Guild Wars 2

Guardian of Balthazaar

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNAS5elYg67WFyLEg9ERWBRi9Qjw/jXPcYCZIA;TEBg0ynEOJdStlSLKjMGJMyakzIpRrMGVcIYbxLCA

(copy and paste link to make it work)

This is to be used in conjunction with the Lemongrass Poultry soup which gives -40% condition duration and +70 Vitality. Overall it will give -65% condition duration which will make conditions go from you VERY quick (any bleed or poison less than 5 seconds is a joke) Also with the reduced stun rate it also helps.

The tactic used with this build is a line breaker style of play. Generally you charge straight into the centre of enemy lines or into the back of enemy lines where all the squishy targets are then activate the wall of reflection and stand your ground for the 5.5 seconds of stability.

As you are now protected from all range attacks (make sure you stay inside the wall and the melee classes have now turned around to attack you (which means in about 3 seconds your team will have broken their lines) you will focus on doing damage and surviving. If no one attacks you then you have the option of choosing one side or the other of the wall to attack so you will be guarded from behind from ranged attacks.

Activate the hounds of Balthazaar for the extra damage AoE and single target but also for the extra healing this will give you from your hammer symbol (around 100hp per hound per tick depending on your healing power) This greatly increases your survivability as with every proc of the protection boon on them you gain healing. With them in your symbols you gain healing as well as healing from EM that they also receive. Their damage also softens up the squishes and tanks ready for you to go on a rampage. Pop a heal if you need to.

For 5.5 seconds the enemies have unloaded all their bursts and CC skills onto you with very little effect which now gives you more than enough time to start your wrecking spree with your AoE skills (I use hammer so my main damage skill is Mighty blow which crits for about 3k-4k a pop (on a 5 sec cooldown this does more prolonged damage than whirling wrath which does a little bit less damage on a 10 second cooldown)

Now is the time to go on the offensive. Activate “Save yourself” (if you havent already done so) for all necessary boons and in case there was still someone with a CC skill that used it on you. You should now have Fury, Might, Swiftness and all the other goodies to help you go on a rampage behind enemy lines.

By this time, your allies would have rushes to your side and the collapse of the zerg is complete.

This build replaces the need for speed buffs (retreat) with staff 3 for mobility and extra healing.

You can replace signet of resolve for shelter to gain a smaller heal but giving you about 20 stacks of might for the 2 seconds your blocking the entire zerg attacking you. Then unleash hell with an AoE

In PvE it also works for tanking 10+ mobs as your reflection and retaliation plus AoE hounds and hammer will mean you survive anything and kill anything (My personal test on tanking is to face tank the Champion ooze king in Orr. If a build can’t face tank it, its not a good enough tank build)

Enjoy being godly

In PvP you will need to change your elite to Renewed Focus. A 3 sec invulnerable plus around 4k healing + boons is very powerful.

this is a nice change without re-specing (if your using the standard AH build)

what does your gear look like? I know the build editor shows runes and trinkets but thats all s-pvp stuff. What are you using when your in wvw?

knights helm and POW/Tough/VIT armour. There is enough there to survive a lot of damage and still maintain good damage.

Runes are still melandru as it is quite essential to the build. It has to be combined with food to give you -65% con duration. You simply wont need to worry about conditions.

Trinkets I also use berserker for the damage.

Extremely tough to kill and have the damage out put to kill any class with ease. Even d/d elementalist and other guardians.

Hmm Interesting. Have you thought about swapping out Strength in Numbers for Retributive Armor? That would give you an extra 4% crit chance.

Hate to burst your bubble, but Racial Skills cannot be used in sPvP.

@tyber i prefer the extra toughness as it is vital to survival when 10 people are attacking you.

@dream i use this build in PvE/WvW for sPvP i switch the racial for renewed focus. The set up is still pretty much the same.

Ok, I almost have enough for the power/toughness/vitality set. (Currently using the power/precision/healing karma set)

What stat do you prefer on your wep? Zerker like your trinkets?

Oh and could you post a screenie of your stats?

On hammer i use superior earth (60%chance to bleed on crit) as the extra condition damage does come in handy. Alternatively you can go superior accuracy for higher crit chance.

For the actual weapon itself i used iron fist stats (pow/prec/crit dmg %)

The staff i dont really swap to unless i need the 4 heal or the speed buff from 3. It is also very handy for fort defence. Enemies cannot build rams at gste if you use staff1 to shoot through it

Staff i currently use in PvE is a pow/tough/vit from AC.

I will post my stats when i get home.

Thanx for the response.
I knew about the staff/gate trick. I use staff alot in wvw. Staff is great for zreging around the map. When your zreg stops to attack something I pop #4 to buff my zreg mates, #2 for the bowling ball plus heal, spam 1 for some aoe goodness, then switch to hammer or gs. Oh I almost forgot #5 on staff. Blocking run aways and watching them fall down is crazy fun. Or when attacking a tower and some idiot invader jumps down to get like 2 hits in before he runs for the door. Cast #5 near door and laugh.

Ok, so I have been getting some whispers in game asking me the exact details of the PvE side to this build.

Here goes.

http://postimage.org/image/h033c9p11/
With food (lemongrass poultry soup) you get 16,565hp

Like I mentioned, you can drop the superior sigil of blood and get a superior sigil of accuracy for an extra 5% crit chance

Power 1883
toughness 1618
Crit dmg 74%
Healing 320

Even though it does not have 3k armour, the Juggernaut is able to withstand much more damage due to its constant proc of -33% damage boon (protection) over a large area (large symbols). So even if you are taking damage you can still roll around and get healed as well as still get the protection boon.

The build itself is quite reliant on the food for controlling conditions but you can go without it if you don’t have any. Alternatively use the omnomberry pie to heal the damage done by conditions as you will be doing a lot of aoe crits from mighty blow and hammer chain.

This build has won 4v1 (2 lowers and 2 80’s) and today won a 3v1 (1 lower and 2 80’s) in WvW.

copy & paste doesn’t work for me. what traits do you run with?

Valour 30 – Retributive armour, Strength in numbers, Altruistic healing
Honour 30 – Writ of exaltation, Empowering might, Writ of the merciful
Virtue 10 – Retaliatory subconcious

Alternative you can use a 0/5/30/30/5 with just as good effect as the AoE blind helps a lot when inside a zerg.

This build is perfect for me. I just happen to have a human guardian with karma power/toughness/vit armor set lying around the inventory. Looks like I don’t even have to re-trait even if my traits are not 100% the same. I will give this a go, thanks for sharing.

KensaiZen.3740:

Ok, so I have been getting some whispers in game asking me the exact details of the PvE side to this build.

Here goes.

http://postimage.org/image/h033c9p11/
With food (lemongrass poultry soup) you get 16,565hp

Like I mentioned, you can drop the superior sigil of blood and get a superior sigil of accuracy for an extra 5% crit chance

Power 1883
toughness 1618
Crit dmg 74%
Healing 320

Even though it does not have 3k armour, the Juggernaut is able to withstand much more damage due to its constant proc of -33% damage boon (protection) over a large area (large symbols). So even if you are taking damage you can still roll around and get healed as well as still get the protection boon.

The build itself is quite reliant on the food for controlling conditions but you can go without it if you don’t have any. Alternatively use the omnomberry pie to heal the damage done by conditions as you will be doing a lot of aoe crits from mighty blow and hammer chain.

This build has won 4v1 (2 lowers and 2 80’s) and today won a 3v1 (1 lower and 2 80’s) in WvW.

I apologize if you are sick of these questions if it was whispered to you a lot before, but it’s not posted here.

For PvE, what weapons do you use mainly and initiate with? In your link it showed Hammer and Mace/Shield. Then you mentioned using the staff for PvE. So I’m assuming you use Mace/Shield and Staff? Do you usually use the Mace/Shield while tanking in combat, but what do you use the staff for? With your stats, Symbol of Faith with the mace will heal 2,940 hp while the staffs empower only does 1500 hp over the same 4 seconds. Am I missing something?

And thanks for you sharing your build!

Using this build, hammer is the main weapon of choice. Its damage output is just as good as going GS but with added survivability and more CC. It really depends how many mobs you are tanking to know whether you use mace/shield or staff.

Mace shield for the more extreme tankers. Plant symbol, pop shield 5, colapse 5. Alot of healing and much needed breathing space. However, it doesnt work as well with the hounds of balthazaar.

Empower may give less healing but it gives 12 stacks of might to you and the hounds (should be more than 1500hp healing with AH and 2 hounds getting might)

I carry 3 sets of armour and all weapons so i swith quite often depending on situation. My play style in PvE is to gather mobs and kill which makes the hammer out perform any weapon.

OOoh I see. Thanks a lot for the clarification. I knew I was missing something!

You know what i’m calling you out on this, post a video of you doing PvE with this. Show your armor and all, then i want to see you facetank any champion in cursed shore alone and not go down once with that hammer. Then gather up 10+ mobs and kill them all at once without going down. I just tried everything you put there and YEAH RIGHT

War.2493:

You know what i’m calling you out on this, post a video of you doing PvE with this. Show your armor and all, then i want to see you facetank any champion in cursed shore alone and not go down once with that hammer. Then gather up 10+ mobs and kill them all at once without going down. I just tried everything you put there and YEAH RIGHT

I am not fully using his set up, as I still use my old full knight set and berserker trinkets, I actually only swapped my soldier rune set out for melandru and use the lemongrass poultry soup. With roughly 16k HP, 3k armor and 2.8k attack and 45% crit chance (still using my AH trait set up), I tanked the Melandru Risen Priest in the event yesterday, with an additional Champion Risen Gorilla on me. We were 3 people completing the event, I tanked the boss while an ele and a thief did the dps. I gotta say, I didn’t exactly face tank it, but I still took the hits, dodged CC though.

So this is definetely doable, as long as you know your character and when to dodge.

They’ve removed the champion ooze king from orr but i’ll see if i can get a video of face tanking the champion at the skill point next to shelters camp.

Last time i did this was with another guardian. Just left it on auto attack to win.

I’m at 2.8k attack, 34% crit, 2.9k armor and 14.5k life, using your setup except for lacking a couple berserker trinkets. I went to Southsun Cove to try it out after i went to Orr. Just 1 of those Young Karka’s or whatever they are, face tanking them with a hammer and then with a mace/shield setup. Would always take me down to less then half life.

Personally I would suggest changing the Strength in Numbers trait to Defender’s Flame. If you plan to stack might in a zerg, you might as well condition hem all with loads of burning. I also think that the 0/5/30/30/5 trait build would work well, the five on Radiance for the purpose of sPvP if you plan to burst your virtues and Renew. The AoE blind from Justice gives some cover after you burst your might, as well as an after stack.

War.2493:

I’m at 2.8k attack, 34% crit, 2.9k armor and 14.5k life, using your setup except for lacking a couple berserker trinkets. I went to Southsun Cove to try it out after i went to Orr. Just 1 of those Young Karka’s or whatever they are, face tanking them with a hammer and then with a mace/shield setup. Would always take me down to less then half life.

As for this, did you remember to block/dodge their initial water jet burst face tanking? Standing there in a single spot really doesn’t help when fighting in PvE as possible as it is, especially against something like a Karka.

War.2493:

I’m at 2.8k attack, 34% crit, 2.9k armor and 14.5k life, using your setup except for lacking a couple berserker trinkets. I went to Southsun Cove to try it out after i went to Orr. Just 1 of those Young Karka’s or whatever they are, face tanking them with a hammer and then with a mace/shield setup. Would always take me down to less then half life.

If your fighting a Karka, use WoR as soon as you initiate combat. This will make them shoot themselves for half their own health. The rest is just cake.

Even though you face tank. You still have to use Guardian mitigation skills. Block with aegis when you see a big hit coming. Blind with VoJ (if traited).

Fighting a karka on southsun cove you will never drop below 90% hp. The only way it will happen is if you just let them use their mega damage tail attack on you.

ok here is the vid of me face tanking a champion in orr