Guild Wars 2

Please remain it PVE wise, with focus in group play.

My build is based on shouts, pretty simplistic actually: Full soldier runes so I can benefit from 6/6 (shouts remove conditions). Build 0/X/30/30/x with AH as a base.

My gear was mostly soldier gear since I’m always tanking. Amazing how most mobs not even leave me due to toughness. Mitigation added to my guardian skills allows me to MT anything, except some extremly tricky pulls in Arah (where CC is a must).

However, I’m feeling a lack of crit chance to make all my synergy of EM + AH procs (plus a ghost food!). So maybe, just maybe, I may go from full soldier to full Knight + cavalier.

Lotsa toughness, but no vit. Well, maybe I’ll keep my soldier weapon for SOME vit, but considering our dirty low HP, I wonder if all that toughness will make it worth it. It doesnt really affect spells after all.

What do you guys use when tanking (pve – group play). What are your runes?

I use this: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3|1.1g.h2|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x|4s.0.2s.0.3s.0.1n.67.1n.67.2u.0|0.0.u65b.u289.a6|0.0|e

I do a lot of harder dungeon content with my static group, and tanking is more about mitigation through use of skills and well-timed dodges. My near 3k toughness is merely used as a way to get aggro more frequently and to contribute to my crit chance. I’m using soldier runes to reduce/negate the effects of snares/roots that some enemies use because being stuck in one place can get you killed fast (i.e. flying shaman in volcano fractals).

I think armor rating much higher than 3000 isn’t really worth it. You’re not going to be invincible, especially when there’s a lot of bosses that use instant-down (or near instant down) mechanics. I’m not sure what you think of when the word “tanking” comes up, but in my experience with GW2, it’s getting aggro off of your allies and mitigating/avoiding lethal hits through proper skill use and timely dodges. Facetanking is mostly something you’ll find in other MMOs, and should not be applied here when facing the encounters with lethal attacks that ignore your high resistance.