Guild Wars 2

Hello there, fellow Guardians. This is a build I’ve used for about the past 15 levels (65~80) and have had great success with in overworld PvE as well as dungeons. (Mainly CM, since I need more tokens). The main point of this build is durability and healing power, while being able to toss out quick chunks of heals for your teammates as well. In dungeons, most of the time, the cleric build is in the front lines, tanking and supporting the melee teammates while zipping back and forth to keep an eye on the ranged teammates who may be a bit squishier. Here’s the breakdown of the build.

Traits:
Zeal: 0
Radiance: 15 [Blind Exposure]
Valor: 30 [Retributive Armor] [Honorable Shield] [Altruistic Healer]
Honor: 20 [Superior Aria] [Writ of the Merciful]
Virtues: 5

As for equipment, I’m currently running a full Cleric set (Power/Toughness/Healing Power), from armors to weapons, giving me the extra toughness and healing power which I love.

Weapons:

Main Hand: Scepter/Shield [Sigil of Water] [Sigil of Bloodlust]
Off Hand: Staff [Sigil of Fire]
Optional: Mace, Hammer

Scepter/Shield is used as my main weapon, simply because I enjoy having a ranged attack method. Using the auto attack to bring enemies in, then immobilize->Smite, followed by a weapon swap to staff for Symbol of Swiftness. With the current setup, I have a 16% crit chance, but even with that, the Flame Blast effect from Staff’s Sigil of Fire is a common occurrence in most large group fights.

Utility Skills:
[Retreat!]
[Stand Your Ground]
[Wall of Reflection]/[Hold the Line]

The utility skill choices are simple. From Honor, we have the Superior Aria trait, which gives us a quicker cooldown on the shouts, which in turn are used as quick heals for the Cleric since we’re running Altruistic Healer. Wall of Reflection is switched in and out for ranged enemies that pack a punch, such as Bandit Riflemen, and if you like doing CM Path 3, Vallog. Also, both Retreat and Stand Your Ground are great for getting your teammates out of a pinch, such as being locked down by constant knockdowns (Seamus).

Elite Skill:

[Renewed Focus]

Allows us to recharge all 3 of our Virtues as well as giving us a 3 second window of invincibility. This is a great panic button, and also, with my current gear (All Masterworks), activating all 3 virtues will refill about 1/2 of my character’s health, which means, if you’re in a pinch, activate your virtues, use Renewed Focus and get back into the fight or retreat accordingly while having more than half of your health recharged.

Weapon Skills:

Staff:

Wave of Wrath: Your auto attack is also your best attack in this case. It pushes out a nice sustained damage on up to 5 targets, with Sigil of Fire, the damage actually is quite impressive.

Orb of Light: Slow, long range, manually detonated projectile. Orb of Light is great for pulling enemies, and is also used for a quick pop heal, if you and your allies are within its blast radius. For pulling, simply cast it from its max range, do NOT detonate and lead the enemies to your group’s place of choosing.

Symbol of Swiftness: Buff, heal, AND damage. Symbol of Swiftness, of course, buffs your allies with swiftness, which is great for kiting enemies. Also, so long as they remain within the area, your allies receive a minor heal every pulse. Great support skill for your melee combatants and a good way to contribute to overall damage.

Empower: 12 stacks of Might. This is one of the best buffs you have available and with your trait/equipment setup, a full cast for this skill will heal you back to full. Also heals your allies at the end for a decent amount.

Line of Warding: The best CC skill available to Guardians in my opinion. Line of Waring is a 5 second “wall” that stops enemies from getting through, making ideal setups for your Wave of Wrath and Orb of Light. However, it will NOT protect you from projectiles.

Scepter/Shield:

Orb of Wrath: Your only ranged option as a Guardian. Orb of Wrath has a range of 1200, which allows you to get a few hits in on the enemy before they get up close and personal.

Smite: The Scepter’s best skill in my opinion. Smite is a ground targeted AoE that hits 10 times within the circle. The cooldown is also very short, making this an ideal skill for contributing to group DPS.

Chains of Light: Instant Immobilize with 3 stacks of Vulnerability. Good for keeping a boss in place, and setting up for Smite.

Shield:

Shield of Judgement: Group Protection, it reduces incoming damage by 33%, which is always good, and it also deals damage, while healing your character as well. the cooldown is a bit long, but that’s what weapon swapping is for!

Shield of Absorption: Absorbs projectiles, pushes back enemies without stability, and can be detonated to heal allies. Use this if you see a lightly armored teammate in trouble against enemies.

All in all, my general playstyle is to stay in the front line as much as I can, keeping the enemies away from the rest of the group while keeping my health topped off, simply by attacking and buffing. This build has been one of the most durable I’ve played, and also has been one of the most successful in dungeon runs. While this build may not be putting out the maximum damage output of the Guardian class, it’s a very steady, maintained damage, with the ability to go toe to toe with just about any kind of enemy.

Again, critiques and advice is always welcome, and happy adventuring!

I came up with the exact same build and it’s just absolutely brilliant.

Aye. That trait build is the same one I’m using as well, except I’m going for a Power/Precision/toughness with a splash of vitality, having around 40% crit with a Knight weapon. It’s been the most flexible layout I’ve seen and used, and I’ve yet to need to reset my traits for dungeons, PvE or WvW. Changing weapons, slot skills and trait.skills to match and it’ll do for almost anything the game can throw at you.

What do you use as Healing skill? The one which removes alteration?

I am still not convinced that shield is better than focus.

IMHO, guardian shield (comparing to warrior shield) is very situational and i prefer focus skills
focus 4→ damage and blind foes, regenerate allies
focus 5→ 4 second block or blast finisher.

also shield 5: ‘shield of absorption’ have the same CD as wall of reflection, which is superior…
if we only could trait shield skills to reflect missiles and not only block…

and i really want to like shield… please convince me…

Lalangamena.3694:

I am still not convinced that shield is better than focus.

IMHO, guardian shield (comparing to warrior shield) is very situational and i prefer focus skills
focus 4-> damage and blind foes, regenerate allies
focus 5-> 4 second block or blast finisher.

also shield 5: ‘shield of absorption’ have the same CD as wall of reflection, which is superior…
if we only could trait shield skills to reflect missiles and not only block…

and i really want to like shield… please convince me…

I also thought this myself until i started using shield more more purposes. The shield is a great knock back in pvp or wvwvw, it also as a decent heal too when u blow it up. Imo, the shield is more for a group play as it gives protection for 5 seconds and 3 seconds in pvp ( dunno why they nerfed it) . The shield can be traited in valor to reduce the CD by 20% and give 90 toughness when wielding it. So its not all that bad since valor doesnt have really good traits apart from AH and Retributive armor. However, i would recommend focus for soloing as it does really well at mitigating damage ( possible of 2 blinds and 3 blocks). I usually run out of our zerg and into the enemy zerg, pop stability, knock them all down or off a cliff , pop wall of reflection and run away with block heal. I dunno, it has more control than focus and torch. But shield is more for team play.

I’m using a build that’s rather similar to yours, but less focused on Toughness and more focused on straight-up healing. My main is a Mace/Shield and off is a Staff, and I absolutely love it. The build is as follows:

Zeal: 0
Radiance: 15 [Signet Mastery]
Valor: 0
Honor: 30 [Writ of Exaltation] [Writ of Persistence] [Battle Presence]
Virtues: 25 [Optional] [Absolute Resolution]

Optional Skills:

Hold the Line!
Signet of Judgement (for damage reduction)
Signet of Mercy (Healing bonus, Resurrection)
Elite: Optional

The point of this build is to stack as much healing power as possible and combine that with Battle Presence to deliver constant healing to the group through Virtue of Resolve. There’s that, then there’s your Mace’s Symbol of Faith, which is why I’m specced into Writs of Exaltation and Persistence. The purpose of the Shield is obvious: clutch healing and Protection.

This is primarily a group/self regen build and its sole purpose is to heal as much as possible, and that’s incredibly easy with group-wide perma-regen thanks to Battle Presence, then there’s Hold the Line! when several people are low (it’s CD is only 35 seconds, so use it often), and you should always be using Symbol of Faith when its cooldown ends; drop it on yourself, a group member — anyone that needs some healing. Also, use Superior Dwayna runes with this. If you do, Regeneration should never fade off of you because of the +Boon Duration off of the Virtues tree. This is what provides your resilience even though you lack Toughness; Virtue of Resolve with Absolute Resolution coupled with endless Regeneration gives you several hundred health every second.

Although it isn’t related to healing, the 15 in Radiance is for the Virtue of Justice reset. In dungeons, you should be hitting Virtue of Justice once something is about to die, every single time. The extra damage you can give your group from this is astounding. If you use this a lot, it will definitely make up for your own attacks not hitting that hard, especially if you have a lot of Condition Damage.

I don’t expect this build to do well in PvP; I’ve never tried. I’ve only done explorable dungeons and it has performed extremely well at what I set out to do with it: heal.

About the initial post. I don’t understand something… the thread title is about cleric kind of guardian but… scepter has no Healing possibility, and the chosen utilities not a lot as well.

The last thread before this one is more about Healing, so perhaps more about what we expect from a cleric, don’t you think?

I’m just level 18 so I have not yet all the above… and I’m trying to figure out how to do a Healing guardian, as I always loved to play cleric class.

Someone in game though told me in dungeon with the big boss that can kill you with a few shots, Healing is not that helpful ^^