Guild Wars 2

With that said I have a Guardian sitting around with Soldiers Exotic armor, Soldiers Exotic back/Trinkets, and Ascended Zerker Rings/Neck/Hammer/GS.

Will I be able to tank with a Hammer?

If I need Scepter/Shield can they be exotic?

Do I have to invest in Ascended Armor which would require power leveling Armor smithing and a ton of time gating?

What masteries should I be leveling up?

probably
probably not
yes
probably all, read up about what people have done to complete the raid

You need ascended trinkets and weapons. The armor is the smallest gain so you can skimp on that for now.

As far as soldiers, I can’t imagine that is the optimal choice for tanking.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

You need ascended trinkets and weapons. The armor is the smallest gain so you can skimp on that for now.

As far as soldiers, I can’t imagine that is the optimal choice for tanking.

It has Vitality for HP/ and Toughness for aggro/damage reduction that seems like exactly what it was made for.

Made for bruising as it offers a mathematically optimal ratio of damage : defense (aside from dire gear, but that stuff is just OP and came into the game later).

If you’re tanking in raids, from what I understand you’re going to need three defensive stats.

Hi there! I’ve tanked the new raid. It’s nowhere near as hard as people make it out to be. You need two things.

1. The highest toughness in the party (for threat generation)
2. Enough mitigation to survive (you can do this with minimal toughness)

As you can see, the irony is that the toughness you need is less about survival and more about threat generation, because of this game’s lack of threat generation skills. I don’t think that is a bad thing though. Anyhow, to answer your question, you can absolutely tank in exotic soldier gear – quite easily. Happy raiding!

P.S. Hypothetically, if you could hold threat, you could face-tank the Vale Guardian w/ a hammer in full zerker gear. :p

Personally I would go for a good mix of celestial & or ministrel. (possibly even cleric/soldier)

You get all the threat generation you need + quite a bit of self healing & AOE healing to help the group.

i dont think people still understand what tanking means in gw raids…

Dont expect to run around the place,agro the entire room, position your self so that the mobs face you and not the rest of your party so they can burst aoe dps them while that single healer druid is healing you up…

Specially not during boss fights….

That being said, youll need quite more than some gear that gives you toughness and vitality..

DeceiverX.8361:

If you’re tanking in raids, from what I understand you’re going to need three defensive stats.

What? No. You can have only a bit of toughness as long as you have a big of sustain, either AH, Writ of Persistence, Protection, Aegis, etc. Some prefer to use a mix of toughness and healing power to be independent from the Druids and to keep the dps party at 100% hp, but that’s not needed. Most only use the druid for that job, leaving the tank to increase his dps.

I was going to go knights armor and zerker everything else. Then have my buddy on a Zealot Druid. That plus all the water fields from Engies should be enough assuming you use all your defensive skills and dodges well. IE VoC ×2 Focus mace block etc

Oldirtbeard.9834:

With that said I have a Guardian sitting around with Soldiers Exotic armor, Soldiers Exotic back/Trinkets, and Ascended Zerker Rings/Neck/Hammer/GS.

Will I be able to tank with a Hammer?

If I need Scepter/Shield can they be exotic?

Do I have to invest in Ascended Armor which would require power leveling Armor smithing and a ton of time gating?

What masteries should I be leveling up?

1) You probably don’t need that much toughness. You just need more toughness than the rest of your party.

2) Hammer is ideal for tanking due to the prot up time (more efficient than gear for negating damage)

3) You’re probably fine just using ascended trinkets (bought with laurels/guild comms), although I would advise getting at least 1 ascended weapon if you can. A lucky ascended chest drop will cover you. Ascended weapons and trinkets are a decent boost in stats, but armor doesn’t make as much of a difference.

Once the fractal rewards are adjusted, you can probably just farm fractals and try to get lucky with ascended drops.