Guild Wars 2

Tobey.4836:

Some days ago, i learned that right handet strenght only works for your mainhand :-(. Wouldnet it be better do drop those 5 last points in radiance and additonaly 5 points in virtues, to be able to pick up Fiery Wrath.

Unfortunately you rely on crits, most of the classes you counter would not be actually counterable if you don’t crit a lot.
I wrote up an excel sheet a while ago to do the maths quickly for me and this is the difference between them damage-wise (without bloodlust):

EDIT: accidentally mixed them up, they’re right now =)

I forgot to conclude there:
In short you need that extra crit chance to counter Mesmers and engineers as you really need 60%+ crit chance to deal with them effectively (for the mace proc).

Thanks for the fast reply. But could you explain your spreadsheet a bit ? For instance what are the dmg sources ? Is it mace autoattack?

Initially, i wrote the post because i wasn’t sure if its better to have a 15% higher crit chance for autoattack and prot strike or to have a flat out 10% dmg increase.
Could you argue that fiery wrath is better for the initial burst, and RHS is better for sustained dps ?

Btw, thanks for all the guides. Really loving the glass canon burst build :-)

Just curious…why do you utilize the Fire Sigils so much as opposed to the Air sigils? I understand the fire procs are aoe but it looks like the air sigils do more damage.

Tobey.4836:

Thanks for the fast reply. But could you explain your spreadsheet a bit ? For instance what are the dmg sources ? Is it mace autoattack?

Initially, i wrote the post because i wasn’t sure if its better to have a 15% higher crit chance for autoattack and prot strike or to have a flat out 10% dmg increase.
Could you argue that fiery wrath is better for the initial burst, and RHS is better for sustained dps ?

Btw, thanks for all the guides. Really loving the glass canon burst build :-)

The sheet is pretty big that’s why I only copy pasted a little bit of it, I just used the co-efficient for the entire burst (which is actually slightly wrong because I’m using the incorrect one ANet gave us a while ago, but it’s consistently wrong =) ). It factors in everything that you would need to factor in to see what damage you do and gives you ideal/average/worst-outcome numbers so that you can see how it fairs in a variety of situations. Also factors in Might/Protection/%damage reduction/armour etc, etc.

The most important thing to remember with Guardian burst is that it’s all or nothing, if you don’t land enough crits you’re screwed. It’s not gimmicky like 1/10 times it works but when you hit a 2k zealot’s fire instead of 4.2k hit you’ll realise pretty quickly that you need the highest crit chance you can. RHS is really important for consistency in your burst while Fiery Wrath has that extra potential for a one shot on somebody.

Another two important things to note are:

• Burning is quite often cleansed quickly (even if you’re not condi-damage) and Warriors/Engis can just be immune if they want. Guardians have cleanses + stun breaks which lower rank players will almost always use if they panic.
• I honestly can’t think of a breakpoint that the extra 10% -5 power (3 might from VoJ from 5 virtues > 100 power from Zeal). Sometimes you crit just under a phantasm’s hp when you’re trying to 1 shot them, that might help? But you’d also have to burn them which means you’d actually be at a disadvantage there too.

I really don’t see much application for it, if you could suggest a scenario where it would achieve a breakpoint then maybe it could work =)

EDIT: there’s a slightly bigger ss of the excel sheet, hopefully you can see the coefficients.

Lexiculus.5296:

Just curious…why do you utilize the Fire Sigils so much as opposed to the Air sigils? I understand the fire procs are aoe but it looks like the air sigils do more damage.

Fire’s damage is very close to Air and it’s AoE, the damage you do on a single player is less but when you hit prot strike for 5k + 1.2k fire that’s 6.2k aoe, which can mean the difference between one shotting AI and leaving them all low hp.
The net damage ends up significantly higher while opening up more effective gameplay against multiple targets.

Jax.5261:

The most important thing to remember with Guardian burst is that it’s all or nothing, if you don’t land enough crits you’re screwed. It’s not gimmicky like 1/10 times it works but when you hit a 2k zealot’s fire instead of 4.2k hit you’ll realise pretty quickly that you need the highest crit chance you can. RHS is really important for consistency in your burst while Fiery Wrath has that extra potential for a one shot on somebody.

That’s exaclty what i thought. But reading your post, i realized that i might be misinformed.
I was under the impression, that RHS only applies to your first 3 weapon skills. Is this incorrect ?
Or is the 15% increased crit chance prot chance a higher dmg increase than 10% of shield of wrath, zealots fire and smite condition ?

It’s just the weapon skills, I did misspeak there.
But it’s your scepter auto and Prot Strike which are your biggest damage dealers in the first place.

Hi, I was snooping through some duels and a Guardian was using this. It was a while ago. I’d like your opinion.

Bullet Punch’s spec
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNArdRlUgSDHHyNEfIFhNjAiwqCxDXw1DIGxGC-TsAg0CnI4RxjjHDPSes8MsYZxkAA

Some people I’ve seen run a variant of the 10/5/30/5/20 GS/Sword Focus Trip Med spec; what do you think of the above 2 specs, and zerker med specs running GS in general?

Ralkuth.1456:

Hi, I was snooping through some duels and a Guardian was using this. It was a while ago. I’d like your opinion.

Bullet Punch’s spec
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNArdRlUgSDHHyNEfIFhNjAiwqCxDXw1DIGxGC-TsAg0CnI4RxjjHDPSes8MsYZxkAA

Some people I’ve seen run a variant of the 10/5/30/5/20 GS/Sword Focus Trip Med spec; what do you think of the above 2 specs, and zerker med specs running GS in general?

Duels? GS is literally the worst weapon you could possibly bring for duels. In team fights sometimes it’s ok because they don’t pay attention. The last few days I’ve been playing I’ve seen a few GS’s and they still have the same problem of being incredibly inaccurate.

Just put up a new video of some mace burst in soloq, just incase some of you want to see how well it works.

It’s soloq… remember that

Greatsword is not a bad weapon at all. Binding Blade and Leap of Faith are both excellent abilities. Whirling Wrath is hit or miss but I seem to land it fairly often. Retaliation on demand is pretty nice as well. Not talking about duels though team fights in solo q Greatsword can be pretty effective. Its easy to pretty much queue up binding blades and then you don’t activate it (the ability kind of has two parts to it the whirl and then the pull) until you know it will get a person sucked in and then you use Whirling Wrath.

brannigan.9810:

Greatsword is not a bad weapon at all. Binding Blade and Leap of Faith are both excellent abilities. Whirling Wrath is hit or miss but I seem to land it fairly often. Retaliation on demand is pretty nice as well. Not talking about duels though team fights in solo q Greatsword can be pretty effective. Its easy to pretty much queue up binding blades and then you don’t activate it (the ability kind of has two parts to it the whirl and then the pull) until you know it will get a person sucked in and then you use Whirling Wrath.

As I’ve demonstrated on a few videos, even against good players, their WW just don’t land on me (I think the last video it was 0.5/9 or10 that landed on me, that was just an instructional video too, not competitive). It relies 100% on your enemy not being able to dodge it properly, I just don’t like that style of play. I always assume my enemy is really good and then I can deal extremely well with every single player and not automatically lose when I do play against somebody talented.
The massive decline of pvp means that the good players are far and in between and you’ll see a lot of success out of plays that are easy to counter.

The GS pull gives your enemy two chances to dodge it, it’s extremely ineffective. Both the spin to land the Binding Blade and the Pull once it’s on your target have very big indicators that are very dodgable and if people aren’t dodging them you know you’re not playing against very high quality players.

These are the main reasons I don’t use GS often.

Are most of these builds still viable? If so are there any that are not any more?

Silven keeps the thread well updated.

There is a balance patch coming on 10th Dec which may change things ( + a new healing skill ) but we’ll just have to wait and see whether that significantly changes anything,

Greenfish.1270:

Are most of these builds still viable? If so are there any that are not any more?

All are viable, you’ll also have an advantage over people not running them. ie. playing mace burst against somebody with GS burst, you have a build advantage. Same with control bunker vs any other kind of bunker.

edit: I realised there’s confusion for Americans with the date, totally forgot about that. Fixed =)

Jax, you mention in the end you’ve a new wvwvw build, any chance you could make link to it? I’ve recently started playing again and even though I’m “only” lvl 50 I’m liking the guardian play a lot but am having a hard time searching through the builds on these forums for what is good and what isn’t.

Thanks.

P.S If you got a build you’d suggest for lvl 50ish guardian doing both normal pve-levelling and wvwvw (can be two specs, I don’t mind retraiting) then I’d be a happy camper hah.

Canubis.6289:

Jax, you mention in the end you’ve a new wvwvw build, any chance you could make link to it? I’ve recently started playing again and even though I’m “only” lvl 50 I’m liking the guardian play a lot but am having a hard time searching through the builds on these forums for what is good and what isn’t.

Thanks.

P.S If you got a build you’d suggest for lvl 50ish guardian doing both normal pve-levelling and wvwvw (can be two specs, I don’t mind retraiting) then I’d be a happy camper hah.

I have a build designed for small skirmishes 2-5 v 1-5 nothing more, I don’t play WvW very often and my build is specifically designed to be run with a friend and just steamroll anybody we play against.
If you’re trying to participate in big wvw fights or anything else it’s probably best to just look through the forums.
It also has a high skill cap for what you need to do.

Here it is anyway:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1g.h1j.0.0.0|b.0.0.d.0.0.0.0.0|1c.7x.1k.7x.1k.7x.1k.7x.1c.7x.1k.7x|31j.0.21j.0.21k.0.3s.0.21k.0.2s.0|0.0.k51.u29b.k29|0.0|w.16.13.19.0|e

Things to note:

• I use 500 Healing Power because I generally dodge perfectly, meaning I only need 500.
• I focus on control and defence for myself and friend, while being able to set up a spike easily. So the damage is indirect mostly.
• I don’t use AH, don’t need it.

I don’t PvE either but anything works there, look through the forums if you want something optimal.

So with these most recent changes will you be updating your list at all? I really like looking at the builds you post I have learned a lot of new stuff for guardian because of them hope to see more from you!

Greenfish.1270:

So with these most recent changes will you be updating your list at all? I really like looking at the builds you post I have learned a lot of new stuff for guardian because of them hope to see more from you!

I’ve been ‘busy’ with ‘stuff’ the last few days. But I will be updating the builds as soon as I’ve had maybe 20-30 hours testing with new traits.
The new heal looks absolutely terrible though, would only give you an advantage over DPS vs power DPS or burst.

Jax.5261:

Greenfish.1270:

So with these most recent changes will you be updating your list at all? I really like looking at the builds you post I have learned a lot of new stuff for guardian because of them hope to see more from you!

I’ve been ‘busy’ with ‘stuff’ the last few days. But I will be updating the builds as soon as I’ve had maybe 20-30 hours testing with new traits.
The new heal looks absolutely terrible though, would only give you an advantage over DPS vs power DPS or burst.

aye – if you try using it sPvP I think you’ll be steam-rollered. I’ve only found a few situations where it “worked” in WvW thanks to superior damage and general player confusion.

Just had to check out a little stat thing on Two-Handed DPS build.

Basically, if you change your Valor VI trait for the IV trait (which also applies to yourself), then you decrease your damage output by 2.89% but increase your ability to absorb direct damage by 6.09%.

In an optimal meta, then, taking the IV trait would be preferable, but due to the amount of condi spam and general imbalance between classes ATM, it’s hard to make a completely accurate comparison between offensive and defensive stats. It’s easy to compare offensive stats to one another, and defensive stats to one another, but try to oppose offensive and defensive stats… There’s always been a heated debate (both internally and externally for me) about whether or not you can compare between the two types of stats. Typically, the more balanced and stable the meta is, the more accurate such a comparison is, but as it grows increasingly more muddled and imbalanced, the validity of the comparison is an entirely different issue.

Anyhow, that’s my take for all y’all on that particular guard build. just something to consider.

PS: if any of you need any more stat comparisons for other builds, just PM me, I’d be happy to help.

It’s taking me longer to test as I’m not playing as much due to life stuff currently.
The new heal is absolutely useless, no advantage anywhere. Most of the trait changes are pretty irrelevant. The main thing I’m testing atm is the sword over scepter on burst, which I was already testing vs engi/ele/thief/war point assault but the 5% extra damage may help it a bit more.

Arganthium.5638:

Just had to check out a little stat thing on Two-Handed DPS build.

Basically, if you change your Valor VI trait for the IV trait (which also applies to yourself), then you decrease your damage output by 2.89% but increase your ability to absorb direct damage by 6.09%.

In an optimal meta, then, taking the IV trait would be preferable, but due to the amount of condi spam and general imbalance between classes ATM, it’s hard to make a completely accurate comparison between offensive and defensive stats. It’s easy to compare offensive stats to one another, and defensive stats to one another, but try to oppose offensive and defensive stats… There’s always been a heated debate (both internally and externally for me) about whether or not you can compare between the two types of stats. Typically, the more balanced and stable the meta is, the more accurate such a comparison is, but as it grows increasingly more muddled and imbalanced, the validity of the comparison is an entirely different issue.

Anyhow, that’s my take for all y’all on that particular guard build. just something to consider.

PS: if any of you need any more stat comparisons for other builds, just PM me, I’d be happy to help.

Did you factor in Vigor?

Jax.5261:

Did you factor in Vigor?

Mmm.

Those aforementioned stats are true whether or not vigor is accounted for. Again, though, another problem with comparing between offensive and defensive stats: even if you do have a lot of vigor, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be better off doing more damage. For example, if this was a condi build (implying- hopefully- that the weapon coefficients were very low to make up for the condi damage, which is true of… Most condition weapons), then, assuming you don’t have some trait like Dhuumfire, I would say (and I’m sure that you would agree) that the additional toughness is worth more than the precision. On the other hand, however, if this was a thief S/D build, I might first consider how much damage I’m soaking up relative to base just from dodging before I considered taking the 150 toughness over the additional precision.

Point is, whether or not vigor is taken into account doesn’t affect the damage reduction. However, if you think that the damage reduction is already extremely good when you factor in vigor, then by all means, go ahead and take the precision. It’s really a matter of opinion here, which tends to be the case fairly often when comparing offensive and defensive stats.

Will be making a come back to the game in the next few weeks, I don’t think there are too many changes to the current builds until I’ve finished testing new content.

I’ve had the most fun with the mace/triple med build so far, but all of these are pretty great.

I find the “best dps build” hammer/staff kind of unwieldly, but I think that is just owed to how underwhelming guardian hammer can be.

Neverminder.3296:

I’ve had the most fun with the mace/triple med build so far, but all of these are pretty great.

I find the “best dps build” hammer/staff kind of unwieldly, but I think that is just owed to how underwhelming guardian hammer can be.

I’m not sure what you really mean by that, you can have a look through my videos and see how I use it effectively or give a more detailed description of what you mean and I can help you use it better.
The hammer is unrivaled in control and has the highest effective damage for a 2h weapon, on Guardian.

I’ll look through your videos. It just feels underwhelming to me. Shouts are kind of boring (if effective) compared to Meditations, and Banish has an overlong cast time.

I’m not saying I know everything, just from a newbie perspective, the Mace Meditation DPS build is a lot of fun.

Is there a decent Hammer build that uses Meditations? All the Hammer builds listed seem to be Shout-based, and I really like the healing from Meds. I guess I never pop the Shouts at the right time and get burned down fairly quickly.

Also, do you have a video of yourself using the “best Guardian DPS” build? I want to see how you play it, because maybe I’m doing it wrong. My best Guardian DPS was 10/0/30/30/0 using a GS and Sc+Fc.

Also, would you say you use your Virtues as an active skill a lot? After watching many Guardian PvP videos I almost never see them activate say.. VoJ.. but there’s a lot of 5 pts. shuffled towards improving them while active.

That’s me teaching people how to use the build you’re referring to. I use Virtues A LOT, you can see in my videos (which aren’t that up to date due to problems streaming) they’re used constantly.

edit: I recommend to never use the GS, it’s an awful weapon regardless of how you use it. Too easy to dodge and doesn’t do enough damage, all other weapons are just better.

Hey Sliven, is the med build viable in WvW and PVE as well? I am thoroughly enjoying the mace+torch/scepter+focus setup!!! I love the burns and burst

Aelle.1723:

Hey Sliven, is the med build viable in WvW and PVE as well? I am thoroughly enjoying the mace+torch/scepter+focus setup!!! I love the burns and burst

In WvW I don’t see why not. I think people want more sustained DPS in PvE though, enemies don’t kite they just sit in your aoe so weapons that spam would be stronger.

Hey dude. I’m rather new to guardian but I’ve been running your “God of Kyho” build as I love the Hammer / Sword-Shield set.

.. But I’m sucking.

I don’t seem to do much damage OR able to defend a node very long, and I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing wrong. Any tips or strategies with that particular build?

I just started guardian in PvP and looked up a lot of builds and picked one that is very much support – staff/mace+shield with clerics 0/0/10/30/30 shout build.

I don’t see any of your builds that look similar. Is this because of personal preference or is it because in your opinion it is simply not an optimal build?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hey dude. I’m rather new to guardian but I’ve been running your “God of Kyho” build as I love the Hammer / Sword-Shield set.

.. But I’m sucking.

I don’t seem to do much damage OR able to defend a node very long, and I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing wrong. Any tips or strategies with that particular build?

Maybe post some gameplay I’ll have a look, it’s hard for me to say if I don’t know how you’re playing the build. You should be on the hammer set dodging treb and swapping to shield if you know you can get the knockoff or if you need to teleport up.

Practice dodging and countering control, it’s very important!

Solstice.1097:

I just started guardian in PvP and looked up a lot of builds and picked one that is very much support – staff/mace+shield with clerics 0/0/10/30/30 shout build.

I don’t see any of your builds that look similar. Is this because of personal preference or is it because in your opinion it is simply not an optimal build?

Both at this stage. For these reasons:

• I generally carry my team and a control build is extremely important for getting the capture point and holding it. The biggest problem other people have, when I see them playing bunker, is that their team just doesn’t control people off capture points with anything except hard AoE cond spam (which a Guardian can deal with easily) so they often a lot of points from having no control.
• You fill three roles as a control Bunker (control, support and Bunker ) which means your team has more of a variety in composition.
• Lastly I prefer utility over heals so knockback res over symbol heals and I also play builds depending on my comp, their comp and the map so quite often I do play staff/sc-sh or staff/hm or staff/mc-sh etc. To me it’s really important to play what’s need and not just heal spam and hope that’ll deal the best with what your enemy is playing.

Hi. I’m having a problem deciding which armour and rune sets to buy and would like some help if someone has time, please.

I like to do wvw support type stuff- follow the commander around and heal a bit, buff a bit, tag people for loot, raise the downed in sketchy situations and maybe do a little damage sometimes. I see the build with magi and clerics with soldier runes in this thread, but every guide for this same type of build has something different. Some full soldier’s. Some mixed. At the moment, I am not one to want to go frontline face melting, but I would like a shot at being able to kill something sometimes. Should I just do the full healing set like in this thread or something in between?

Also regarding runes… I really am tempted to take Traveler runes. I am so tired of getting a little behind the group and then just losing ground because there are no speed buffs and I am soooooo slow. I currently put Retreat! on my bar a lot because of that even though it’s not the best choice. Is there a down side to Traveler or another way to get the speed that I am missing?

For weapons, I have cleric’s staff and knight’s great sword equipped usually. I also have a soldier’s hammer, berserker’s sword and berserker’s focus in my bags.

Oh, and trinkets… I see some people suggest celestial, some suggest soldier or clerics or magi… you name it. Pretty much everything is suggested. Before I spend my guild tokens and laurels, I want to be sure I am buying the right thing.

Advice would be really welcome. I’ve been dithering on this choice for a couple of weeks now since it costs so much and I don’t want to buy all the wrong stuff and then put skins on them only to realise I made a huge mistake (like the first time I hit 80 and spent all my karma on rare quality items from vendors not knowing there were exotics for karma, too). I have read various builds, of course, but they all suggest something different so it is hard to know which have good advice and which don’t.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hey dude. I’m rather new to guardian but I’ve been running your “God of Kyho” build as I love the Hammer / Sword-Shield set.

.. But I’m sucking.

I don’t seem to do much damage OR able to defend a node very long, and I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing wrong. Any tips or strategies with that particular build?

Hello, I’m not jacking Jax’s thread or anything, but I’ll give some general tips with that build:
“God of Kyhlo” is a variant of the 0/0/10/30/30 Cleric/Barb bunker build that gives you 1 more blind (on VoJ) and the Hammer CD reduction.
It is designed with duelling another Guardian on mid in Kyhlo in mind. Your extra blind allows you to avoid a Banish or Shield knockback, and the CD on Hammer ensures that you will be able to Banish 5 seconds (that’s a lot in PvP) sooner than the other one that runs a not-so-specialised spec. Play right, and no other Guard can stand on the node with you for long. However, this build is not built for damage. It is built for survival and your goal is to neutralise a node or defend a node owned by your team long enough for other people to come help you out. Then, you switch to a support role in the teamfight, be it a 2v2 or a 3v3.

Sword/Shield:
The Sword 2 port allows you to get back up onto point if you get banished/knocked back from the platform so that he can’t get the neutralise while you run up the side. Shield knockback can be negated by not having your back to the edges and take note of his weapon switches. Banish range is too high for that. Note though, that if the Guard stands on the edge of the platform close to you, you will only port in front of him and below him. You can use that to your advantage. You can also use Sword 2 as an emergency blind if you are fast enough (also for friend stomping).
The Sword 3 channel does around 2k damage I believe in the Cleric/Barb amulet setup. You can help your teammates with that final bit of damage but don’t get carried away. You can use this to block some Engi nades, their Poison Dart Volley, or a Killshot from a Warrior gun/troll build. Basically most projectiles in front of you. You can also use this to block Downed state projectile interrupts if your friend is stomping.

Shield 4 can be used preemptively if you see a Thief/Warrior incoming and give you some protection during the burst. Note that it grants prot to friends in front of you.
Shield 5 is a 4 second channel if you allow it to cast, and a small heal if you double click 5. It has an instant knockback good for chaining with Sceptre immob, Hammer ring, etc. You can interrupt Earthshaker or any close range melee channels or casts. Watch stability, blind, and aegis. You can help a stomp by blocking the projectile interrupt.

Hammer:
The control weapon. Beside the auto, everything is useful on the Hammer.
Hammer 2: Blast finish and 1.4k damage IIRC in tanky amulet. In a teamfight you can cast this on CD and watch what you blast into. Ranger water field, Engi fire fields, almost all of them give some sort of benefit.
Hammer 3: Immob. You can immob someone coming up the platform while he is below. You can use this after a Banish/Shield knockback but count his teleports and don’t waste it on a dodge (you can sheathe weapon [hotkey] or press esc to cancel cast). You can gib someone if you see your Thief/Ele/Warrior coming along and you set up an immob chaining into theirs.
Hammer 4: It has a 1 second cast time. Be careful and don’t waste it. Interrupt it with a dodge/esc/sheathe if you know you can’t land it (stab/blind/aegis/dodged too far away). You can also bait dodges and CDs if you cast cancel deliberately, but not if you are an Asura because they most likely can’t see the animation. You can chain Hammer 4 into 5 by ringing the side of the Kyhlo mid platform he’s coming from to almost always force his stability. Time the ring right and you’ll have him walk into it just as it appears. You can aim Hammer 4 so that he will be knocked down the stairsand have to walk allll the way back, but takes some practise and reaction timing.
Hammer 5: 3/4s cast control ability. You can ring yourself in, or use it like line of warding on choke points (like Kyhlo mid). As above, time it so that the enemy will walk right into it for a sure way to knock them down. You can then chain Hammer 4 or any Immob to keep them out of the point even longer.

Utilities:
Shelter: Block during a high damage ability for maximal effect. If stunned and know you might get a large damage combo, SYG! -> Shelter to ensure it. Think of it as a dodge with good healing. You can even use it to block projectiles when stomping. Note that this ability can be interrupted if you walk into a Ring of Warding or Line of Warding/Fear wall! Of course, you can also use this to your advantage.
SYG!: Help a stomp, help a res, stop a knockback, stop a launch.
Hold the Line: Use this first as a Condi clearer. Use this when anticipating spike damage.
Sanctuary: 1&1/4s cast time. Use to prevent a stomp and get an almost sure res (not if a Guardian is stomping). Before the fix to the incredible 1/4s cast time it allowed some clutch plays. (e.g. won a 500-499 match because we neutralised mid when Sanc bounced an Engi off point…)
Save Yourselves!: You can use this during Renewed Focus and it clears condis but doesn’t transfer to you (immune in those 2 seconds). Run this if you are running triple shout for dealing with heavy condi.
JI/DI: The 2 meditation ports, some like them, some don’t. You can JI stomp thieves.
Wall of Reflection: You can deal with Engi nades this way.

General playstyle:
Versus other Guardians, be aggressive, bait dodges, force stability, then knock them out of the point. Use all your aegis/blind/block/Energy sigil dodge/CC to stave off the CCs he will throw at you.
Always notify your team of incoming to mid/your point. As a Guardian bunker, if you are left alone 1v1 too long, you will die. Give out short messages like “2 mid, 3 mid, im down” and stall for as long as possible.
If you can’t get mid, you have to watch the situation and help out some other node as mroe of a CC/res support until you can claim back your throne room.

Edit:
Virtues:
VoJ can help out your Necromancer/Engi. You can mini-burst with Sword 2. With 5 in Radiance it is a short range AoE blind. Stomp/stop a Banish/stop a CC. Useful.
VoC can be used to stomp, block a CC etc. Traited Indomitable Courage gives you stability (team stab!) for plays.
VoR is a nice 3 Condi clear and 2k heal when traited and slotted with Clerics respectively. It also does it for the team and can be crucial if you see that Necro/Engi do his Condi rotation and stacked massive burns and bleeds on your team.

Sorry for piping in Jax. Correct me if you feel there’s anything I missed/wasn’t right on.

You’ve hit it on the head. I’ve made many videos on the build so I don’t feel like typing it over and over again.

New build and a few new changes coming soon!

Jax.5261:

New build and a few new changes coming soon!

Do tell…

Is it a Hammer build?

Hi, I’m playing med guardian (I still can’t get the hang of dps with shouts), and I’m having fun with it, but I’m having some problems with two enemies: MM necro and bunker guardian.

With a build very similar to the balanced roamer (Sw/F, Sc/F) I can’t seem to hurt the first before he finishes me off, and can’t take down the second.

Is kiting minions while shooting at the necro with scepter a viable strategy? If not, what works?

And about bunker guardian, is there a way I can take him down single-handedly? Should I use mace instead of sword? Does it do better dps aswell?

Hello,

(TL;DR at bottom)
Some opinions, take with a grain of salt.
Jax has explained a concept of rock-paper-scissors. Bunker > Burst > Sustain > Bunker. Thought it would be good to give him credit for succinct teaching material.

Trip Med Guardian is all burst and no sustain. It doesn’t kill tanky setups like MM or Bunk Guard easily.

All Guard needs to really do is pay attention to your Focus 5 timing and dodge/block/blind your combo. If he gets hit by only half of your burst it is very unlikely you can kill him in the next minute. If left entirely alone, you can kill the Bunk Guard, but it would take way too long. Assuming experienced Guard. You’d have a better chance with sustained DPS specs, such as Symbols. Or bring a Necro, Engi. Those soften Guards up as you force him to burn shouts on condi clear.

Similarly, MM Necro can be difficult because if you fail to kill his minions initially, the sustained damage and CC will overwhelm you, and otherwise his death shroud will make you waste your time. Your Sword and Scepter setup offers very minimal AoE to counter his spec. You have to be careful of his poison as well as the constant, chipping hits and cripples. It’s not a pleasant fight, and it’s generally a bad idea to be on the point with an MM. AoE is your cure. Something like a Decap Engi with bombs. Or run Zerker Symbols. That’s pretty effective. To completely overkill a MM Necro, try Power Necro with Lich Form. That always does the trick.

You also say Sw/F + Sc/F? Normally you would bring an additional secondary like Torch. If by “balanced” you mean soldiers amulet, please don’t. Without zerker’s you can’t kill squishies, and you have no pressure.

Zerker Trip Med with 0/30/30/5/5 or 10/5/30/5/20 excel at killing thieves. The blinds and aegis and invulns and blocks mean that if played correctly you can stop all his burst and counter with punishing Sword autos and burning. Against sustain enemies with high toughness, it’s better not to engage 1v1. Think like a thief (ironically).

Mace is an AoE weapon, Prot Strike in burst specs, the Symbol for sustained DPS. Sword has mobility and a killer Auto when specced for 10% damage. I suggest you try killing Bunk Guard, as mentioned above, with a Condi spec/class. Bunkers can die, they are not immortal, but vs a Bunker who knows what to dodge, a burst spec like Trip Med will waste a lot of time on an enemy owned point.

TL;DR Kill Bunkers, MM with Condi’s or Symbols DPS. Trip Med Guard is burst. Bunk Guard made for negating burst damage (don’t forget Protection boon) so throwing more burst damage at it doesn’t really help.

Ralkuth.1456:

You also say Sw/F + Sc/F? Normally you would bring an additional secondary like Torch. If by “balanced” you mean soldiers amulet, please don’t. Without zerker’s you can’t kill squishies, and you have no pressure.

No, I meant Sw/F, Sc/T, sorry.XD

By balanced I wanted to refer to the build posted on page 1, I use berserker.

However, you mean sword is actually more burst oriented, even if it relies on autoattack? I see.
It makes sense that med guardian is burst because has some spike heals.

However, I must be doing something wrong: the times I tried symbol dps I felt really squishy. Maybe it was because I was in hotjoin, so the low mobility was an issue.

However, I never realized symbols were that strong O_O

Jax.5261:

Blasino.3128:

The might stacking hammer sounds really interesting. I would like to see that build when you are done with it =).

http://tinyurl.com/dymb6py

Not finished yet but this is currently what I’m testing.

What about using staff instead of scepter? You should be able to go abouve 20 stacks with empower and might!

Staff is ideal in a sustained Symbol DPS build. You would have larger, longer lasting and healing Symbols. They offer very steady damage (1.2k a tick with zerker) and support as long as you play on points with your team. Empower is great when you can get off the full cast, but watch out as smart players will exploit that, either by bursting you down or stealing the mights. Staff + Mace/Whatever is pretty good for this setup. Altruistic Healing keeps you up but you can be quite weak to conditions, like poison.

Don’t use staff in a Trip Med build. Trip Med as of now is still very much burst oriented.

Sword is a Burst weapon as you can ZD for a fair amount and at some range. However it is nearly impossible to land the full channel on someone smart. You often use it to block iDuelist or somebody with a troll Killshot build. It is also burst because with Fire or Air Sigil your 3rd Auto hit can go upwards of 4k, even better with the sword trait 10% buff. It also pairs very well with Focus 5 as you can port in to deliver the AoE without wasting JI port so you can have options.

Scepter goes very well with Trip Med because it hits decently hard and the Immob allows you to combo, either with your own skill set or with a teammate, e.g. your thief is going for the backstab and you immob the enemy so that it will definitely land; Immob -> ZD on sword/Prot Strike on mace + VoJ + JI + Smite Condition for fast burst when someone is out of condi removals and dying.

Guardian mobility is low but make use of LoS when you are trying to buy time. You won’t get away usually but you can survive a long time by delaying until CDs come back up. Sword port (skill 2) is very good for chasing or running away from AoE.

I recommend playing lots of Bunker to stretch your defensive reflexes, then playing Trip Med when comfortable. Trip Med can be very unforgiving at times.

This is a build my friend has made 10 months prior. It still works and is the “safest” Trip Med option with Absolute Resolution. You may know it as 10/5/30/5/20. It could help you learn more about Trip Med as a valid playstyle. Don’t be afraid to die loads and don’t be afraid to try out the skills. Do so without reserve. That way, you’re sure to master it in less time than hesitating about when to use what.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vUAQRAsf7dlsApcodDxaI8DVhkpoARQbBVFiHcBXPgoIqhA-TwAg0CnIqRhjDHDOScs4MIYRw2ipFA
You can still kill people with it very well, but if you want better burst and steadier crits, stick with Mace burst/Roamer. All the builds here are the good ones.

I was talking about using the staff in that might stacking build. I agree, triple med is too bursty for staff.

About symbol builds, what do I get in the honor traitline? Shout reduction, condi cleanse on shouts and then Writ of the Merciful? Is it a good idea to fight someone alone, or should I always stick with allies?

I admit I enjoy dps guardian much more than bunker guardian (I feel I’m useful in teamfight, but I die to anyone in 1v1 eventually as bunker), but I’ll try and follow your suggestion, thanks!^^