Guild Wars 2

Hello, im Joship from Desolation!

Ive had quite a few successful explorable dungeon runs with this spec and i want to share it with everyone as i think it is pretty viable from what i have experienced.

This spec is about exploiting Buffs you provide with shouts and virtues and turn them into healing to yourself (about 70-80 healing provided per buff provided to each member, so lets say 75*2*5 if you hit everyone in your party with “Hold The Line” (this is how i assume it works). The build is not completely tested yet so some of the things i say my be incorrect.

Weapons i use: (i will not go too much into detail, Im assuming you know what skills the different kind of weapons have.)
Shield/Sword
Greatsword or Staff

The sword is great for being mobile with the Flashing Blade and Zealots Defense is great against ranged mobs.

I like the shield because Shield of Judgment provides the Protection buff to you and your party (providing you aim at them) and this gives you health from Altruistic Healing.

The Staff i use in battles where there is too big of a disadvantage to be in melee, the great ability here is Empower, it ticks for 6 times buffing allies for might and healing nearby allies on the final tick, and also healing you for every tick you buff allies.

The Greatsword i use purely because of the 5th skill Binding Blade it makes controlling mobs much easier and its great for pulling mobs away form your squishy elementalists, it is also great for pulling a bunch of mobs together so your party can have a easier time putting down there AoE spells.

The Traits:

Valor 30 Points
VI: Retributive Armor (or Purity, i use Retributive armor to increase my crit inorder to trigger more Empowering Might)
IX: Honorable Shield
XI: Altruistic Healing (key trait in the build)

Honor 30 Points
II: Superior Aria (shouts are a main component in this build)
VIII: Empowering Might (compliments Altruistic Healing and i also have a decent crit%, if not i would take VI: Pure of Hearth
XI: Pure of Voice (from what i have noticed also affects you)

Virtues 10 Points (mainly for the 5 point trait)
IV: Retaliatory Subconscious or VI: Master of Consecrations (depending on what Support Skills you use)

Slot Skills I rarely change out Support Skill 1 and 2. 3 is the one i use for adjusting to certain encounters.

Healing Skill:
Signet of Resolve (I Like the passive and also i like the high base amount of healing it provides over the other ones.)

Support Skill 1:
“Hold The Line” is great for keeping you and your party sustained, triggers Altruistic Healing

Support Skill 2:
“Retreat "triggers Altruistic Healing and great for shielding your party from a single Heavy Damage skill.

Support Skill 3:
_"Stand Your Ground" Triggers Altruistic Healing and and provides stability to you and the party if needed.

“Wall of Reflection” sometimes this can really help against those ranged mobs and bosses.

“Signet of judgment” is what i usually have equipped._

Elite Skill:
“Renewed Focus” is what i currently use because Virtues also provide Altruistic Healing effect. I also use Tome of Courage equally as much.

Runes:
on Armor i use 6x Superior Rune of Svanir the 6th bonus turns you into a ice block immune to damage for 5 seconds when below 20%, before i got them i used pure Soldier Runes (provides +power toughness and vitality.

On weapons i use Superior Sigil of Rage on Sword/Greatsword/Staff but Superior Sigil of Air on the Shield.(these are my dps runes i currently have not gotten any tanking weapons yet.)

TLDR;?

Heres the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQNAseRlYgyCHFyIEf4ESWBDE7BGBfd01DKSiYIA;TkAKoMQJgyClDKJUrRGjMpA

And here is what you do: Rotate virtues shouts and Weapon abilities to keep yourself sustained and your party buffed.

Good luck with the dungeons and if you have improvements post them and i might add them if im not feeling too lazy.

this is not WoW…no tanking needed…kool build

@Reaper: Because obviously, only WoW had tanks? Get out of WoW yourself, lol.
(I can’t quote apparently)

Out of curiousity, what is your damage output like?

I realize that it will not be as high as it would be if you were running a build specc’d for damage, but is it still somewhat respectable? How does this build hold up when you’re solo exploring (if you do that)?

Even then, I have found that shouts are great skills (lvl 50 here), even without speccing for them.

Looks good, though, I’ll try what I can do at 50 in the AC story mode run I’m planning tonight

Reaper.8431:

this is not WoW…no tanking needed…kool build

If WoW is your go-to comparison you’re doing it wrong.

As far as your build goes it pretty much mirrors my build for PvE and dungeons less the gear for PvE anyway. Magic find ftw.

You contradict yourself, first you say you done successful runs and wants to share, and then you say the build is not tested yet?

Furthermore, GS and sword are useless to this build due to offering 0 utility to the team. Retreat is useless doing Dungeons since it is a closed space, Stand Your Ground you benefit your team MUCH more. Svanir runes are less than optimal, it doesn’t serve any purpose. Your stats distribution says you are a DPS but your build says you are a support.

No offense but this doesn’t seems good at all. Thanks for the effort tho.

I am basically running very close to the same build. Focusing on Shouts and Consecrations, Defense and Support. I also have basically the exact same trait choices.

The damage output is actually decent considering you are running with usually Cleric’s gear mixed with some +vitality stuff. My Power is actually my highest stat right now … though, I am not done getting all my exotic gear and runes yet, so we’ll see how it plays out in a couple weeks.

But I do tend to be pulling decent numbers even when compared to people that are much more offensively spec’d. The biggest thing is melee weapons seem to do quite a bit more than ranged, and since I can remain in melee longer than basically any one else I have grouped with, I can really lay down some decent damage even though it isn’t my main focus.

Not to mention, you have a lot of boons, healing and support options available to you as a Guardian to protect and bolster your team even further.

Knuckledust.5621
You contradict yourself, first you say you done successful runs and wants to share, and then you say the build is not tested yet?
Furthermore, GS and sword are useless to this build due to offering 0 utility to the team. Retreat is useless doing Dungeons since it is a closed space, Stand Your Ground you benefit your team MUCH more. Svanir runes are less than optimal, it doesn’t serve any purpose. Your stats distribution says you are a DPS but your build says you are a support.
No offense but this doesn’t seems good at all. Thanks for the effort tho.

First off if you have to say “no offence” you’re offending someone. Secondly he’s using “retreat” for the aegis it gives not the swiftness. Thirdly, sword/shield and great sword are great for this hybrid dps/support build considering most of your support is coming from utility skills and traits. You can theorize all you like but this is very close to what I actually use and it works great. My point is unless you test it for yourself you can’t comment on how “bad” it is because you have no clue.

I run sword/shield and great sword pretty much exclusively now and never get complaints and have no problem contributing to the group.

Just buff a necro or a warrior and let him tank.

How can you tank with HALF their hp and way less armor?
The only thing you have is aegis and protection, but that’s an aoe buff. Give them to a necro, that has TWICE your hp (4 times with lich form, I repeat: FOUR times your hp, also with more toughness), more healing, minions, hp leech, DEATH SHROUD, 3 ranged options.

At least use the focus as off-hand, so you can get shield of wrath for 3 more aegis only on yourself, but that’s not so influent compared to how often a necro can use death shroud, or can range kite with his/her minions attacking the enemy.

Compare your guardian (but also my guardian, since I’m main guardian with a balanced build) to this monster:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQEQNBIhZakRLbPazYjhXBI945fhe+g3wCiFQfwdA;TYAKoMQJgyClDKJUA

Just look at the traits. That’s insane.
Also 19k hp with no armor and no runes (almost 40k in lich form). I’m pretty sure you don’t reach 15k hp with your full armor.

Imagine that with the aegis you apply, and imagine being in the same party. Who should be the one tanking?

Until guardian gets fixed, know your place. In a party you can only buff.

Kidel.2057:

Just buff a necro or a warrior and let him tank.

How can you tank with HALF their hp and way less armor?
The only thing you have is aegis and protection, but that’s an aoe buff. Give them to a necro, that has TWICE your hp (4 times with lich form, I repeat: FOUR times your hp, also with more toughness), more healing, minions, hp leech, DEATH SHROUD, 3 ranged options.

At least use the focus as off-hand, so you can get shield of wrath for 3 more aegis only on yourself, but that’s not so influent compared to how often a necro can use death shroud, or can range kite with his/her minions attacking the enemy.

How in the world that the Necro has more armor than a Guardian while he’s wearing light armor? Given that they both stack toughness gears and get extra 300 toughness from trait.

Necro gets 20 toughness from each minion and 400 while channeling (leeching health or life force). Also the damage you can sustain is given by:
(hp + healing received) * armor stat

Necro has twice the hp of a guardian + death shroud (we can say almost 3 times the hp of a guardian, with death shroud recharging during the fight) + lich form (double hp, if it wasn’t enough) + fear and a lot of damage mitigation.
I’m sure the outcome is way higher than anything a guardian can hope to reach, also because almost every class is highly individualistic. The guardian is the class with the highest number of aoe boons, meaning that while a guardian gives power to every other class, it doesn’t receive anything, not even from other guardians (since aegis doesn’t stack). So the guardian gives aegis/heals to an already better necromancer/guardian.

However, do you want a heavy armor tank? Warrior.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fIEQJASUjgOtwBPGPMxCA0DryaLTBjOFgSVwuUhyA;TYAKoMQJgyClDKJUA

Again, can’t be compared to a guardian once they’re both buffed.

And don’t misunderstand me. I want guardian to be fixed. I feel pidgeonholed in a support role, while ANet said that there are no fixed roles in this game.

How can you hope to tank when you have the same health of a thief/ele and all your allies get your same boons?

The only way to fix this is to give guardian at least the hp of a ranger and a stat reward whenever an ally is buffed.
Also a ranged weapon and a fix on elite skills wouldn’t hurt.

Knuckledust.5621:

You contradict yourself, first you say you done successful runs and wants to share, and then you say the build is not tested yet?

I have done most of the explorable paths, and it worked. The build is tested but there is probably room for improvement.

These are the stats i have right now:
1774 Power
1371 Precision
1926 Toughness
1509 Vtality

Attack: 2728
Crit Chance/damage: 26% / 53%
Armor/defence: 3128 / 1202
Health: 16735

Tanking does work to a certain degree, 9/10 times the boss focuses me. other times he might go for someone else but return to attacking me when i get close to him. Trash mobs on the other hand a a bit more tricky to control, thats where the greatsword and shield knockback comes in.

My Tanking gear is still a make in progress, so i am still wearing a few dps parts

edit: Also about the svanir runes yes they may seem useless but the 6 set bonus has held me alive long enough to get of a heal and not die, sure there are other runes you can get like Dolyak or Soldiers.

How does the 6th effect of Superior Rune of the Dolyak work?
Is it infinite regen or just “30 seconds every 20 minutes” or something like that?
Because the wiki is not clear about that.

Here’s what I feel on the whole “tanking” in general:

There’s no efficient way to keep the monster from attacking others. The only way is to bring 4 ranges and have the “tank” in melee since it seems that most monsters’ aggro is proximity base.

If tanking does work to a certain a degree as you said, how did you keep threat on the monster within those runs? Did you just whack it and hopefully it turns on you instead of your teammates? Assuming that threat is proximity of that particular boss, If I throw in another melee in there, would the chance of you getting aggro halves? Now if I throw you with 4 other melees, how do you keep the boss attack you 9/10 since there’s no taunt or threat increased ability?

Kidel.2057:

How does the 6th effect of Superior Rune of the Dolyak work?
Is it infinite regen or just “30 seconds every 20 minutes” or something like that?
Because the wiki is not clear about that.

I’ve heard it’s 30 hp per second(at 80). I still need 2 levels to get my new sets, so I can’t say yet.

no, I don’t mean the regen effect. on the wiki it says it’s just a regen boon, but how often does it trigger and for how long?
Also, would it stack with external regen boons?

Trungalung.7850:

Here’s what I feel on the whole “tanking” in general:

There’s no efficient way to keep the monster from attacking others. The only way is to bring 4 ranges and have the “tank” in melee since it seems that most monsters’ aggro is proximity base.

If tanking does work to a certain a degree as you said, how did you keep threat on the monster within those runs? Did you just whack it and hopefully it turns on you instead of your teammates? Assuming that threat is proximity of that particular boss, If I throw in another melee in there, would the chance of you getting aggro halves? Now if I throw you with 4 other melees, how do you keep the boss attack you 9/10 since there’s no taunt or threat increased ability?

most of my runs have been with just about no close range people at all, so it may very well just be proximity based, but how does that explain why suddenly the boss goes for one of the casters at the far back? right now im just attacking the boss and hes on me for most of the time.

Kidel.2057:

Necro gets 20 toughness from each minion and 400 while channeling (leeching health or life force). Also the damage you can sustain is given by:
(hp + healing received) * armor stat

Necro has twice the hp of a guardian + death shroud (we can say almost 3 times the hp of a guardian, with death shroud recharging during the fight) + lich form (double hp, if it wasn’t enough) + fear and a lot of damage mitigation.
I’m sure the outcome is way higher than anything a guardian can hope to reach, also because almost every class is highly individualistic. The guardian is the class with the highest number of aoe boons, meaning that while a guardian gives power to every other class, it doesn’t receive anything, not even from other guardians (since aegis doesn’t stack). So the guardian gives aegis/heals to an already better necromancer/guardian.

However, do you want a heavy armor tank? Warrior.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fIEQJASUjgOtwBPGPMxCA0DryaLTBjOFgSVwuUhyA;TYAKoMQJgyClDKJUA

Again, can’t be compared to a guardian once they’re both buffed.

And don’t misunderstand me. I want guardian to be fixed. I feel pidgeonholed in a support role, while ANet said that there are no fixed roles in this game.

How can you hope to tank when you have the same health of a thief/ele and all your allies get your same boons?

The only way to fix this is to give guardian at least the hp of a ranger and a stat reward whenever an ally is buffed.
Also a ranged weapon and a fix on elite skills wouldn’t hurt.

Ugh, I need to completely disagree.

While it’s true that Guardians have lowest HP compare to other Professions, it’s also true that Guardian suvavibility is pretty high. I run a full support build for PVE, and I am (almost) always the last man standing in case of bad pulls/overwhelming forces in dungeons. I have the full exotic (crafted by me) Draconic Cleric’s Heavy Armor (why would a guardian run around with precision or critical damage lol?) and my Toughness is darn high, providing an excellent damage mitigation.

Mace/Shield + Hammer is the weapon combination I prefere using (in dungeons, not solo), and it does a great job to rise suravibility with this Profession.

With the right traits, Guardians DO benefit by sharing their boons with other people of your group.

Don’t forget, it’s the only class that heals decently (I’m not saying other classes don’t heal well, in fact I love, for example, Engineer’s healing turret) but from my experiences, Tome of Courage and Virtue of Resolve are major life-savers.

The only fix a Guardian needs atm is to be provided with a good ranged weapons: scepter is a good CC, but lacks good outburst damage and long-range attack variety.. and staff is mid-range…

Joshi.8097:

Trungalung.7850:

Here’s what I feel on the whole “tanking” in general:

There’s no efficient way to keep the monster from attacking others. The only way is to bring 4 ranges and have the “tank” in melee since it seems that most monsters’ aggro is proximity base.

If tanking does work to a certain a degree as you said, how did you keep threat on the monster within those runs? Did you just whack it and hopefully it turns on you instead of your teammates? Assuming that threat is proximity of that particular boss, If I throw in another melee in there, would the chance of you getting aggro halves? Now if I throw you with 4 other melees, how do you keep the boss attack you 9/10 since there’s no taunt or threat increased ability?

most of my runs have been with just about no close range people at all, so it may very well just be proximity based, but how does that explain why suddenly the boss goes for one of the casters at the far back? right now im just attacking the boss and hes on me for most of the time.

Each monster/boss has a different “preferred” victim. Example would be the mini spider boss in AC ex. The spider will generally prefer to attack range targets with its poison spit.

Trafalgar.5247:

Ugh, I need to completely disagree.

While it’s true that Guardians have lowest HP compare to other Professions, it’s also true that Guardian suvavibility is pretty high. I run a full support build for PVE, and I am (almost) always the last man standing in case of bad pulls/overwhelming forces in dungeons. I have the full exotic (crafted by me) Draconic Cleric’s Heavy Armor (why would a guardian run around with precision or critical damage lol?) and my Toughness is darn high, providing an excellent damage mitigation.

Mace/Shield + Hammer is the weapon combination I prefere using (in dungeons, not solo), and it does a great job to rise suravibility with this Profession.

Mace/Shield grants suvavibility because it’s an incredibly defensive combination with orrible dps.
Other classes reach your same suvavibility and the same damage mitigation, being able to use more offensive (and often ranged) weapons.
Do you understand what it implies, right? Being more offensive also means you are hit less times by your opponent, and the same goes for any ranged weapon.
A necro has 3 ranged weapons, minions, 2x our hp, death shroud, regen, hp drains and can receive guardian buffs.
A warrior can wield longbow or rifle, having a lot of damage mitigation, impressive attack and 2x the hp of a guardian.

It is not hard to understand. If the game is balanced, then:
guardian + guardian_buffs = non_guardian

meaning that:
guardian + guardian_buffs < non_guardian + guardian_buffs

Most of the other classes are way more individualistic so guardians doesn’t receive almost any buff, and since aegis and burning doesn’t stack, another guardian is not so useful for us.

Trafalgar.5247:

With the right traits, Guardians DO benefit by sharing their boons with other people of your group.

We get no benefits from buffing others except Altruistic Healing, that is still too weak to balance the lack of hp and the inferiority (without buffs) to warrior, ranger, necro, mesmer, etc.

Trafalgar.5247:

Don’t forget, it’s the only class that heals decently (I’m not saying other classes don’t heal well, in fact I love, for example, Engineer’s healing turret) but from my experiences, Tome of Courage and Virtue of Resolve are major life-savers.

Meaning, as I said, that at the moment the guardian needs a fix, or it will just be a cleric.

Trafalgar.5247:

The only fix a Guardian needs atm is to be provided with a good ranged weapons: scepter is a good CC, but lacks good outburst damage and long-range attack variety.. and staff is mid-range…

Scepter only needs a fast and direct auto attack.
The slow orb is easy to evade and somehow it doesn’t hit opponents too high above me. During castle siege it doesn’t reach the top of the wall, it only hits the wall popping a lot of “obstructed”, while it doesn’t happen when I use a bow with my ranger.

Kidel.2057:

no, I don’t mean the regen effect. on the wiki it says it’s just a regen boon, but how often does it trigger and for how long?
Also, would it stack with external regen boons?

Got it now. It’s 30 HP/s at every level. It’s not a boon, it’s just a passive regen. So, every second, I get Virtue of Resolve +Dolyak 6 pieces effect.

wow, a free 30 hp/s is not bad at all. While there are better effects, I admit it’s nice.
A warrior with this rune has the same damage mitigation of a guardian without it, without the need to stack healing power.