Guild Wars 2

This is what I’ve come up with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAsf5dlYgiDnGyKEf4Eh1DCiQ/VVIeXPgoDbIA-TwAA1CoI4RxjjHDPSes8MIYJwGjpAA

It’s 10/30/30/0/0, sword+torch/mace+focus. At the onset, I’d like to note that while the current META seems to lean toward pure dps or bunker, I prefer more balanced builds. It’s really just a personal play style preference. I wanna stay with the same weapons and x/30/30/x/x. The thought behind the build is to run with healing meditations and right hand strength, using sword+torch for damage and mace+focus for survivability. A beyond that, I’ve focused mostly on buffing my burns.

I’ve found it to be pretty effective and enjoyable, but I’m wondering where I can improve. Specifically, can the 10 trait points in zeal be better spent? Also, am I off the mark with my rune/sigil/accessory choice?

Thanks for any pointers you can offer!

Ironically by trying to play a more balanced build you’ve decreased your survivability to much less than the burstiest of Guards. All Guardian builds will make use of Vigorous Protection (Honour 5) which gives them a near 100% uptime of Vigor, giving you the dodge rolls you need to survive.

You said you just want to play the same build but maybe wanted the traits to be fixed / better sigils or runes. So here are the suggestions which are catered to purely that idea:

This will give you an insane increase in survivability and is pretty much a requirement in any Guardian build:

• 5 Honour
• 5 Virtues

You aren’t spec’d for burning, you’re going to achieve much less with it than you could by putting the attributes in to power/prec, this means smoldering isn’t needed and your strongest defensive sigils are energy:

• Energy or Fire (one each wep set)
• Force on Sword set
• Minor accuracy on Mace set
• Scholar runes or Rage runes with Bloodlust instead of Minor Accuracy

There are a lot of things on your build I would change due to unnecessary specs or redundant traits, things like Shelter just always being better in pvp. But the two changes I wrote up beforehand specifically address your question.

Surprisingly enough, Inner fire isn’t really that useful for a Guardian in solo situations since the duration is relatively low. The trade-off from 5 in virtues/honor isn’t really worth the extra damage if you’re not surviving long enough to utilize it.

Jax, I just want to say your builds/recommendations and the way you contextualise them is awesome. Keep up the great work!

I’m getting back into GW2 and everything you post is immensely helpful. I really like the bursty/aggressive style (which I’d love to have played as a Warrior if the class was semi-viable) but Guardian seems better suited for it at the moment.

Great feedback.

I guess the consensus is that I am undervaluing the defensive potency of vigor. If I went to 0/30/30/5/5 and changed my runes/sigils as listed above, would I be better off picking a more offense neck item combo? Thanks again!

Cozeh.9203:

Jax, I just want to say your builds/recommendations and the way you contextualise them is awesome. Keep up the great work!

I’m getting back into GW2 and everything you post is immensely helpful. I really like the bursty/aggressive style (which I’d love to have played as a Warrior if the class was semi-viable) but Guardian seems better suited for it at the moment.

Thanks a lot! =)
I really do like playing aggressive Guardians but the teams I play in rarely require it.

MammerJammer.6174:

Great feedback.

I guess the consensus is that I am undervaluing the defensive potency of vigor. If I went to 0/30/30/5/5 and changed my runes/sigils as listed above, would I be better off picking a more offense neck item combo? Thanks again!

No Guardian build works in spvp without 5 in Honour, unless you plan on your burst 1 hitting and relying on no sustain (which is silly since you can easily spec for a lot of sustain).
Although it does depend on what you are trying to counter, if you’re trying to counter a roamer with a lot of burst damage having high health and toughness is good, even if you sac a lot of damage. In most cases you lose a lot of the counters you gain by going a burst guard when you spec for a more defensive triple meditation spec, this is because it’s just far more efficient to go a symbol DPS build which will have more sustain and more damage.
The only real reason to go meditation, burst focused builds at the moment is to run a full burst spec, otherwise your traits are better spent elsewhere.
For what you’re trying to do I’d suggest this:
http://tinyurl.com/mrlegr9

Now I completely understand what you’re trying to do with the Mace and that’s be defensive, but in this spec the Mace is a completely offensive weapon, not defensive. Even though the skills look defensive and do give you some amount of defence, it just isn’t nearly enough to mitigate the damage that you’d want to be avoiding. The scepter on the other hand is extremely good at keeping your enemy at range and maintaining your damage if they are able to kite you while having the amazing ability to set up your own spikes with chains of light.
You can swap out the sword for the mace if you want, which is currently how I play Guardian burst.

Arken.3725:

Surprisingly enough, Inner fire isn’t really that useful for a Guardian in solo situations since the duration is relatively low. The trade-off from 5 in virtues/honor isn’t really worth the extra damage if you’re not surviving long enough to utilize it.

I assume you meant Fiery Wrath?
Inner Fire is really good on all kinds of Guardians due to the matchups we get, they 90% of the time have burning in their build and there’s no internal cooldown for Inner Fire.