Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been playing around with how to make my medi guardian have more survivability and still put out good dps, and I came up with this. Been testing it out in sPvP with good results.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsd7flsApaolDxbI8DRh/Qkj1FTB4cd55HA-TpBEwAGOBAaLDkb/BAHBgHHEACPAAA

General build is sw/f + sc/t x/6/6/x/x

It hurts losing the ferocity from the zerker amulet, but the precision is more or less made up by going 6 into radiance. Base 24% crit chance along with right hand strength and a good amount of fury add up to 59% crit chance. Though this build does require one handed weapons to sustain any sort of crits. Mace could be swapped in depending on preference and situation.

I went with runes of the pack for the power and precision, plus ~50% uptime on swiftness and fury. Air and Fire sigils on sw/f for the extra dps, and bloodlust/energy on sc/t. The last 2 trait points can be used for extra dps with fiery wrath or extra survivability with vigorous precision and inspired virtues.

2k base power, 3k toughness and 18k hp add up for a very well rounded build. You can see the difference in team fights being able to sustain yourself while still putting out good dps.

Problem with soldier is that it only hurts two rough match ups for you: engi and necro. Need to roll zerker to have chances against these.

I agree with Ken on this one, I’ve tried this build before with mix results. Biggest problem is how drastically your TTK falls, and there’s also some spec you can’t beat. For example if you run into a hambow using soldier ammy, you don’t have the dps to take them down. However, it you where running zerker, it’s very simple.

It’s an interesting build, to be sure. I used to run Zerk with Sword/Torch+Scepter/Focus, although I’d spec almost full glass. I think this offers a more clearly defined role per weapon set, but it’s all up to playstyle, I suppose.

I’ll go test your version with various amulets and come back.

Meh.. compared to the usual med spec you lose damage, aoe, support and condi cleanse and the only thing you gain is armor and a bit more hp. Not even close to being worth it.

While I only played half a dozen matches, I learned a lot about the build.

1) It lacks map mobility. Sure, you have two blinks, but they both require targets, and you have no way to give yourself swiftness.
2) It’s one of those builds that fits somewhere in-between being glass and bunker, and I don’t mean in a good way like your more traditional Greatsword AH build. It can’t kill tanky people and can’t survive the glass people (unless you get the jump on them, but then you might as well be glass too to drop them quicker)
3) The build itself didn’t perform particularly better with Zerker or Soldier’s amulet. You moved slightly from the middle of the road towards one end of the spectrum or the other, but, you sacrificed too much from the other end. If a LB ranger is a 5 star on damage and a true-blue bunker is 5 star defense, you sit at like 3 and 2 starts depending on your amulet. It’s just not quite good enough to stack up against the more refined specs.

I’m sure you can use the spec and have success with it, particularly in hot join spvp or WvW, but it felt like a red-headed-stepchild to me: a bit out of place and trying too hard to be jack of all

Vecuu.2018:

While I only played half a dozen matches, I learned a lot about the build.

1) It lacks map mobility. Sure, you have two blinks, but they both require targets, and you have no way to give yourself swiftness.
2) It’s one of those builds that fits somewhere in-between being glass and bunker, and I don’t mean in a good way like your more traditional Greatsword AH build. It can’t kill tanky people and can’t survive the glass people (unless you get the jump on them, but then you might as well be glass too to drop them quicker)
3) The build itself didn’t perform particularly better with Zerker or Soldier’s amulet. You moved slightly from the middle of the road towards one end of the spectrum or the other, but, you sacrificed too much from the other end. If a LB ranger is a 5 star on damage and a true-blue bunker is 5 star defense, you sit at like 3 and 2 starts depending on your amulet. It’s just not quite good enough to stack up against the more refined specs.

I’m sure you can use the spec and have success with it, particularly in hot join spvp or WvW, but it felt like a red-headed-stepchild to me: a bit out of place and trying too hard to be jack of all

Thanks for the testing man, exactly what I was looking for. I figured it wouldn’t pan out as much in tPvP as it would in hotjoin, I just didn’t want to be a liability with the build.

I had more luck with it in team fights than 1v1. I noticed a huge difference being able to stay in the fights longer with the survivability soldier amulet offers while still putting out good dps.

If you compare it to a standard 2/1/6/1/4 gs sw/f build it’s about even in power and precision. The 30% crit damage does hurt but I figured it might balance out on sustaining more damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApbolDxaI8DNR8QlZd8iVGAJw1/wOkDA-TZRBwAduIA02focZgFHBAAPAAA

This is what I’m running.

I think it’s pretty efficient, I’ve been playing around a bit with weapons but I like this combo the most, especially because I tried going for Retaliation while mainting high power (especially with that rune armor set and weapon swap rune I can get to decent amounts of Might) and survivability/condition removal.