Sword and Board builds?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Frac40-High-DPS-Support-build/first
Best sword/shield build there is IMHO.
Hope that helps.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79899-the-ultimate-guardian-build/
Mine is probably objectively the best sword/anything build out there. You’ll probably do okay with that other one as well, but your DPS won’t be as good.
Thanks for these guys! I appreciate it.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79899-the-ultimate-guardian-build/
Mine is probably objectively the best sword/anything build out there. You’ll probably do okay with that other one as well, but your DPS won’t be as good.
guanglai I’m using your build and really enjoying it, but trying to bring a tiny bit of the defensive support from Red Falcon’s build (the other one linked) where I can. I’m using a shield as my off-hand and a staff as my weapon swap – what’s your preferred secondary weapon? also, have you changed your views on whether dropping anything to get 5 into Virtues is worth it? with my boon-duration stacking runes I’m wondering if 5 virtues would have more party benefit than the valor points, for instance.
Still not a huge fan of a paltry amount of might for a tiny duration. If you want defensive support, drop the Valor points altogether and go 10 into Virtues so you can take Master of Consecrations. Just going 5 points in is a total waste of a major trait.
Other than that, there isn’t really a ton of room to move points around if you want defensive support. Fiery Wrath is still pretty much mandatory for every guardian build due to the massive damage boost for almost no trait point investment and Empowering Might is a must-have for 90% of party compositions.
I’ve tried Guanglai’s build before as well. It’s great for if you love doing lots of damage, but I tended to die very fast when using it. I don’t think its a very effective build for WvW if that’s your thing, unless of course you are masterful at avoiding damage. (That’s just my personal experience, you may be a better player than I am, lol).
Guanglai’s ultimate build has an effective power of 5123, which is pretty beast for a guardian. But his damage reduction is 19% and his effective health is at 16,144. RedFalcon’s build has an effective power of 4,630, but with a damage reduction of 32% (which is increased to 65% with the Protection boon), and an effective Health of 22,412. So you do slightly less DPS, but your survivability is greatly increased. You also offer a bit more group utility with RedFalcon’s build.
This isn’t to take anything away from Guanglai’s build. It just doesn’t fit my personal playstyle. I’m sure if you are the type who loves high damage, it would be the way to go. :-)
Well, I’m not trying to get into a kitten contest about what’s better, but I do have a few problems with that build. That’s why I suggested mine instead:
1) 20 points in Valor is pointless. The 15-point minor is pretty useless and Honorable Shield really isn’t that good. 90 toughness is nothing and shaving off a few seconds on skills you probably won’t be using on cooldown anyway doesn’t make a huge difference.
2) He doesn’t have Empowering Might. For solo and WvW, that’s fine, but for dungeon runs, Empowering Might is a huge damage booster. It is worth something like 3-4 stacks of might party-wide depending on your boon duration, which adds up to quite a bit when you have other guardians in the party with it (and warriors with FGJ, engineers with Bomb Kit, etc.). A guardian/warrior/engineer/mesmer group combo can maintain 100% uptime on 25 stacks of might pretty easily.
3) He’s got both Superior Aria and Master of Consecrations traited, which is kind of a waste, since if you’re taking Wall of Reflection + Stand Your Ground + Signet of Judgment, you’ve actually only got one shout on your bar. It’s okay to take Superior Aria for only one shout if you have 20 points in Honor for EM, but investing just 10 points into Honor means you’re basically taking those ten points solely to reduce the cooldown on one shout by a few seconds.
4) He doesn’t have Fiery Wrath. That’s a really, really big hit to DPS.
Hey Guanglai,
As I said, not badmouthing your build. You certainly have a well-thought-out spec. But I would address your points since I’ve played both specs…
1. Points in Valor is not worthless, though it is definitely not the strongest trait line we have. You do get +200 toughness and +20% crit damage from the tree. Honorable Shield is more for the reduced cooldown on shield #4 so you can keep the protection boon applied consistently, thus upping your and your group’s damage mitigation and increasing your survivability. If you’re playing with a shield that is equipped most of the time, this is a pretty good major trait to have.
2. The Guardian has lots of ways to buff might other than empowering might. Virtue of Justice plus Empower gives you 15 stacks of might. And as you said, most groups will ensure full stacks of might are always applied. So you don’t really need empowering might to be effective. Plus, you’re actually applying Protection and Stability to the group, which is not easy for other classes to reliably apply.
3. You can swap out powers to suit the situation. Sometimes you slot more shouts, other times you put in consecrations. it depends on the fight. I think most of his utilities in that build are just general placeholders. I tend to run double shouts most of the time, even triple shouts, and swap out consecrations and the signet when needed. (The signet is best kept for boss fights where the extra passive damage reduction is more valuable) In WvW, a triple shout or consecration + 2 shout layout can be better. It’s all situational.
4. Well, to be fair, his build is a support build, with high DPS. Not a DPS build. I made it clear before your build is better for damage output, but I would die super quick when using it, whereas with RedFalcon’s build, I would not die often at all. Again, this may reflect more on my skills as a player than the build itself, but RedFalcon’s build is more forgiving of mistakes than your build is.
The idea that you can have 4600 effective power on a support build is amazing, since most support builds have effective powers of around 2000-2500.
1) Those points are better spent elsewhere, is what I’m saying. The recharge boost on Shield of Judgment doesn’t substantially increase the protection uptime, and the extra 100 toughness and 10% crit damage are pretty insignificant.
2) Empowering Might is the most consistent way for the guardian to maintain party might without sacrificing DPS. Empower is a really good skill but being stuck on staff for ten seconds in order to get a 10-second boost to party damage isn’t necessarily worth it, especially if it means you have to keep switching back to staff constantly. The 3-4 constant stacks of might on top of not having to swap your weapon tends to be worth more than 12 stacks of might half the time and a substantial personal DPS loss. And of course, you can always just EM + staff for even more might, but my point is basically that EM is the best source of might from a guardian, short of my hammer + consecrations 10/0/0/30/30 build.
3) The problem with just 10 in Honor is that you are basically investing those points specifically for shouts, while 10 in Virtues means you are taking those points specifically for consecrations. That’s compared to 20 in Honor, where you are basically getting the shout CD trait “for free”, since you’re actually investing the points for EM. Doing 10/10 split in two lines that are mutually exclusive basically means that no matter what you do for utilities, you are basically wasting 10 points one way or another.
4) The only real difference in support between that trait spread and mine is 10 in Virtues instead of Valor. Like I suggested before, you can run 10/30/0/20/10 for a more support-oriented consecrations spread; that way you’ll retain the offensive support (EM) on top of the defensive options (MoC), which is probably ultimately more supportive than 0/30/20/10/10 and will still have better DPS.
I’m not saying that spread is necessarily bad; it’ll probably get you through most content, but I’m just not seeing the logic behind some of the tradeoffs he’s making from a minmax perspective.