Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently reached 80 on my guardian. I’ve only done a bit of WvW (I don’t intend to do much if any sPvP), and I intend to do a lot more WvW. I also want to finish soloing the PvE maps (4 or 5 zones still left to complete).

I wanted to have traits that could be used for either PvE or WvW, while only switching weapon sets. For PvP, I went with Staff/Scepter-shield. For PvE, I’ve gone with GS/Hammer. I know about the recent changes to GS, but as I had already purchased an Exotic GS, I’ll just have to live with them, won’t I?

My hope is to make a decent dps/retaliation spec, while still retaining good survivability. I don’t feel I’ve quite go it though.

Edit: Can’t seem to get the links to work, so will just say it’s a 0/15/20/20/15 spec, most stuff into Retaliation, some into 2h or shout cooldowns.

I currently have Divinity runes on my armor, which is mostly (still working on it) Draconic Vakyrie (Power, Vitality, crit dmg).

I’m looking for a critique of this idea, but also any suggestions on a possibly better spec, specifically for traits, that provides good survivability and decent (doesn’t have to be fabulous!) dps.

I really appreciate any advice. Be gentle, I’m new and I’ve tried about 10 different Trait specs, with at least 4 different weapons, and I ’m just having a VERY hard time settling on something.

Hey dude, from my point of view I would not rely too much on retaliation at all since u still all the damage that you are dealt. and plus retaliation is mainly based on how much power you have which means going all into zeal and that would mean less survivability.

I would suggest that you try going 0/15/30/20/5 it doesn’t have awesome DPS (then again guardians are not about burst DPS but constant over time damage), but that build gives you awesome survivability and quite nice damage output. At start I as well like you went retaliation but it didn’t cut it for me in WvWvW and dungeons at all. Mobs in dungeon hit way too hard for you to survive on retaliation and as for WvWvW it’s awesome if you’re against 1v1 and tbh there never really is much 1v1 there.

The build outlined provides a lot of toughness and vitality while at the same time not too much decrease in power. Depending on your preferred weapon you can choose your traits. For me I personally love the guardian Hammer and Great Sword it’s got awesome aoe and hammer as awesome crowd control.

I’ll outline my build so that you know the general idea how to use it.
My preferred weapons of choice are Great Sword and Hammer. I usually have all the other weapons that a guardian can use just because you never know when you are gonna need those. (Like for me I found out that the guardian staffs are one of the best weapons for clearing the poison pods in TA explorable)

The 15 points in radiance are pretty good due to the fact that activating virtue of justice blinds enemies and it recharges every time I kill something. If I am against a boss or mobs that have boons on them then in the Radiance trait I go Searing Flames otherwise I usually leave it at Signet mastery due to the fact that I use the signet heal.

As for Valor that’s pretty much the bread and butter in this build. The 30 points in it gives you a lot of choices. My usual set up is Purity trait so that I can lose a condition every 10sec and with my Signet it should come down to every 5sec (I am not too sure if these stack.) then for the second trait I go Glacial Heart so that enemies can’t run away from me when I am using the hammer. As for the 3rd trait I use Altruistic Healing which heals me has I apply boons. When I am with groups and doing something hard I usually go Strength in Numbers instead of Glacial Heart so that my party members gain a bit more armor.

In the Honor trait line there are a variety of choices available as well. I usually use Superior Aria which cuts down my shout recharge time by 20% it’s very helpful then I go two Two-Handed Mastery which cuts my skill recharge time by 20% as well which is awesome. If in group you can always change things up to help the party members like switching Two-Handed Mastery for Empowering Might or Two-Handed Mastery and so on.

As for armor i would go for either toughness + healing or Vitality all armor pieces with Superior Runes of the Soldier or similar. But in the end its all up to you.

Now that i finished writing all this up i realize that i wrote a kitten load. Hope this helps though.

@Dante, thank you SO much for the reply. I also use Hammer/GS for PvE, so your advice is very helpful. It makes sense to go fully into Valor, too. All of the details are extremely helpful, so I appreciate you writing out so much! I’m not happy with the ret build, so I’ll give your build and traits a try.

Do you run hammer/GS in WvWvW also? I was thinking going hammer/staff?

Hey for WvWvW i would recommend that you go scepter/focus and GS (also have a hammer ready). So your traits stay the same pretty much for this because you wont be going solo for long since people on the same server are always around.. I usually have the scepter and focus as my main so i can range attack and hold people in place while the people i m running with just kill the person targeted. the focus is really good because of all the protection/blocks that skill 5 on your bar gives you and also skill 4 on your bar is awesome as well. If the target is attacking me i usually switch to GS if more then one person do whirl wind, do that blinding skill and run away. be ready to switch to scepter/focus real quick because it can save you from being spiked like crazy. sometimes i go hammer instead of GS so i can bind people and knock them around also bunch them up (skill 5) in a group for my team mates to spike them.

i don’t know if this helps but let me know if you like my build and style or if you think there is a better way to do something because i m still learning to use my Guardian to the max.

Dante’s build is very strong! i use to sport that oneD recently switched to 0/5/30/30/5 for altruistic healing (applying boons on allies self included heals you), along with 2handed mastery, symbols larger and symbols heal on honor line. i’m an avid hammer user so that’s the line for meD

my current build does pretty well in dungeons (lot of healing and support, but still able to crit up to 2k, 3k depending), definitely viable in PvE and tested last night, more than enough to do WvW. and like you said, with the switch of a weapon / set you can pretty much do all 3 with the same build.

to add though, when running dungeons and WvW, i run full Knight’s and need to work on my jewelry. planning on going either valkyrie or a mix of berseker’s. in PvE i run all MF lol. i used to think that fully going into valor and honor wouldn’t give me enough DPS but with the right gear and utilizing your skills well enough, you can easily deal heavy dmg, while being mega survivable!

and i run a hammer/staff myself and or hammer with scepter /shield or focus, depending on the situation. sometimes i run hammer/gs as well if it calls for it. again, like Dante said, for WvW i main hammer still, but having either staff or scepter ready helps a lot. not necessary but you can hugely benefit from it.

hope this adds a bit more insight as well. feel free to ask me anything as well, i’m a huge advocate for the hammer lol and can answer some questions if you have any :PPP by no means am i an expert, but i love sharing and discussing!

I use a build that I find quite good and versatile, and I’ve been playing around PvE and WvW with it.

Zeal 30
Because there’s never enough power.
Honor 30
Because there’s never enough health.
Valor or Virtue 10
Because… these are the leftover points.

I usually pick Fiery Wrath in Zeal 10 in any variation.
Then I pick either Spirit Weapon Mastery and Eternal Spirit if I’m using Spirit Weapons (I find them really useful for about all situations in WvW), Greatsword Power and Zealous Blade if I’m using Greatswords (PvE, or when I’m suicidal in WvW) or Scepter Power and Focused Mastery for a Scepter/Focus WvW.

For Honor, I pick either Writ of Exaltation, Writ of the Merciful, Two-Handed Mastery for my Greatsword/Staff build, or Superior Aria, Empowering Might, Battle Presence for a 1 Handed set, but I usually mix things around since I end up using Scepter/Staff sometimes in WvW, since there’s plenty of great choices in this line (Resolute Healer, Pure of Heart, among others).

Then the leftover points I go either Valor for the choice of Meditation Mastery if you plan on using them (they’re great for 1v1s), Retributive Armor if not, or sometimes Purity if I don’t think the Signet of Resolve is enough (or if I want it’s effect but I’m using Shelter).

The other option is Virtue for the obvious Master of Consecrations or Consecrated Ground and it’s awesome uses in WvW, or Improved Spirit Weapon Duration if you’re relying heavy on them. The extra 10% for boon durations is nice, but I don’t rune for it so I don’t care too much about it (but if you do rune for it, Staff’s Empower is even more awesome, and so are the Shouts).

The benefits of this build, of course, is heavy damage and a large health pool, while having the choice (with gear and weapon sets) to switch for a more DpS oriented or support oriented build.

Greatsword/Staff gives you plenty of Symbol support, they heal for 130ish (with 0 Healing in gear, only 300 from Honor) a tick, Staff’s great utilities and GS awesome AoE damage.
Scepter/Focus if you ever need range (even though I hate the Scepter) and you can bring either Shouts, boons to allies, and Battle Presence if you focus on this set.
And you can choose between Valor for more 1v1 goodness or Virtue for a more support-ish build.

For gear, and this is the hard part, it’s mostly Valkyrie, but I’m working on the Power/Toughness/Vitality pieces for even better “tankiness”, and saving some gold for some Berserker trinkets if I want to lose some health for better DpS.

I use Berserker type weapons so I don’t lose health when I switch sets, and the Cleric Staff since when I use it is mostly for Healing.

My stats:
3100~ Power
11% Crit Chance (4% base and 7% from Berserker Weapon + Berserker Back Equip)
62% Crit Damage
2200~ Toughness (that’s low imo)
19100 Health

Then you can start tweaking to your liking, either dropping 16% Crit Damage for 224 Toughness on armor (and then you’ll get a decent amount for a Heavy Armor profession), or swapping trinkets for about every 100 Vit (1000 Health) to get 5% Crit Chance (100~ Precision).

I run usually with 20%ish Crit Chance (15% base plus 5% from Sigil) and 72% Crit Damage, and I rune for Toughness/Vitality (Dolyak). Although my DpS could be a bit higher with a better crit, I can’t get enough of how hard my Guardian is to take down.