Guild Wars 2

PVE. I don’t play the other game modes, so no idea if this works there. Also note that my topic title isn’t meant to be taken literally, I just really wanted to use the LotR quote.

I’ve been using a 0/15/30/20/5 (http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#7|0|3527|3406|3410|1311|3411|0|0|0|0|15|1828|0|0|30|2281|2175|1395|20|866|2274|0|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|49978|49978|49978|49978|49978|0|0|0|0|0|0|) with full Knight’s armor and full Berserkers jewelry and GS. My Second weapon is a staff (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Silence) and I only really use it for swiftness and the awesome might stacking/AH healing it gives. My sigils are constantly changing but right now I’m using Superior Sigil of Restoration on my GS (can change anytime…) and Superior Sigil of Leeching on my staff (just trying it out in general).

With this build I can spam Virtue of Justice whenever I kill an enemy (great in mobs) which blinds the enemies clustered around me, gives burning to everybody’s weapon around me, gives 3 might to everybody around me and myself, and heals me for 72*3 per person given might (including myself). I use my utilities as stun breakers (a lot of AC runs). The vast majority of my criticals (all crits, separated by about 1 sec cooldown) gives everybody and myself a stack of might (Empowering Might) which also heals me for 72 per person affected. The last thing of note is that each time I use a healing skill I get a random boon (Runes of Lyssa) and whenever I use my elite skill I get every boon for 5 seconds which is a 648 heal, not much but it is extra.

To be honest though, my topic isn’t really about my build. I wanted to share it for anybody wanting a great build (imho) that does quite a bit of damage but also has very nice survivability in large group events. The great thing about this build is that there are traits and utility skills and even a secondary weapon that could all be changed and change very little so there is a lot of customization to be had. What I was wanting was to change my build for a change of pace but when I tried I ran into this problem, I was never gaining enough damage to make up for the huge hit to survivability. It always seemed like a bad trade off.

So my question to everybody is, what builds do you use that offer more damage (than mine) but isn’t very squishy? But if you also have questions or comments on my current build I’d be happy to answer or respond to them as well.

Side note: Please don’t give me builds focused on the hammer. I despise the hammer only because of how slow it feels. I’m not saying that it is bad but I can’t stand playing with it personally. Just a personal opinion.

I use a 30/0/10/30 build with Fiery Wrath, Greatsword Power, Zealous Blade, Writ of Exaltation (Symbols are Larger), Writ of the Merciful (Symbols Heal) and Two Handed Mastery.
The Valor one I pick either Retributive Armor, Meditation Mastery or Purity depending on my utilities.

I use a full Soldier set (Armor and Trinkets) with Valkyrie Gems, Knight Weapon and Rune of the Pack. Greatsword and Staff.
This means high power, high vitality, high armor, low crit chance (20% sigil’ed) and damage (25%).

I’ve been using this build since I can remember, after testing a bunch of others, and I found this to have the highest attack while still giving me a high survivability.
I use it to solo everything, even some really difficult group events and huge packs of mobs.

Symbol of Wrath gives retaliation that deals about 450~ damage due the high power, heals for 130~, and Zealous Blade is just to help a bit with some 25~ per hit. It heals for more than Altruistic Healing in solo situations and even more depending on how many mobs I’m facing.
My autoattacks don’t crit often, but they still hurt a lot (I get 900~1500 non crit hits on average, 700~1200 on high armored targets).

I sometimes switch to the Staff for a Line of Warding + Wall of Reflection when the swap CD is less than 5 secs, then Empower + Symbol of Swiftness, Swap, Symbol of Wrath + Whirling Wrath.
This basically “resurrects” me from low health to nearly 100% everytime, allowing me to even tank the hits of champions you’re not supposed to take damage from for some time every 10~15 secs.
Symbols are enhanced by the Zeal so this also deals 5~8 stacks of Vulnerability and the damage is about half to 2/3 of my auto-attack.

I find this build so OP that I think it was one of the reason they increased the CD on Symbol of Wrath (when this was 8 secs traited I was un-killable as long as I stood inside my Symbols), and the worst part is that playing another profession at 80 (Elementalist) doesn’t feel as powerful as this.

For farming (Orr usually) I always try to pull the most I can, which is usually 3~12 depending on the area and I end these fights in seconds with between 80%~100% health all the time unless there’s a heavy hitter or CCer in the middle.

I recommend this build for testing, I used to use it with full Valkyrie set so I had really low armor and high crit damage (which I didn’t really use) but it was still manageable with all the passive healing. With Soldier’s I feel like a walking fortress =)

I tried your build in FotM and I found the damage to be a decent bit better but my survivability to have tanked. Thy symbols just couldn’t heal fast enough.

I also found something else out, the build I run is also the exact same build I would run if I wanted meditation healing. All you have to do is change out the 3 traits in valor for meditations and change the others to things you like and bam. Two builds in one.

I stumbled on the same spec while looking for a good farming build and I love it for farming events out in Orr.

By running knight’s armor and full berserker’s trinkets you are utilizing the minor stat /crit damage ratios well.

You can look at the build I’m working on to see what I mean: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Nina-Guardian-WWW-build/first#post1363159

Hi Daedalus, I run your very same build (I mean EXACTLY the same), the only differences lie in main weapon and sigil/runes. I hope to find a way to improve my build as well, maybe we can help each other.
I read that you don’t like it but hammer is imho MUCH better in this build because, among other things, missing 2-handed mastery with a GS is bad, while with hammer it’s not noticeable.
Coming to sigil and runes it’s hard to me to choose the best setup. I run sigil of accuracy because with +5% CC you’ll do more or less +7% damage and you will also heal yourself more by AH (at least with hammer, that is slower than GS). Moreover, respect to the restoration one, it’s useful on bosses too.
I like Lyssa’s but imho (2) is useless if you cannot increase VoJ burning duration of a full second and (4) is too random to be really effective. So i run 2 divinity 2 monks and 2 water because I find +30% boon duration really good on this boon-heavy build.

I have tried the 0/15/30/20/5, I liked it, what bothered me though is that the “justice renew on kill” is good against trash mobs, if you fight veterans or champions it is of no use, and better keep the virtue for the passive effect…

hithlain.4385:

I have tried the 0/15/30/20/5, I liked it, what bothered me though is that the “justice renew on kill” is good against trash mobs, if you fight veterans or champions it is of no use, and better keep the virtue for the passive effect…

Play how you want, but I think it’s silly not to activate virtues, especially with at least 5 points into the trait.

DaedalusDragon I happened across this post yesterday and found it interesting. I never heard of the build before and i always felt like my guardian was sub par of my warrior i still feel that way a bit, but not so much anymore. This build is freakin awesome i loved it i got him set up for 60%boon duration all the retaliation just does nice dmg, and the survivability is strong. Not as much dmg as my warrior no but its good for how many boons im pushing to the group where my warrior only pushes regen. Anyways i love it thanks for the build.

I’m glad you like it =)

I realized some time after posting this that this isn’t an entirely novel concept (lol) and there are many guides about this build.

I’m still trying to figure out another build, one that is different than the normal that offers more damage for less survivability but without going so far as to have paper defenses. I sometimes struggle with finding the guardian’s place in a party. We can give our party a few boons but only 1 or 2 unless you go full boon push build for an extra retaliation or something. Our damage isn’t as high as warriors. And healing our party is not our specialty.

I surprise myself sometimes with just how little I understand the guardian still.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I’m glad you like it =)

I realized some time after posting this that this isn’t an entirely novel concept (lol) and there are many guides about this build.

I’m still trying to figure out another build, one that is different than the normal that offers more damage for less survivability but without going so far as to have paper defenses. I sometimes struggle with finding the guardian’s place in a party. We can give our party a few boons but only 1 or 2 unless you go full boon push build for an extra retaliation or something. Our damage isn’t as high as warriors. And healing our party is not our specialty.

I surprise myself sometimes with just how little I understand the guardian still.

I am running an identical build, except I use soldier jewelries instead of berserkers. May I know what your attributes (Attack, Armor, Crit rate, etc.)?

Daedalus, I’ve seen it suggested many times to run this exact build, but run your gear opposite of what it is. Meaning, Beserkers gear, with some survivability trinkets/runes. Many Guardians running such a build claim to have some of the highest damage available while still being wildly survivable.

It’s a testament to the design of guardians, that we can use traits to become so survivable that we can use our gear purely for DPS and not suffer for it.

I’ve actually come to that realization recently myself and am in the process of getting berserker’s gear to try it out. I’ll let everyone here know how it goes for me. I hope it works out but as I’m not all that great we’ll see if it works for me =)