Pw Pr Cd) to something else … maybe a dungeon gs (Pw To Vi) ???

2. Replace my Karma Exotic Armour (mix of stats all over) to something else … maybe Knights Draconian (Pw Pr To) ???

3. While I quite like Sup Rune of Wurm if I’m replacing armour then I could move this to Sup Rune of Soldier (same Vi, replaces crit dam with toughness, and damage with condition removal)

Trinkets I’d probably leave where they are, I quite like the Vi (and so HP) boost they give.

Any more advice would be gratefully received.

My setup’s 0/15/0/30/25

I tried respeccing a few times, this seems to be my favorite setup. It’s a balance between defensive(healing/vitality) and support/offensive through boons. I find with this spec, compared to raw power(30 in zeal), it feels about a 30% damage output difference when killing things. But I looove my extended boons for trekking terrains solo. I cannot live without my boons basically, lol. I also alternate play with groups and this setup give me versatility in changing my trait abilities on the fly without respecing.

I usually ask myself what weapon I want to run that day. Then its a choice between Right Hand Strength for 1h or AH/2H Mastery for GSword/Staff or AH for Hammer.

I like either 10/30/20/10/0 for RHS, 0/0/30/30/10 for GS/Staff or 0/15/30/20/5 for hammer. These builds seem to have good survivability and support with OK damage depending on your gear. 20/0/30/20/0 is good for GSword also.

Wall of Reflection and the summoned Shield are both great skills, they almost trivialize some fights that use projectiles.

I’ve decided to gear more offensively with a mix of Zerkers and Soldiers. Boon Duration runes for Hammer are nice to keep Protection going or just simply trait WoP. Otherwise I have been using Orbs until I really nail down what I like to play which may never happen. 13k hitpoints is manageable with the right setup.

I’m experimenting with a PvE build, don’t think it would be much good in WvW but may have potential in PvP. Its a bit squisy but I’m tweeking it to see what I can do with it. It throws big numbers and you need a proactive play style but its interesting.

GL out there,

Blood