Guild Wars 2

I made my guardian to run dungeons. I have other characters that I do sPvP and WvW with, my guardian is solely to be used for dungeon runs. Let me just get that out of the way up front.

I’m mainly asking this question to people that run lots of explorable modes. I’ve found that generally any PUG can complete a story mode without wiping more than a couple of times, so that sort of experience isn’t totally relevent to this question.

Now, onto the question!

What’s your build?

Explaining it would be good too.

I’m mostly looking for insight from other guardians on how they’re doing dungeons. Are you a GS/Hammer power/precision glass sword? Are you staff/shout backline support? How do you synergize with the rest of your group? Do you know 4 other people intimately well and you all built your characters to perfectly mesh with one another? Or did you create a swiss army knife type guardian and hope to be useful no matter what group you’re in?

(Also, if you’re interested in running more dungeons, see my guild We Run Dungeons for a creative solution to LFG.)

Running dungeons heavily now + farming karma just for gear.

Im running 0/5/30/30/5. Valor: V, VI, XI. Honor: II, IX, XI/XII. Skills: Shelter, Retreat, Hold The Line, Stand Your Ground/Save Youselves.

I think its pretty self explanatory, basically a survivor and buffer build. My logic is simple, i survive to prevent wipes. A lot of people run full DPS builds, they die a lot, dead dps = no dps, dead party = wipe = inefficient token farming. A lot of DPS players(90%) are horrible at playing their class, call me stuck up but this is a fact, i’ll admit i’m not a good DPS player but thats because i’m a healer for my entire MMO career lol. Only elitist are experts in running full DPS but i don’t really like playing with them.

Anyways, using GS + Staff, so kinda hybrid between offense and defense/support. I think everyone can more or less figure out the playstyle.

0/0/30/30/10 Crithammer

Jack of all trades. Relying on the boon protection for the survivability, it frees up my dependency on gears to allow going with a more damage set up. So pretty much, I can do damage (full berserker gears), survive (permanent protection and altruistic healing), control (with hammer #3, #4, and #5), and support (permanent protection in melee, empowering might, wall of reflect, stability with SYG and Hallowed Ground, etc…). I also bring a blast finisher on a 5 seconds cooldown that will further improve the group synergy especially with elementalists.

Yes, I’m a swiss army knife since I don’t really run with a specific group. But I don’t need to “hope to be useful” since I am pretty much built for every roles and good at them. I can even further improve that role with my on switch weapon such as GS on switch for max damage, staff on switch for more support, scepter on switch for range, etc…

I’m using a similar Altruistic Healing build. 0/15/30/20/5.

In Radiance I leverage Renewed Justice with Blind Exposure (and proc Altruistic Healing when I do).

Valor is the same as above.

Honor uses Superior Aria and Empowering Might (which again procs a lot of Altruistic Healing).

Skill loadout varies a bit from encounter to encounter. Hold the Line and Save Yourselves are mainstays. I use Stand Your Ground when Stability is called for, Purifying Flames or Signet of Judgement for extra damage and Sanctuary to create a bulwark against chaff.

Knight’s gear goes pretty well with this setup, though you want to mix it up with some Cleric’s or Magi gear for more Healing Power, and the build still manages to do okay levels of damage. 2 Runes of the Monk, 2 Runes of Dwayna and 2 Runes of Hoelbrak in this case cause I’m stacking Might.

Funnily enough, I still feel pretty squishy in this build. Mostly because the way the game works, a lot of Boss type encounters are specifically set up to counteract defensive Boons and Healing out of the gate (big multi-hit attacks that walk all over Aegis for example). It usually turns out that I’m not. I PUG a lot so occasionally, something goes pear-shaped cause of miscommunication. When I get disgruntled cause I’m down and nobody comes to rez me it’s usually cause the rest of the party is long dead.

0/5/30/30/5 Crithammer(tm @brutality)

You are a really though kitten, hit like a truck and buff your party hell a lot.

20/25/0/20/5 (imo highest DPS GS build)

Full clearing every exploration mode with Berserker’s armor and jewelry.

0/5/30/30/5
pretty much the same as ImariKurumi except I use signet of resolve over shelter.
Traits are Purity, altruistic healing, empowering might, pure of voice, superior aria, retributive armor. I also use shouts: retreat, HTL, and SYG. Stand Your Ground is amazing when fighting anything with a chain knockdown or knockback, like the dogs in TA and HotW or the nightmare knights in TA.

I use GS/Hammer with scepter/focus and staff in inventory if I require them later.
I love the GS pull → SoW → WW and then swap to Hammer for 2 rotations or more of Mighty Blow. I stick to Hammer if it is a tough pull or fight but swap to GS if there is a moment where I just need to pull mobs or need more dps on something.

0/15/30/20/5

Same build and traits as Schackal. I use Valkyrie gear with Emerald Orbs and Knights Jewelery. Sword/Shield and Hammer.

Hammer for the reasons everyone has stated so far, good area denial, good dps.

I use a Sword for the high damage, and a Shield for a bit more area denial (can be a life saver when reviving downed players)

Hilarious last night:

Elementalist with a Fire field+2 necros with 3 blast finishers each+my hammer blast finisher=21 stacks of might 2 seconds into the start of a fight. We were melting things the entire time.

@ImariKurumi

I run with nearly that exact same build. (0/5/30/30/5) Except I use Meditations instead of Shouts becuase my party already has quite a few boons floating around. Meditations obviously help me survive better.

Mace/Torch is my prefered, occasionally switching to a Focus for the extra blocks, the regen from Focus #4 is overkill for my build as I already maintain Regen about 70% of the time. Add in my pocket Water Elementalist (my wife) and it is easily up 100% of the time.

My build:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mccccV0z0MrvnmMrvnm0VxxVzVbcab

Pure DPS Guardian seems to be very weak in dungeons, but is a ton of fun in PvP.

When I ran a full Prec/Pow build I would get 1 hit often, I was basically an elementalist with some utility.

I then went, Pow/Tough with vitality build and all of a sudden I could DPS, survive, and keep everyone else alive with buffs(not heals) I was a bit of a tank, a bit of a buffer, and mostly DPS’er

0/0/10/30/30

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcccMm9coNvGmoNvGm9MaxxVMaqMsa

I’m using full clerics gear. I generally melee next to the other melee players. The mace heal, symbol regen/heal, shield heal, healing breeze, protection, dodge heals and correctly timed virtue of resolve activations help them stay in the fight forever.

The three shouts and virtue of resolve serve as group-wide condition removal, which is just as important, if not more, than healing in some dungeons.

People generally say that running dungeons is way easier with me, but I don’t know since I’ve never run one without me.

I thought guardians were clairvoyant.

0/0/30/15/25
Valor has VI retributive armor VII Defenders shield XI Altuistic healing
Honor has II shouts rechage 20% faster
Virtues has II Retalition last 25% longer IX Absolute Resolution

Im using Mel’s karma set and Saphire jewlery for my healing power
then Mace/Shield and Sword/Focus
Then im using all shouts for Boons to proc Altuistic healing
the mace shield combo gives I think 8 boons alone
i switch to sword focus cause number 4 focus is amazing and sword is great to throw in some quick dps when mace shield are on cooldowns
Lots of boons go out so lots of healing goes on and with all the toughness and vitality from the gear you can hold your own for a wile
Its not great dps its mediocor but its amazing support with boons and heals

0/0/30/20/20 hammer

valor: V, VI, XI
honor: II, VII
virtues: II, VII/IX/X situational

save yourselves, hold the line, signet of judgement, signet of resolve/stand your ground, renewed focus.

knight gear (prec/pow/toughness)

i usually just rely on the double “remove a condition every 10s” from the trait, and heal signet passive for controlling conditions, but i usually run the virtue trait that adds a 3 condition removal to f2 for when things get out of hand. i don’t much care for the two book elites, so i like renewed focus for free f1-3 casts without dropping the passives.

i use scepter/focus secondary, because it never pays to have two melee sets imo.

i’m also a fan of mace+focus builds focusing on block/aegis benefits and healing, but i dont use it currently because it requires different gear that i dont have yet

whatever/whatever/whatever/whatever/20, and do wall of reflection (if ranged) or hallowed ground (if melee) and tome of courage forever

All dungeon bosses where you don’t have to dodge 100% of the time have a predictable “okay, I’m going to do normal attacks where you can treat me like a regular enemy, oh wait, super ranged attack / stun and super melee attack where if you don’t dodge I kill you” and wall of reflection or hallowed ground grants your team a reprieve. Stand your ground of course works better, but if you don’t want to trait into honor for some insane reason hallowed ground is enough.

If you do trait into honor, please note that you will probably never be able to use the res skills when you actually need them because dungeon bosses have this annoying tendency to auto-kill downed players.