Guild Wars 2

This is primarily going to be a break down of the Guardian class in a PvE setting. While I have done some WvW I have yet to do any sPvP. (I’ve been spending a lot of my time working on gathering for my legendary, Sunrise)

I’m going to go over each ability and how they work and work with each other.

For reference I have 177 hours played on my Guardian. While I’ve been leveling slowly enjoying the game and really experimenting with a lot of things. I’ve primarily used Greatsword and 1h sword + shield or 1h mace + shield where I’ve needed more survivability or in dungeons.

All numbers and information were gathered at level 80 in Cursed Shore

Traits:

Zeal – 25

Radiance – 25

Valor – 0

Honor – 20

Virtues – 0

Minor Trait

Zealot’s Speed 5 point passive in the Zeal tree -

• Create a Symbol of Wrath when your heath drops below 25% (30 second cooldown)
• Symbol of Wrath grants retaliation for 5 seconds

What is Retaliation and how much damage does Symbol of Wrath do?

• Retaliation is a boon which reflects some incoming damage back to its source. Damage returned is fixed per level and scales with power, increasing damage by 1 for every 13.4 power. At level 80, base damage is 267.

The Guardian class is amazing at reliably granting and maintaining high retaliation and burning up times if you manage your abilities and cool downs well. We have multiple abilities that grant it to our selves and also allies.

• Retaliation returns more damage if you stack Vitality opposed to Toughness

• Burning is a condition that deals damage over time and stacks in duration. The damage dealt by burning is determined by the following formula:
  4.1 * Level + 0.25 * Condition Damage per second

Minor Trait

Symbolic Exposure 15 point passive in the Zeal tree -

• Symbols apply vulnerability to foes

What is Vulnerability?

• Vulnerability is a condition which increases damage the target takes by 1%, and stacks up to 25 times.

While Guardians can not stack Vulnerability to a high amount the extra damage does stack with our other passives. I’ll go into more detail on good opening combos for maximum damage later.

Minor Trait

Justice is Blind 5 point passive in the Radiance tree – When Activating Virtue of Justice, nearby foes are blinded.

Pretty self explanatory and in conjunction with Blind Exposure this allows you to stack another Blind as well as a stack of Vulnerability.

Minor Trait

Radiant Power 25 point passive in the Radiance tree – Deal more damage to foes inflicted with conditions.

What is a Condition?

A condition is a negative effect that can be inflicted against enemies through the use of skills and affecting traits. Conditions are characterized by their effect and duration. When a condition is reapplied (to a foe who already has it), some conditions will stack increasing in effect, some conditions will increase in duration, and a couple will have no change. When a condition is removed using a skill, the entire stack of that condition is removed. Condition duration is accurately added and will not be rounded.

List of Conditions:

• Bleeding*
• Blind*
• Burning*
• Chilled
• Confusion
• Crippled*
• Fear*
• Immobilized*
• Poison
• Vulnerability*
• Weakness*
  *Denotes Conditions Guardians can apply. Some are Norn only via elite racial skills.
  List of Conditions and how to apply them

Bleeding

• Rending Slash & Swipe – Become the Wolf (Norn only Elite skill)

• Rending Talons – Become the Raven (Norn only Elite skill)

Blind

• Leap of Faith – greatsword (weapon skill)

• Flashing Blade – 1 handed sword (weapon skill)

• Justice is Blind – via activating Virtue of Justice (trait passive)

Weakness

• Signet of Judgment – Utility Skill

• Affliction – Tome of Wrath (Elite skill)

• Command – Shield of the Avenger (Spirit Weapon)

• Growl – Become the Snow Leopard (Norn only)

Burning

• Symbol of Wrath – greatsword (weapons kill) & Zealot’s Speed (trait passive)

• Wrathful Grasp – Spear (underwater)

• Judge’s Intervention – Utility Skill

• Purging Flames – Utility Skill

• Conflagrate – Tome of Wrath (Elite Skill)

Crippled

• Affliction – Tome of Wrath (Elite Skill)

• Shackle (While drowned in the downed state)

• Crippling Swipe – Become the raven (Norn only Elite skill)

• Pounce – become the snow leopard (Norn only Elite skill)

Fear

• Snarl – become the wolf (Norn only Elite skill)

Immobilized

• Zealot’s Embrace – Hammer (Weapon skill)

• Signet of Wrath – Utility skill

• Chains of Light – Scepter (weapon skill)

Vulnerability

• Chains of light – scepter (weapon skill)

• Spear of Light – Spear (underwater weapon skill)

Weakness

• Signet of Judgment – Utility skill

• Affliction – Tome of wrath (Elite skill)

• Command – Shield of the Avenger Utility skill

• Growl – Become the Snow Leopard (Norn only Elite skill)

According to the information I’ve been able to find this passive causes you to deal 10% more damage. (I’m going to retrain my traits and try to test this for my self will update soon).

Minor Trait

Vigorous Precision 5 point passive in the Honor tree – Grants 1 second of Vigor when you land a critical hit.

What is Vigor?

• Vigor is a boon that increases endurance regeneration by 100%. Endurance is used for active dodging.

Personally I feel this is a rather lack luster trait as with this spec and play style you really aren’t going to be stacking Precision. I have 1,404 Precision in my current gear which yields a 27% crit chance. So while you will see it happening about once every 4 attacks it doesn’t offer much to the build. Guardians naturally do not value crit or crit-damage highly.

Minor Trait

Selfless Daring 15 point passive in the Honor tree – The end of your dodge roll heals nearby allies.

• Heals for 342 with base 200 Healing Power.

While this passive does share synergy Vigorous Precision the healing is nearly insignificant and certainly does not make Precision more valuable than Power or even Condition Damage.

Major Trait

Fiery Wrath 10 point passive in the Zeal tree – Increases damage by 10% against burning foes.

This single passive makes keeping high burn up time an absolute must in any situation and shares invaluable synergy with Radiant Power increasing the total bonus damage to 20% from two of our passives alone.

Major Trait

Greatsword Power 20 point passive in the Zeal tree – Greatsword damage is increased by 5%.

Simple passive, increases our main damage dealing weapon’s damage by 5%.

Major Trait

Blind Exposure 20 point passive in the Radiance tree – Applying blind also applies vulnerability.

This again is a rather strong passive as it works in conjunction with two of our weapon skills Leap of Faith and Flashing Blade. It also shares synergy with our passive Justice is Blind which applies Blind when activating Virtue of Justice.

Major Trait

Signet Mastery 10 point passive in the Radiance tree – Signets recharge 20% faster

Originally I had wanted to use the passive Inner Fire because you can set your self on fire with the Torch Skill Zealot’s Flame which would allow you to buff your self with Fury every 15 seconds. However this doesn’t work. I’m not sure if it’s a bug or simply not intended. The next best option is Signet Mastery.

Signet of Resolve 40 seconds -> 32 seconds
Bane Signet 45 seconds -> 36 seconds
Signet of Wrath 30 seconds -> 24 seconds
Signet of Judgement 20 seconds -> 16 seconds
Signet of Mercy 240 seconds -> 192 seconds

All of these signets are pretty viable options with the exception of Signet of Mercy which is a pile of crap right now.

Signet of Resolve - Very strong self heal

Bane Signet - Passive 90 power as well as a minor nuke that hits for 470 – 700 damage on average. I think it’s a viable option for world dragons but there are better options for dungeons and pvp.

Signet of Wrath - long range immobilize that lasts for 3 3/4 seconds. on a rather long cool down. Also increases your condition damage. Debatable if its worth using.
100% not worth using on world bosses with the current cap on conditions per target.

Signet of Judgement - Very solid Signet grants a passive 10% damage reduction while not on cool down. While this will reduce the amount of damage Retaliation returns, it’s a nice bonus. It’s active is decently strong in both PvP and PvE causing -50% Endurance regeneration and inflicts 50% Fumble.
What is Fumble? - condition that causes attacks to result in a glancing blow (about 50-75% reduced hit) Basically this causes your attacker to hit you for less damage then he normally would.

Signet of Judgement works well with the Guardian since we can easily apply Blind which causes the target to miss on their next attack as well as keeping Aegis on our self. It’s pretty easy to apply blind -> weakness -> aegis effectively preventing our target from doing any physical damage to us for 3 attacks. That is a huge amount of effective HP.

Signet of Mercy – This Signet is 100% trash, do not use it. ever. It’s passive grants an additional 90 Healing Power. For a comparison I have 200 base healing this causes Signet of Resolve to heal me for 8,736 on average. With Signet of Mercy the bonus 90 healing causes Signet of Resolve to heal for 8,854 on average. Watch out!

Furthermore, the active on Signet of Mercy is pathetically bad as it cant work on downed players, only 100% dead players. Don’t use this Signet, ever.

Major Trait

Writ of Exaltation – 10 point passive in the Honor tree – Symbols are larger.

Pretty awesome passive. Increase the radius of Symbols by about 15 – 20% While this might not seem like an awesome passive lets break down what exactly it does.

Symbol of Wrath deals damage and grants Retaliation. With a larger radius you’re not doing more damage to more enemies at once, and as we all know by now AoE damage is king for events. At the same time you’re also applying Retaliation to more people effectively increasing group damage for anyone being hit. Which again the Cursed Shore and any of the Orr zones with mass zergs of Risen this adds up to quite a lot of damage for your party.

Major Trait

Two-Handed Mastery – Two-handed weapon skills recharge 20% faster.

I feel this is pretty much one of our best passives with this build.

Symbol of Wrath 10 seconds -> 8 seconds
Whirling Wrath 10 seconds -> 8 seconds
Leap of Faith 20 seconds -> 16 seconds
Binding Blades 30 seconds -> 24 seconds

This reduction goes a long way into increasing your DPS and raw damage output. All of our abilities have a slight delay before they inure their actual cool down. Rough testing has yielded the following…

Symbol of Wrath – 2.50 second delay
Whirling Wrath – 3.34 second delay
Leap of Faith – 1.95 second delay
Binding Blades – 2.50 second delay

From what I’ve been able to gather this passive translate into roughly a 20% damage increase for Symbol of Wrath, Whirling Wrath, and Binding Blades. This should also hold true for Leap of Faith. (I’ll be updating this thread as I find out more information about how coefficients work in Guild Wars 2. There is very little information available and the lack of information given via the Character Sheet in game is next to zero).

Abilities I use and why:

Signet of Resolve - Strong self heal on a shorter cool down thanks to Signet Mastery.

Retreat! - Guardians inherently have no passive move speed bonuses and this goes a long way into helping. Although it does have a long cool down at 60 seconds, the Swiftness boon lasts 20 seconds, effectively making it a 40 second cool down. This ability can also be used to give you a Aegis in a pinch for both your self or allies around you.

What is Aegis and what does it do?

• Aegis is a boon which blocks the next attack. A block in Guild Wars 2 works far differently that it does in most games. Usually a block simply reduces the amount of damage you would take from physical attacks. However, in GW2 it is a technique used to parry incoming attacks. A blocked attack deals no damage, and other effects on the target are also ignored.

As you can see Aegis is very strong, and it is one of the boons that a Guardian can reliably apply, and can be applied on demand. Aegis fits very well into this style of Guardian because of our ability to apply blind, retaliation, and protection. This can be very frustrating in PvP but is extremely helpful in PvE, especially explorable mode dungeons where mobs can hit rather hard.

As can example. Your group engages the boss. First hit is blocked by Aegis(Via Virtue of Courage’s passive). You apply a blind, 2nd attack misses. You apply your 2nd blind, 3rd attack misses. You use Retreat! to apply Aegis a 2nd time, 4th attack is blocked. By this time Virtue of Courage’s passive is back up so a 5th attack has now been blocked. You can then activate Virtue of Courage granting Aegis, 6th attack has now been blocked.

During this time you can easily re-apply your blinds via Virtue of Justice, Leap of Faith, and Flashing Blade. All this has gone towards increasing your effective health for not only you but your entire group! Not only that but when the boss finally lands a blow on you it will either be returned via retaliation or mitigated via Protection.

Judge’s Intervention - I like this ability while soloing and for group events, it gives the spec even more AoE damage potential, single target burst and a stun break which works even while knocked down and is a great help since quite a few mobs in Cursed Shore in particular have knock downs. It also gives the build even more mobility. You can use this in conjunction with Flashing Blade and Retreat! to get around the world faster blinking onto mobs and critters.

Purging Flames - This ability doesn’t do a whole lot of front end damage, but it has a large AoE which again… is king in events it also keeps burning up on our targets to take advantage of the bonus 20% damage from passive traits.

Renewed Focus - Our Elite skill choices aren’t very spectacular for solo. While I would prefer to use Become the Raven, Raven form is insanely buggy right now and you almost have to mash your keys repeatedly for the abilities to go off. Furthermore, Become the Raven isn’t an option for all Guardians.

That said for solo play Renewed Focus is prettykittenpowerful as it instantly resets the cool downs on our Virtues. Nough’ said.

For dungeons I would highly recommend either Tome of Wrath or Tome of Courage as they offer great group buffs and pretty solid damage.

You can also use a 1 handed mace for dungeons and explorable modes as that will give you access to an AoE heal through Symbol of Faith and a 2nd AoE protection buff via Protectors Strike.

Opening up on a target

I’ll list my opening skill set and then detail why I do.

• Activate Virtue of Justice
• Leap of Faith
• Symbol of Wrath
• If > 2 targets Binding Blades other wise Whirling Wrath

From there if its a Veteran mob or champion, etc

• Swap to sword / shield
• Flashing Blade
• Zealot’s Defense
• Shield of Judgement (Try to hit multiple people if you’re in group play)

What does this rotation do and why is it effective?

• Virtue of Justice gets burning on our target which instantly grants us a bonus 20% damage through Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power.
• Leap of Faith applies a blind, which in turn applies a stack of vulnerability via the Blind Exposure trait.
• Symbol of Wrath applies a 2nd stack of vulnerability via the Symbolic Exposure trait.
• Whirling Wrath is then used which is by far our hardest hitting ability. By the time you use this your target will have 2 – 3 stacks of Vulnerability and be burning increasing the damage substantially.
• Flashing Blade applies a 3rd stack of Vulnerability as well as a Blind.
• Zealot’s Defense is our 2nd hardest hitting ability with this build. You will have most likely killed any normal mob by now, if not…
• Shield of Judgement is a nice hitter and also applies protection which reduces damage taken by 33% for 5 seconds.

When it comes down to nearly all events AoE damage is king, try not to blow all 4 of our AoE abilities on the first wave. You want to be tagging as much as possible for a chance at loot.

Also! Don’t forget to weapon swap, GW2 rewards you for being active, and this build rewards you for doing just that by allowing you to apply blind, vulnerability, protection, and burning freely to multiple targets.

I will continue to update this with more information as I track it down, and as it becomes available. I strongly believe that the Guardian can be played as a strong DPS class, you need to realize though that you have a myriad of defensive group buffs. Sure the passive Might is nice from Virtue of Justice for example but allowing your group to apply a huge stack of burning is also awesome for your build. Keep that Aegis up, but try not to overlap an existing Aegis. It can take some time to pay attention to not only your target, your cool downs and your group buffs but once you do you will easily understand why so many people want Guardians for groups.

This is an excellent guide. Well-written, informative and well-organized.

I’ve been running a one-hander build using Right-Hand Strength and Empowering Might, but your guide has me seriously considering a Greatsword.

Thanks!

Eveningstar.6940:

This is an excellent guide. Well-written, informative and well-organized.

I’ve been running a one-hander build using Right-Hand Strength and Empowering Might, but your guide has me seriously considering a Greatsword.

Thanks!

That’s my goal. Hope you take some good info away from this. =)

Symbol of Wrath doesn’t cause burning. It’s either a bug or a typo.

Trungalung.7850:

Symbol of Wrath doesn’t cause burning. It’s either a bug or a typo.

Oh, that is a typo. I’ll edit it out in a few minutes. Thanks.

Totally forgot to include info about gear / rune choices. Going to add that in a few minutes as well.

Thanks for the views and replies so far.

After some more discussion with people I’m agreed this guide. While extremely informative is a little messy and could be much, much better. I’m going to leave this up but re-wire the whole thing making it a little more organized.

As well as going into more detail the types of gear and runes worth using.

Stay tuned if you’re interested in running GS on your Guardian.

Thanks for this; nicely done.

Read the whole thing.

Its like a pat on the back since that’s pretty much exactly what i’m doing except for:
- Pure pow, prec build (so not much tankiness)
- Scepter + focus for the ranged swap

I’ll try to move some stuff around to see if your fascination with retaliation is worthwhile. I’ll technically be returning more damage since i’m power-based… but won’t be beefy enough… we’ll see.

Good guide!

Thank you for the replies guys. I appreciate it a lot.

I feel like this guide was a little rushed so I’m going to re-type it tomorrow and do up a google docs version for easier reading and navigation.

In the mean time I highly suggest trying out Valkyrie gear with Berserker accessories (rings, earrings,) As for runes I recommend Flame Legion, Warrior, or Divinity.

great write up!!
has made me re-consider the shield. i do feel it’s lackluster right now, but what you’re presented it pretty good actually. and als has helped me better shape my trait lines. ; )))
so thanks for this!

won’t be following it word for word but has defs opened up some new doors lol

Glad to be of help. Going to be updating it again soon. =)

was gonna say, can’t wait for the updates. lol. bookmarked (well, sent to myself via email haha)

What a nice guide. I can’t wait for the update too. =]

Nice work, I read everything, there are some good information ! Thanks a lot.

Very nice guide.
Just a small correction:
“Signet of Judgement – Very solid Signet grants a passive 10% damage reduction while not on cool down. While this will reduce the amount of damage Retaliation returns, it’s a nice bonus. It’s active is decently strong in both PvP and PvE causing -50% Endurance regeneration and inflicts 50% Fumble.”

Retaliation tooltip is misleading, it does not return part of the damage you take,so any reductions do not affect it.
Retaliation causes a flat X damage (based on your current attack power) to attackers when hit that bypasses armor/defenses.
However you need to get hit for retaliation to trigger; If a hit is blocked,missed,evaded you will not reflect damage.

I’ll like to point out that the minor trait Justice is Blind will apply a blind when you activate VoJ. You can potentially get another stack of vulnerability if you leap first and then activated VoJ.

it’s a well written guide, but i have to doubt some parts of it, because there are several synergies that aren’t mentioned / showed, and that build is more suited for playing solo and not so good for group play in dungeons, that’s also something that has to be mentioned.

(maybe that part was just forgotten:)
taking at least 15 points in radiance (you have 25) gives you renewed justice, that will reload virtue of justice, making it spam-able when there are more/many enemies, and also making it possible to dash in and keeping this whole group blind till it’s totally down because of justice is blind.
investing only 5 points in virtues gives you and all players around you 3 stacks of retaliation for 5secs, my record was 21stacks for about 15secs at a defend-event in Orr. (and don’t forget the burning)

The skill ray of judgment also applies blind.
so playing sword+focus / greatsword + trait gives you 4 skills to blind

also, purging flames can be used as a good condition remove, especially with the traits master of consecrations and consecrated ground

binding blades is a great help for your teammates in dungeons, pulling many mobs together for your aoe-nuking teammates.

your way of playing the guardian is one of many, it’s just worth mentioning that you need defensive and offensive players in dungeons to be able to survive, and unfortunately, many expect that guardians have to be defensive only. i don’t have a problem with offensive guardians, but i have problems with people who just copy builds as yours from a forum and use it without giving it any thought.

New guide up.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10a1o4/new_and_improved_guardian_guide_for_greatsword/

Feel free to check it out. Thanks again for all the comments and replies I’ve gotten here and on other sites.

bump for more views on my new guide!

Last night, i use signet of mercy for the first time. We were camping wvwvw spawn. one guy over extend and die. 2 ppl try to res but getting killed as well. i switch to the signet (wasn’t even trained) and it res all 3.

just sharing. always thought only can res 1 guy.