Guild Wars 2

I’m returning to GW2 after a pretty long break and trying to come to terms with all of the changes. I’m levelling a Necro and got a lvl 80 Engi and enjoying relearning both.

However, my lvl 80 Guardian is a bit neglected and I want to revisit it.

I mainly play PvE, but may be doing Dungeons with a new guild and also wanting to explore WvW.

I am not a PvP player though.

So any suggested builds/guides and the best class of armour and equipment to get?

I’m probably more interested in support/healing type stuff rather than pure DPS but any build advice is appreciated.

I appreciate I’m probably covering old ground but many of the builds out there pre-date the massive changes to the trait system and I’m a bit confused.

Though to respond to my own question, I’ve just seen the “DPS Guardian for PvE” sticky at the top of this thread and it is very comprehensive – not just for DPS but for Utility builds too.

In my defence the DPS prefix stopped me checking it out…

PvE is primarily a dps meta, conditions and pure support builds are mostly ruled out by game mechanics as far as “efficiency”. You can still run them but majority of the player base sees them as less optimal.

So you should be fine by following Obal’s sticky post.

It’s stickied as DPS because it still does a good damage output, but the meta berserker guardian build is indeed really supportive, you should be fine with it.

DPS builds go after the best support the class offers and puts the rest to damage. The builds in the sticky vary between the amount of support you will need. Going 45005 in general would be all the support you should ever need and gets you near max damage output while doing it. Damage is also a form of support!

Guardian is all about passive support to negate damage with blinds, aegis, projectile defense, stability and condi removal when needed. The main support you would want is renewed justice, master of consecrations, and absolute resolution/indomitable courage based on the need along with the right utilities for the occasion like wall of reflection, shield of the avenger, stand your ground, purging flames, etc and aegis (retreat) for pretty much everything. Healing and tanking don’t work well in the game so you shouldn’t try to build around that kind of support.

Obal said it best. Support is inherit to the class and mainly comes in the form of strong utilities (which mostly are not tied to stats). So basically a full zerk dps guardian supports the party just as well (if not better) than a full cleric healing guardian. You want to use the best DPS gear because of this fact that its your utilites that are the support (wall, virtues w/renewed focus, shield of avenger, retreat, etc.). And these utilities don’t care what your stats are (only reflects which zerk/assassins is best). So therefore the best thing you can do is the most damage you can while using the right utilities to support your party.

should try with mixing up some gear.
your skills and some traits (with maybe some sigils and runes) will take care of your survivability and support of others, leaving you with 6 armor, 5 trinkets and 1-2 weapons with stats that focus on damage.

I know people like going pure damage in pve but how much damage is really needed…?