Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow Guardians.

I’m going to be sharing a very anti-meta, tank/heal Guardian build. I don’t take credit for this kind of build. I’m sure there are players out there who run this type of build, but I just wanted to post my take on it and bring a little bit more general awareness for these kinds of builds.

So let’s address some things before moving forward. I see a lot of talk here on the forums about players being unhappy playing with a Hammer. Personally, I am in the opposite camp, and I think Hammer is perfect the way it is. It caters to a very different kind of play style, and I’ve built my Guardian around the Hammer. In fact, i’ve only had success with my build due to one crucial element: the Symbol of Protection from the Hammer auto-attack. Without this symbol, my build falls apart, and I will probably cry and quit the game lol.

The build:

This build is strictly designed for one thing only: to be an effective melee tank/healer, keeping the pressure off your allies so they can pew pew without worrying about dying. This build has very little damage output and focuses solely on personal/group survivability. It does however provide lots of utility through frequent blast finishers, blocks, healing, breaking break bars, and all of the other good stuff that Guardians do. There is a version of this build that sacrifices tankyness for more DPS. I’ll post that and talk about it too. So without further ado, here are the builds.

An Exotic version of the build

A min-maxed Ascended version of the build

With this version, you can slot in extra Nomad’s Trinkets (the Amulet would be best) to achieve 17k HP if you desire a bigger health pool.

The DPS version of the build

Here’s a video by Narc from DnT who’s running a similar, but different version of the DPS build

He takes DH over Virtues. I prefer Virtues for the buffed Virtue of Resolve.

And here’s a video of Nemesis from before the HoT pre-patch

The purpose of this build

This build is designed for you to take aggro from mobs and provide constant Protection and AoE healing for you and your allies. Virtually every heal/block/boon that you provide for yourself is also applied to your allies. This build is going to provide amazing damage mitigation + healing for you and your allies.

The Pre-HoT patch removed the viability of running shouts over Meditations due to Pure of Voice now competing with Writ of Persistence. Unfortunately, this has to be compensated with by running Meditations, a much more selfish set-up. The benefit of Meditations comes in their ability to act as mini heals, helping you syrvive burst damage and being able to stay in the fight to provide your Protection and AoE healing.

How it works:

So lets get into it. There are three main factors to the success of this build.

1. Writ of Persistence – Grandmaster Trait in the Honor line. Symbols last longer, are larger, and heal allies.
2. Symbol of Protection – proc from the third auto-attack in your hammer auto-attack chain. Grants 33% damage reduction.
3. Superior Rune of the Defender – Provides a huge personal heal after you block an attack.

The whole play style revolves around you being able to just run in to a group of mobs, and start auto-attacking with hammer until you proc your Symbol of Protection. Your symbol will grant you Protection and heal you at the same time. For this to work effectively, you need to stack Healing Power, Toughness, and Vitality, to varying degrees. When you are properly geared and traited, you will be able to come out of most fights with a full health bar, or a very close to full health bar. For example, you know those Veteran Giants in Orr, the ones that spawn grubs all over the place? Yeah, you can solo them with ease by just autoattacking and cleaving everything down while healing yourself. You know those one-shot mechanics that kill you instantly if you fail to dodge? Yeah, you can live through those, and with a good chunk of your HP still remaining. Sounds good so far?

Playing with Mace/Shield is a bit different. It’s plays more heavily on “active mitigation”, and it doesn’t provide Protection like the hammer does. Where the Mace/Shield combo shines is with its ability to heal. Instead of applying protection on the auto-attack, it heals for a small amount. The “2” ability places a symbol on the ground that grants regeneration. Not only will you gain regeneration, but the symbol will also grant its own healing amount thanks to Writ of Persistence. The “3” ability is a block, which will proc the heal on your runes (which I will go through in the next paragraph). This heal is substantial and can heal you almost to full in a pinch. So Mace/Shield is great for Condi Heavy fights or times when you need a quick heal with the regeneration symbol. Hammer is still your best weapon though.

So I need to talk about the runes i’m using, the Superior Runes of the Defender. It provides Aegis after you use a healing skill, and it also triggers a substantial heal after you block an attack. These abilities proc off one another. Not only that, but Guardians get passive Aegis applied to them every 40 seconds. So basically, you get a huge free heal every 40 seconds after your Aegis blocks something. This has saved my life many times, especially when I get knocked down.

Gear:

(Exotic)
Weapons: Cleric’s Hammer and Mace/Shield.
Sigils: Superior Sigil of Water/Superior Sigil of Purity.
Amor: Cleric’s.
Runes: Superior Rune of the Defender.
Jewelry:Cleric’s Amulet, Nomad’s Rings and Accessories.
Back-piece: Magi/Sapphire Jewel.

(Ascended)
Weapons: Nomad’s.
Sigils: Superior Sigil of Water/Superior Sigil of Purity.
Amor: Cleric’s.
Runes: Superior Rune of the Defender.
Jewelry: Cleric’s Amulet, Nomad’s Rings, Nomad’s Accessory + Cleric’s Accessory.
Back-Piece: Same as Exotic setup / whatever else you prefer for min-maxing.

You want enough Healing Power that your healing does not become insignificant, you want enough Vitality that you don’t get one-shot, and you want enough Toughness that you’re always holding aggro. I think at minimum you want 15k HP, 1300-1400 Healing Power, and 3200-3400 Toughness. These are the stats you want if your running without a dedicated healer. It’s great for open-world, fractals, dungeons, and for soloing all of the HoT areas. If you have a dedicated healer, you can opt for the DPS version of this build, or simply slot in more Nomad’s gear for the extra Vitality.

You can obtain the Ascended Nomads from completing achievements in Living Story Season 2. You can obtain the Amulet, Accessories, and Rings this way. Go to Dulfy.net for guides on completing the achievements. They don’t take too long, and can usually be completed solo.

Skills:

I use Meditations because they are great for Condi cleanse + they act as a Heal when traited with Monk’s Focus. You get burst healing on a relatively short cool down, and amazing condi cleanse. I sometimes also take Signet of Judgment for the extra 10% damage reduction if I need to be extra tanky.

My heal skill is Signet of Resolve for the passive condi removal. Shelter is also really great because of the block it provides and the synergy with our Runes, but i prefer the consistent condi removal from the Signet. Litany of Wrath can be an option here too, but I honestly havent even tried it because I love Signet of Resolve so much.

Lastly, my Elite skill is Signet of Courage. I’m really glad they changed it to a passive heal effect. This is going to help our sustain by a huge amount and provide even more healing to our allies.

Important Traits:

Strength of the Fallen: Lose conditions at a set interval.
Monk’s Focus: For healing meditations.
Writ of Persistence: For healing Symbols.
Absolute Resolution: For stronger Virtue of Resolve passive + Condi Cleanse.
Battle Presence: Nearby Allies gain Virtue of Resolve’s passive effect. We want this for AoE healing.

There are a lot of traits that I’ve picked for my own personal play style. A lot of those traits give me extra blocks, or do things for me passively. You can change those around to what fits your play style, but the 5 traits listed above are pretty crucial to this build.

How it all comes together:

Dodge rolls, Auto-attacks, Armor Runes, Weapon Sigils, Symbols, Regeneration, Meditations, Virtue of Resolve, and Signet of Courage are the sources of healing for this build.

With the ascended version of this build sitting at 16k HP, 1400 Healing Power, and 3400 toughness (3550 when accounting for strength in numbers), we have become very very good at mitigating damage.

Here’s a chart on damage mitigation as toughness scales up

We have passive 48% damage reduction at all times. When we put Protection on ourselves, this become 81% damage reduction. If we put signet of Judgment on our skill bar, this become 91% damage reduction! (I think my math is right?)

The DPS Version:

The DPS variant uses Celestial stats. Why? Because Celestial stats are actually amazing for Guardians. We are built to be able to perform many different types of roles, and Celestial allows us to deal damage and still be an effective tank. We have a decent amount of Healing Power, a much higher Health Pool, and pretty decent toughness as well.

A big part part of this build comes from being able to trait into Empowering Might. We can have 45% crit with Celestial Stats, which would allow us to build stacks of might on ourselves, increasing our DPS. Its a very simple yet synergistic build, and you can build your Guardian any you want from the ground up with Celestial Stats. This is just an example of how you can pseudo-tank with Celestial. Narc does it in his Raid video, but he has a dedicated Healer. I don’t think you can be a raid tank running Celestial without a healer though.

The Drawbacks:

We do absolutely no damage. It takes a long time to kill things, and this can be frustrating when out in the world by yourself.

We are also very vulnerable to interrupts and knockbacks because we have zero ways to apply Stability to ourselves. Anytime we get knocked out of our Symbol, we lose protection and the healing it provides. Furthermore, fights that have consistent interrupts and knockbacks (or even just fighting too many mobs at once), can prevent you from getting your auto-attack chain off, which means you get no healing and no damage reduction. This is really bad and you can die very easily this way. What I do in these situations is pop my Meditations because they heal me for a couple thousand HP and I stabilize until I can get my auto-attacks off. Or you can switch to mace/shield and plant your symbol for the Regen.

We also have very low HP compared to other Plate-wearers. This is off-set by the fact that we have access to a ton of blocks. I also compensate my build for this by choosing Runes of the Defender on my amor. It gives me an extra block and an extra heal, which effectively doubles my HP depending on how hard-hitting that blocked attack was + the extra heal I just received.

What I would like to see changed around in the traits to better support a Tank build:

Moving Pure of Voice into the Valor tree, which would replace Altruistic Healing, and Altruistic Healing would then replace Might of the Protector (a major trait) in the Valor tree. This allows Guardians to opt for a shout-healing build with both Pure of Voice+Altruistic Healing, without having to compete with Writ of Persistence. That was the build I ran before the HoT pre-patch, but then they switched around the traits. You lose out on the free heals from Meditations, but you provide more group support with your Boons. Not only that, but you can then run Stand Your Ground, which would grant you Stability.

In conclusion:

I think Guard is the best profession to play as a tank. Not so much as a healer, because we can’t sustain the insane amount of healing that a Druid can do, but we are still effective at keeping ourselves up, as well as any other melee around us. The fact that we can keep up Protection + Heal ourselves is the reason why this build can work. We’re the only profession that can do this. Without the Protection, this build would fall apart. It doesn’t matter how much healing we can do if we can’t keep up Protection, which is why we are unique in this regard.

Going forward, I really hope the devs see this kind of build and choose not to change the way the hammer works, and instead choose to support something like this. It’s an unorthodox way of playing the game, but I really enjoy it. I don’t like the twitchy dodging and stacking high amounts of DPS to kill enemies. I like to play the sturdy, self-sustainable support role. Whenever I party up with people, they are amazed at how easy it is to kill things with me around. I take off all the pressure, and it makes pugging a breeze. I’ve never raided with it, so I don’t know how it would fare in a raid environment, but if Narc’s video is anything to go by, I’d say it looks like it would do fairly well.

I came back to the game because I saw that I could still make a build like this. I initially left the game because the HoT pre-patch dismantled certain aspects of my build. I was relieved to be able to build it close to the way it was before. I’m having a blast with this build, and honestly, if it stopped working the way it does for whatever reason, I don’t see myself playing the game anymore! I think we really need to push for builds like this to stay, instead of turning every other build into some derivative of another DPS build.

If anyone has questions, i’m happy to answer. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’re inspired to go and make this build for yourself!

Just did a quick look over as I’m needing to go to work, I’ll read the entire thing when I get back. Just wanted to let you know that it’s a nice change to see someone go against the meta and say “I like this, this is what I do and it works.” Guardians are very diverse after all!

One thing I just noticed quickly is the healing skill, you seem to stick to the signet. I would actually consider going for Litany of Wrath as this is a Meditation skill and you trait them to heal and provide Fury. Or Shelter due to the two second block which works well with the rune of the defender.

Let me know what you think about that, maybe I’m an utter noob but oh well

Thanks for reading Warlito!

I actually totally forgot to include my healing skill in the write-up, so ill add that in now.

It’s personal preference, but i like the condi removal from the signet over any of the other options. Shelter would be my next choice for the blocks + synergy with our Runes that it provides. I haven’t even tried Littany of Wrath yet because the condi removal has been really important to me, lol.

I feel that the Signet wins out overall though. Blocks are really important for those big hits, but this build is designed for you to be able to take those big hits to the face! If you really need blocks though, you can always just switch over to mace. Unfortunately, condi cleanse is usually in short supply, especially when your solo, which is why ive stuck with my Signet.

Thanks for asking that

I completely agree that Guardians make great tanks and I myself have never gone down the road of the Meta DPS builds in my 3+ years playing this game. I feel that while the DPS Meta builds are good they do slightly miss the point of what a Guardian was designed to do.

I run the below build which is similar to what you have provided but deals much greater damage at the sacrafice of some mitigation. I wanted to be ‘tanky’ but still deal enough damage not to be a burden and this is what I ended up with.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR5elsAhqhY3QwcIQTELNEFWBEBjw1wuABg8wn8PPA-ThxHABAcRAaU3wjq/skyPmUCy++DAA-e

nice Tan,
I personally run Hammer + mace/scepter with Valor + Honor + Dh atm.
It’s selfish but I love how tanky it is.

It allows me to stay on my feet and relieve pressure off of my team.

Ok first of all Narc never ran your ’’DPS’’ Variant. He ran 2 differents specialisation out of 3 and use zero of the same skills as you. The only thing the two builds have in common is Writ of Persistance + Hammer + Celestial gear. Very different builds.

What i don’t understand about this build is the use. I mean, Hammer healing guardian can be a thing for difficult group content, but you have very poor support. You concentrate mostly on your own survivability (too much if you ask me). Personally, I don’t mind about non meta build as long as it’s not only selfish survivability. But if that’s how you like to play go for it.

Superior Rune of the Defender is my Favorite rune for both my Guardian and my Warrior (GS Axe/Shield). Been using it since it was released over a year ago.

Highly recommended.

Thaddeus.4891:

…You concentrate mostly on your own survivability (too much if you ask me). Personally, I don’t mind about non meta build as long as it’s not only selfish survivability. But if that’s how you like to play go for it.

When stacking a ton of toughness on yourself you will get all the attention from the mobs, this will relieve your party of damage and any stress. You however will have to keep yourself up if you wish to “tank” that many mobs otherwise why bother. So it may look selfish but the reason behind it all is actually very selfless!

On top of that when I look at the build provided I see the following things:

- “Retreat” provides Swiftness and Aegis for 5 friendlies within the 600 range
- “Contemplation of Purity” provides a 4 second Fury buff to 5 friendlies within the 240 range
- “Smite Condition” provides a 4 second Fury buff to 5 friendlies within the 240 range
- “Symbol of Protection” in the hammer auto attack provides healing and Protection to 5 allies standing in the symbol
- Using “Mighty Blow” in the light field will provide an area Retaliation buff for 3 seconds
- “Symbol of Faith” with the mace weapon provides healing and Regeneration to 5 allies standing in the symbol
- “Shield of Judgment” provides Protection and Aegis for 4 seconds to 5 allies in its blast radius
- “Shield of Absorption” not only blocks incoming projectiles but when detonated will provide a decent heal to 5 allies standing it the shield’s radius
- “Battle Presence” provides the Virtue of Resolve (Heals) to allies in a 600 radius
- “Strength in Numbers” provides up to 150 toughness to allies in a 600 radius

I don’t know, but that looks very selfless to me.

Thanks for sharing the build Cletiscake, I will definitely try it out and maybe tweak it here and there to fit my preferences.

-W

I had my hopes up for a non-meta healing-tank build for pvp/wvw. Rip.

Thaddeus.4891:

Ok first of all Narc never ran your ’’DPS’’ Variant. He ran 2 differents specialisation out of 3 and use zero of the same skills as you. The only thing the two builds have in common is Writ of Persistance + Hammer + Celestial gear. Very different builds.

What i don’t understand about this build is the use. I mean, Hammer healing guardian can be a thing for difficult group content, but you have very poor support. You concentrate mostly on your own survivability (too much if you ask me). Personally, I don’t mind about non meta build as long as it’s not only selfish survivability. But if that’s how you like to play go for it.

Youre right Thaddeus, that was an oversight on my part. Narc didnt run the exact same version of the build i posted, though he did run a similar version. Thats an important distinction and ive edited my post to reflect that.

Ive also edited my post to be more clear in terms of what the point of the build is. Youre absolutely right in that it doesnt offer much besides surviveability. But its important to understand that this build offers a TON of healing and mitigation not just for personal survivability, but for the group as well. Virtually every heal/block/boon applied to myself is also applied to allies around me. It is truly a tank/heal build.

The build also had a shout-heal alternative before the pre-HoT patch which allowed you to provide lots of boons to your allies. That is no longer viable with the current trait setup, so the alternative was to take healing meditations for more personal surviveability. Increasing our personal surviveability allows us to stay alive almost indefinitely, which allows us to provide Protection and AoE healing to allies.

Sylpheed.8163:

I had my hopes up for a non-meta healing-tank build for pvp/wvw. Rip.

Im not much of a pvper, but ive wanted to try the celestial version of my build in WvW as a Medi Trap Guard. The stats look good enough and you would have amazing sustain and condi cleanse. Empowering Might would allow to really get that DPS going. What do you think?

Cletis,

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAW5en8cCVDhdDBGdC8DhlGiCbCigR4aYXgAQe4T+nH-TZRIABEcEAA4BAYUZgZvIArs/AA

-is what I’ve been using a lot lately in PvP and I love it. You truly hit like a wet noodle but you can easily tank 3 enemy players and hold a point.

The greatest risk is fighting 2 (-or more) Reapers at once with their freezing + condi spam.

I hope you’ll have fun, this build made playing the Dragonhunter fun in PvP for me once more.

cletiscake.9173:

Sylpheed.8163:

I had my hopes up for a non-meta healing-tank build for pvp/wvw. Rip.

Im not much of a pvper, but ive wanted to try the celestial version of my build in WvW as a Medi Trap Guard. The stats look good enough and you would have amazing sustain and condi cleanse. Empowering Might would allow to really get that DPS going. What do you think?

But Medi Trap is meta.. 3:

cletiscake.9173:

Thaddeus.4891:

Ok first of all Narc never ran your ’’DPS’’ Variant. He ran 2 differents specialisation out of 3 and use zero of the same skills as you. The only thing the two builds have in common is Writ of Persistance + Hammer + Celestial gear. Very different builds.

What i don’t understand about this build is the use. I mean, Hammer healing guardian can be a thing for difficult group content, but you have very poor support. You concentrate mostly on your own survivability (too much if you ask me). Personally, I don’t mind about non meta build as long as it’s not only selfish survivability. But if that’s how you like to play go for it.

Youre right Thaddeus, that was an oversight on my part. Narc didnt run the exact same version of the build i posted, though he did run a similar version. Thats an important distinction and ive edited my post to reflect that.

Ive also edited my post to be more clear in terms of what the point of the build is. Youre absolutely right in that it doesnt offer much besides surviveability. But its important to understand that this build offers a TON of healing and mitigation not just for personal survivability, but for the group as well. Virtually every heal/block/boon applied to myself is also applied to allies around me. It is truly a tank/heal build.

The build also had a shout-heal alternative before the pre-HoT patch which allowed you to provide lots of boons to your allies. That is no longer viable with the current trait setup, so the alternative was to take healing meditations for more personal surviveability. Increasing our personal surviveability allows us to stay alive almost indefinitely, which allows us to provide Protection and AoE healing to allies.

But you should really take the Healing Shout for that build.

Sylpheed.8163:

cletiscake.9173:

Sylpheed.8163:

I had my hopes up for a non-meta healing-tank build for pvp/wvw. Rip.

Im not much of a pvper, but ive wanted to try the celestial version of my build in WvW as a Medi Trap Guard. The stats look good enough and you would have amazing sustain and condi cleanse. Empowering Might would allow to really get that DPS going. What do you think?

But Medi Trap is meta.. 3:

99.9% of my time is spent in WvW Sylpheed so I would recommend giving my build a crack as I designed it with WvW in mind and being able to tank multiple targets while killing people off.

Link to what I run in WvW below:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR5en8cCVDhdDBmDBkdilGiSe4T+n/aYXgAArAigRA-TlxHABPq+Tj6GA4iAw++DMpEcJlfAA-w

I left the additional sigil slot open as it really is down to preference but I do recommend Accuracy for Mace and Lightning for Greatsword.

Looks solid Tran,
Not sure if I’d have taken Writ of Persistance instead of Force of Will though.
Still seems great, I run something a lot like it but focussed more on healing power with a Cleric’s Amulet in PvP.
I have also opted for Force of Will and use a staff instead of the Greatsword, effectively becoming a bunker.

Your version seems like a great balance between offensive and defensive which is what you were going for.

If I run anything other than Mace or Hammer I take Force of Will over Writ of Persistence since I feel like Writ of Persistence only benefits either Mace or Hammer due to the regular symbol drops.

tanshiniza.8629:

Sylpheed.8163:

cletiscake.9173:

Sylpheed.8163:

I had my hopes up for a non-meta healing-tank build for pvp/wvw. Rip.

Im not much of a pvper, but ive wanted to try the celestial version of my build in WvW as a Medi Trap Guard. The stats look good enough and you would have amazing sustain and condi cleanse. Empowering Might would allow to really get that DPS going. What do you think?

But Medi Trap is meta.. 3:

99.9% of my time is spent in WvW Sylpheed so I would recommend giving my build a crack as I designed it with WvW in mind and being able to tank multiple targets while killing people off.

Link to what I run in WvW below:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR5en8cCVDhdDBmDBkdilGiSe4T+n/aYXgAArAigRA-TlxHABPq+Tj6GA4iAw++DMpEcJlfAA-w

I left the additional sigil slot open as it really is down to preference but I do recommend Accuracy for Mace and Lightning for Greatsword.

Hey Tan,

That’s exactly what I run minus the armour/runes and some utilities. Same traits, same accessories, hammer/mace+shield. I could give zealots another try later I suppose, still have my old set that I gave up on. Will report results later!

I’ve been running something similar with my guardian. But I went with staff instead of hammer. It’s REALLY fun to 2v1 in pvp (unless you are fighting 2 super bursty builds, but even then if you can time your dodges and blocks right you can stay alive for a surprising amount of time).
It also performed rather well in WvW in small group fights. In open world PveE though it’s essentially worthless in a group setting, but a bit more effective while solo as you can face tank for days

Sylpheed.8163:

tanshiniza.8629:

Sylpheed.8163:

cletiscake.9173:

Sylpheed.8163:

I had my hopes up for a non-meta healing-tank build for pvp/wvw. Rip.

Im not much of a pvper, but ive wanted to try the celestial version of my build in WvW as a Medi Trap Guard. The stats look good enough and you would have amazing sustain and condi cleanse. Empowering Might would allow to really get that DPS going. What do you think?

But Medi Trap is meta.. 3:

99.9% of my time is spent in WvW Sylpheed so I would recommend giving my build a crack as I designed it with WvW in mind and being able to tank multiple targets while killing people off.

Link to what I run in WvW below:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR5en8cCVDhdDBmDBkdilGiSe4T+n/aYXgAArAigRA-TlxHABPq+Tj6GA4iAw++DMpEcJlfAA-w

I left the additional sigil slot open as it really is down to preference but I do recommend Accuracy for Mace and Lightning for Greatsword.

Hey Tan,

That’s exactly what I run minus the armour/runes and some utilities. Same traits, same accessories, hammer/mace+shield. I could give zealots another try later I suppose, still have my old set that I gave up on. Will report results later!

Awesome let me know how it goes! As an extra note you can use Defender runes over Scrapper runes but then you’ll want to swap some of the celestial gear for a mix of Knights, Berserker and Valkyrie to keep the same sort of stats.

The main goal of my build is to be the central pillar in my roaming group in WvW by taking a beating for the team and dishing out enough damage to make sure people drop. I barely ever lose 1v1 and the ones I do lose are against those annoying Bunker Eles simply because I slip up after fighting for 15 minutes…

pdavis.8031:

I’ve been running something similar with my guardian. But I went with staff instead of hammer. It’s REALLY fun to 2v1 in pvp (unless you are fighting 2 super bursty builds, but even then if you can time your dodges and blocks right you can stay alive for a surprising amount of time).
It also performed rather well in WvW in small group fights. In open world PveE though it’s essentially worthless in a group setting, but a bit more effective while solo as you can face tank for days

I use my build mainly in WvW as mentioned above but I do use it in PvE as well and it is far from useless because I actually keep all my teamates alive via providing heals and mitigations like blocks,reflects and protection while face tanking and still providing 60-70% of the damage a full Berserker build would.

Doesn’t happen often but on the few occasions my whole party wipes I’m still standing and end up soloing the boss or whatever it be. Pugs will be Pugs after all.

pdavis.8031:

I’ve been running something similar with my guardian. But I went with staff instead of hammer. It’s REALLY fun to 2v1 in pvp (unless you are fighting 2 super bursty builds, but even then if you can time your dodges and blocks right you can stay alive for a surprising amount of time).
It also performed rather well in WvW in small group fights. In open world PveE though it’s essentially worthless in a group setting, but a bit more effective while solo as you can face tank for days

I use my build mainly in WvW as mentioned above but I do use it in PvE as well and it is far from useless because I actually keep all my teamates alive via providing heals and mitigations like blocks,reflects and protection while face tanking and still providing 60-70% of the damage a full Berserker build would.

Doesn’t happen often but on the few occasions my whole party wipes I’m still standing and end up soloing the boss or whatever it be. Pugs will be Pugs after all.[/quote]

True, but it also depends of what you are doing in PvE. Dungeons or small group content, yeah it can be a real advantage, but in a map like DS not so much. I agree though, pugs will be pugs, and sometimes having that extra healing in a fractal or dungeon just might make the difference.

this is my first time posting on a thread, i consider myself a noob lol, i created a guardian and decided to build him as a tank – majoring in toughness , so he can take more hits. that’s one of the main roles of the guardian right, being able to take hits? i also have his vitality and healing power up there as well, though i don’t know if vit. and heal. power would make him a great asset to a group and / or myself lol. i am also having trouble deciding which traits to upgrade to make him an essentail, dependable and survivable character, can someone please help me level him up the right way?

JudgementUponTheThrone.5798:

i am also having trouble deciding which traits to upgrade to make him an essentail, dependable and survivable character, can someone please help me level him up the right way?

Levelling up the “right way” won’t be an issue since at the end of the day, when you’re a level 80 you’ll have enough hero points to unlock all core-specializations.

For the traits you’re looking for I’d suggest:

• Honor → Group Support (major)+ Self Sustain (minor)
• Valor → Self Sustain (major) (Meditations + Monk’s focus are amazing sustain albeit it being a tad bit “selfish” to use.)
• Virtues → condition removal, stun breaks, passive healing, more frequent aegis and some damage buffs.

Other traits summarized:

• Radiance is an offensive trait focussing on condi damage and retaliation (it is currently likely the least impressive choice of a core-specialization.)
• Zeal is a good offensive trait to buff your damage.

• Dragonhunter, the HoT Elite Specialization, good damage buff, good sustain options, allows the use of high-damaging traps and turns your virtues into physical manifestations. (Example: Virtue of Courage → Shield of Courage (a shield that remains in front of you for 5/7 seconds blocking all hits from the front.)

Valor, Virtues and Zeal would be a good balanced yet tanky option to choose.
Vaor, Virtues and Honor would be really tanky, nice in support as well but you’ll hit as a wet noodle.

To prevent hitting as a wet noodle you’d likely have to look at your armour/runes and jewelry.

JudgementUponTheThrone.5798:

this is my first time posting on a thread, i consider myself a noob lol, i created a guardian and decided to build him as a tank – majoring in toughness , so he can take more hits. that’s one of the main roles of the guardian right, being able to take hits? i also have his vitality and healing power up there as well, though i don’t know if vit. and heal. power would make him a great asset to a group and / or myself lol. i am also having trouble deciding which traits to upgrade to make him an essentail, dependable and survivable character, can someone please help me level him up the right way?

Hey Judgement,

What level are you right now? That would help me give you the best possible recommendations.

In general though, I find that the best way to build a well-rounded Guardian (from my experience), is to trait heavily into defense/support trees, while using Weapons/Armor that provide you a mix between damage/survive-ability.

One of the staple Guardian builds since Launch has been to take Hammer/Greatsword, and combine it with the Pure of Voice Grandmaster trait + Altruistic Healing Grandmaster Trait. Then you can equip Shouts on your utility skills, and they will function as healing + condition cleanse + group support.

Lastly, if you look at my build, i’m geared for full tankiness + healing. You will basically need to copy my exact build if you want to go that route and be effective in that playstyle. It is very effective, and if you want to be a “proper” tank, then I would recommend my build. If you want a little more damage, but still be tanky, have a look at the “DPS Version” of the build I posted, and modify it to your liking. It’s difficult to craft Celestial Armor due to the time-gating, but you can easily craft the Exotic Celestial armor, you will just need to wait a while due to the time-gating of materials.

Hope this helps!

Thaddeus.4891:

cletiscake.9173:

Thaddeus.4891:

Ok first of all Narc never ran your ’’DPS’’ Variant. He ran 2 differents specialisation out of 3 and use zero of the same skills as you. The only thing the two builds have in common is Writ of Persistance + Hammer + Celestial gear. Very different builds.

What i don’t understand about this build is the use. I mean, Hammer healing guardian can be a thing for difficult group content, but you have very poor support. You concentrate mostly on your own survivability (too much if you ask me). Personally, I don’t mind about non meta build as long as it’s not only selfish survivability. But if that’s how you like to play go for it.

Youre right Thaddeus, that was an oversight on my part. Narc didnt run the exact same version of the build i posted, though he did run a similar version. Thats an important distinction and ive edited my post to reflect that.

Ive also edited my post to be more clear in terms of what the point of the build is. Youre absolutely right in that it doesnt offer much besides surviveability. But its important to understand that this build offers a TON of healing and mitigation not just for personal survivability, but for the group as well. Virtually every heal/block/boon applied to myself is also applied to allies around me. It is truly a tank/heal build.

The build also had a shout-heal alternative before the pre-HoT patch which allowed you to provide lots of boons to your allies. That is no longer viable with the current trait setup, so the alternative was to take healing meditations for more personal surviveability. Increasing our personal surviveability allows us to stay alive almost indefinitely, which allows us to provide Protection and AoE healing to allies.

But you should really take the Healing Shout for that build.

Yeah, I would love to take the Healing Shouts, but then I lose the healing from my Symbol of Protection, which allows me to function as a “Tank”. It’s unfortunate, but there’s no other way around it, unless the Devs switch up some of the Traits, like I suggested in my OP.

JudgementUponTheThrone.5798:

this is my first time posting on a thread, i consider myself a noob lol, i created a guardian and decided to build him as a tank – majoring in toughness , so he can take more hits. that’s one of the main roles of the guardian right, being able to take hits? i also have his vitality and healing power up there as well, though i don’t know if vit. and heal. power would make him a great asset to a group and / or myself lol. i am also having trouble deciding which traits to upgrade to make him an essentail, dependable and survivable character, can someone please help me level him up the right way?

Within Guild wars 2 you can’t really say any classes have a ‘role’ yet some classes do perform better when built with a role in mind so you aren’t wrong in making a Guardian that can take a hit or 2 since it’s never done me wrong.

There are 3 main things I’m going to give you as advice:

1) Damage is also Survivability+Support. The quicker it dies the less hits you take and the less hits your team takes so in essence you are helping your survivability and supporting your team by ensuring that things die as quickly as possible.

2) Guardians have a low HP pool and if you find yourself getting dropped a lot this is the first thing you will want to increase before adding toughness since it gives you a better buffer for taking hits.
Guardians low HP pool also causes potential ‘over heals’ as we can heal a lot meaning you heal more than you need for a full HP pool thus waisting potential HP. Increasing your HP means you can lose more health before needing to actually heal yourself and thus not losing potential HP to the void.

3) The value of Toughness increases the longer a fight goes on so the longer you live the more damage your toughness will have mitigated and for this reason Vitality is better for short fights and most fights in Guild Wars 2 are on the short end.

Toughness will however also make most mobs hate you more so you can essentially ‘tank’ for your team as well and if you heal a lot its value increases even more as you can keep recovering HP so the fight goes on.

Below is the value of toughness as you might find this useful later on:
130 Toughness = 5% damage reduction (just about)

If you need help at all feel free to add me in game and I’ll be happy to give you a hand if I’m free or if it is just questions then I’ll be happy to respond any time.

You could experiment with this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWlsAhqhY/OwRIwPEHJE1dZDgLAvBPXZm3v/LAB-T1RDQBAwEkc0HYJ1fcy+DaUpxrUCGFlZBAOA88zP/8zP3yLv8yLnUARM0C-w

Why does the DPS build use Invigorating Bulwark (i think I got the name right, but I’m referring to the mace trait), when you don’t have a mace equipped on that build?

Otherwise very interesting build. I have a thread running that is looking at a similar build.

bearshaman.3421:

Why does the DPS build use Invigorating Bulwark (i think I got the name right, but I’m referring to the mace trait), when you don’t have a mace equipped on that build?

Otherwise very interesting build. I have a thread running that is looking at a similar build.

Oh wow, i didn’t even notice I had a Greatsword slotted instead of Mace/Shield. I fixed it now, and the build should be showing Mace/Shield as a secondary weapon.

I’ve been playing with the DPS version more and more. It’s really fun because full Ascended Celestial allows you to be really flexible. You can trait to play more defensively or offensively depending on what you need, and its pretty sweet. I keep the Cleric/Nomad gear on hand if i’m playing with a not-so-experienced group that needs me to play full support.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

You could experiment with this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWlsAhqhY/OwRIwPEHJE1dZDgLAvBPXZm3v/LAB-T1RDQBAwEkc0HYJ1fcy+DaUpxrUCGFlZBAOA88zP/8zP3yLv8yLnUARM0C-w

That’s actually a really good looking build stat-wise, but the big issue is that despite your high stats in power and ferocity, you have zero crit-chance and zero healing power. Without crit-chance, you’re never going to take advantage of the high ferocity level, and without Healing Power, you will never be able to heal enough to sustain yourself through damage, even with Symbol of Protection. This build relies on Healing Power just as much as Toughness and Vitality to stay alive.

cletiscake.9173:

Jack Skywalker.5674:

You could experiment with this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWlsAhqhY/OwRIwPEHJE1dZDgLAvBPXZm3v/LAB-T1RDQBAwEkc0HYJ1fcy+DaUpxrUCGFlZBAOA88zP/8zP3yLv8yLnUARM0C-w

That’s actually a really good looking build stat-wise, but the big issue is that despite your high stats in power and ferocity, you have zero crit-chance and zero healing power. Without crit-chance, you’re never going to take advantage of the high ferocity level, and without Healing Power, you will never be able to heal enough to sustain yourself through damage, even with Symbol of Protection. This build relies on Healing Power just as much as Toughness and Vitality to stay alive.

I saw a similar build to this somewhere stat-wise, and the person who made it was using the sigils in his weapons that gave 100% crit on the next three attacks on weapon swap to proc the ferocity. This is a viable option I guess if you do heavy weapon swapping (like engi or ele does), but I can’t see how that would be good here?

So how is the build after the last patch? I would like to try more supportive play with my DH but I am not sure how to build it.

The last patch didnt really change anything as far as support/healing Guard goes. It’s still a worthwhile addition to a group. Just not really in a DPS sense in WvW as other classes can fill that role better.

The main point of the support/Healing Guardian is to provide boons(mainly stability) for the group. Help keep your group clear of condis, and to pump out some backup healing to support the main healer(Druid or Ele).

Chorazin.4107, if i recall it changed, i have lower healing base, but more heal when invested in healing power.

The only Guardian specific changes in reference to healing from the patch are faithful strike. The 3rd attack in the mace auto attack chain, this got a substantial buff. And sanctuary seen some changes, which included a big boost to it’s healing.

Ah ok, tks for the correction, tough that was afecting more than mace faithful strike.

Orminis.6983:

So how is the build after the last patch? I would like to try more supportive play with my DH but I am not sure how to build it.

The patch buffed us with the Condi Cleanse on Virtue of Resolve, and the mace changes.

I personally have been running the Celestial version of this build, and i’ve been going more offensive. This is my current build

It’s just a really good all-rounder build. If you don’t have the money for ascended, just make exotics instead. Ascended isn’t a huge difference, but it definitely helps.

If you need more support, just switch out Zeal and trait into Honor or Virtues. And if you really need the tankyness, go for the cleric’s setup in the OP.

I run full cleric shout/condition removal build for all modes in the game, it’s amazing… with just under 13k life too.. (Low I know)

I just don’t die unless it’s from those powerful 1 shot abilities which kill you outright…. More importantly, I can deal enough raw damage with my Power rating not being too low, and keep the rest of my party condition free/ buffed up/ and healed regularly.

Sigil of Life + Sigil of Water in all weapons.
Mace+Shield, and a Staff
Ascended Armor in all slots + Flameseeker Prophecies… Dungeons could NOT be easier.

Anyone who says this style of play doesn’t work, is a liar or a hater, or both.

I use this build for ALL modes of play.

My Build >>> http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWl0AhShYrQwWIQQEHLEUu+7PE3A8gBgTQHKBA-TBSDABpoh5S1fc4JFYoSwsU+BwpUQP9B/s/AA-e

I’ll give this a solid try, how do you get stability on Guardian against knock backs.