Guild Wars 2

Id love some feedback from players who ALSO enjoy the toe-to-toe support/survive role

All things considered this is just a modified Alltruistic shout healing build but with a few tweaks and refinement. The idea behind this build is being able to take huge amounts of upfront damage and being able to negate many of the hard hitting initial attacks or skills. Secondary to that is tanking, group damage reduction and support via simply….staying ALIVE through the worst of the worst.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlYgKC33RLEfIFRWhVaVggYKwoHveoQHyQA;T0A5WStUNpYiKLzOidsZ5ySm1ajRDzGA

I will not go into the details of each trait but know they all revolve around more then their own abilities, each one is affected by a skill or another trait. i.e. Increased symbol duration for mace 2 (obvious one)

The main change is moving some traits around allowing for a blind when activating Justice (adding ANOTHER way to avoid all damage just could not be passed up) At this point I’m really looking at how many ways I can simply have the mob MISS me or their attacks ABSORBED all together…the ones that get through are being reduced by 44% (see below) not even counting the toughness I have stacked. I also picked up another source of retaliation via traits as well. I really like retaliation and may work on a retaliation/tanking build one of these days to test viability.

If you cycle abilities correctly you end up being able to ENTIRELY negate quite a few attacks back to back and one more if you swap in retreat. On top of this by the time you reach your last absorb/shield your first ones are popping back up.

Again Im banking on protection and protection duration being increased via two new runes (earth) and if you noticed I have swapped in Signet of Judgment… yes you lose a shout BUT it’s REALLY hard to argue with 10% damage reduction as a passive, couple this with protection (33%) and your looking at 44% decreased damage across the board at nearly 100% up time. (No, protection does not defend vs. conditions but with the number of condition removing abilities, conditions have never been an issue for myself.

Some notes:

This build revolves around Vit, Tough, Power and Healing Power (I suggest AC or HOTW armor sets + Soldiers runes/Earth)

Swapping in a mace/shield is VERY viable with this build and I find myself using such often (depends on my mood and what we’re running)

DPS is low with this build, obviously, however many of the traits and abilities result in retaliation being tossed up and it’s a none to shabby boon as it DOES help with the overall “wet noodle” factor.

There are so many ways to play the Guardian and thats whay I love about the class, in the end though I am a group supporter at heart and I prefer to do so from the thick of things, this build gets me that.

You say support, but besides the Hold the Line Shout, you bring nothing unique and/or new to compensate for your lack of damage.

In a dungeon, 5 players are expected to deal damage. If one is being “carried”, I expect his support to be so awesome that actually compensates the group to kill a monster faster than if he weren’t support.

You’re also bringing Empower, Symbol of Swiftness, Symbol of Protection and heals from Empower/Orb of Light, and the occasional Blind via VoJ and boons through Inspired Virtues.
With this alone, my Guardian who is damage oriented can also bring all of this and a bit more and do a better job at dealing damage.

If you’re planning on going heavy on support, then focus on support, not self-protection and survivability. In the end, you’re looking to be a heavy bunker who does nothing but taking hits.

If you really want more support, there’s plenty of traits you can pick while still increasing your overall damage and survivability:
- Zeal’s Symbolic Exposure if you’re focusing on Symbol weapons.
- Honor’s Battle Presence, Empowering Might, Writ of the Merciful, and you get more damage via Elusive Endurance and Health.
- Virtue’s Master of Consecrations (they’re excellent for groups)
- Radiance’s Renewed Justice along with Virtue’s Inspired Virtue for a Might boon spam against tons of weak monsters.
- Zeal’s Spirit Weapons’ traits if you use the Shield, Bow or Hammer. Some of them makes some encounters incredibly easy.

Radiance and Valor lines are self-centered, meaning there’s little support coming from these two. The exception being Radiance’s minors paired with Inspired Virtues.
All the other lines provide better support.

And avoid Virtue’s Vengeful if you’re not going to make a retaliation build for yourself. Even if you plan on granting Retaliation to the group, not every one takes hits for granted and will gladly eat a 3~5k damage from a boss just to deal a 300ish damage back.
This is helpful if you’re doing this for WvW turtles, but since you don’t mention it in your post I doubt it’s for this reason.

From what I see, you’re lacking damage and support with these choices compared with other Guardian builds.
If you’re not a Might spammer with Empowering Might and Renewed Justice + Inspired Virtues, or a healing bot with a bunch of heals like Battle Presence and Writ of the Merciful and Mace’s Symbol of Faith, nor grants group’s cleansing with Purging Grounds, nor projectile protection with Shield of Absorption, Shield of the Avenger, Wall of Reflection or Sanctuary, nor a Shout based build, nor a Extended Boon Hammer Protection for high protection uptime, I’d expect you to deal some freaking insane damage!

You can also do decent damage with any of the aboves (might’ve missed some builds), but doing none of these and not dealing damage is really lacking.
That’s akin to those Signet Warriors who provide no support but deal insane damage, except you’ve made a “I can take hits” Guardian (which doesn’t help killing monsters).

Danicco,

Incredible input and makes me rethink a number of things, I thank you for that.

That said I should have prefaced this by saying this build has served myself and my guild well in clearning ALL explore paths and developing our own speed runs through said explores as well. I will try out many of your suggestions but what my build came down to was “the guy” who soaks damage and draws mobs away from the group allowing them to focus on what they do best in any given situation. Your right about it being all about “killing the monster”, well said, but many times its about allowing the group to do just that and not have to worry about other variables, my build accomplishes that.

That said, all I play is a guard (no alts) and I am ALWAYS looking for new builds and new ways to enjoy my playstyle so I truly thank you for your advice and will be tring out much of what you suggest!

Cheers!