Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone!

Just got done maxing out my thief to 80, good fun and all, and I’m working on a guardian in the meantime to mix things up a bit with friends. I won’t waste any time so I’ll get right down to it:

I need help with priority on stats.

I use a greatsword and I like to focus on shouts as utilities (current setup is Retreat, Hold the Line, and Save Yourselves), since I use them so often and they’re a great help to me and my allies. I’m not quite yet 80, and I do not plan to pvp/wvw with this specific character. Also, I second a staff to “tag” enemies for experience/events/loot and as a pseudo support. I love to play a very aggressive style, but I don’t mind providing help to my friends when needed.

I plan to trait my character for Pure of Voice, Altruistic Healing, Purity, Two-Handed Mastery, and Retributive Armor respectively. I think it will bring a lot of synergy with my utility selection and offer me a little bulk in addition to enhanced support.

Last note, I would like to avoid condition damage and healing power. I’m not really built to capitalize on burning and I really do not like the scaling of HP since it requires an absurd amount to take a decent effect, even though it would bolster my plethora of healing potential. This question is mainly for power/toughness/vitality/precision- and which of these stats I should consider building.

Guardian is level 35 at the moment, having tons of fun with her. Just need a little bit of help figuring this out. A simple _ > _ > _ will work, or whatever you feel is equal to in terms of this specific flavor of guardian.

I should probably mention that I do dungeon/boss events a lot with friends- so much of this will be more than just for small creatures out in the wild. I just don’t plan to fight players very often, if at all.

No lengthy responses necessary. Just any educated guess would help me out- and if you can tell me why a certain stat priority is better then that’ll really help me out. I’d appreciate it.

If you go down often, pack some toughness, (shouldn’t really happen if you had a thief). So either full berserkers or magic find.

Soldier armor from AC or HotW has become popular. I am currently collecting a set. Currently I use a mix of knights and berseker armor and jeweler. Berserk weapon and superior runes of the soldier. I like your choice of weapons so I will not comment futher on them.

May I suggest swaping out Retreat for Purging flames a consecration skill. This skill creates a field that your team can use to remove condtions every time they cross it. The field will also burn enemies that cross so you can kite enemys around causing even more burns. Finally with your greatswords leap skill you can generate a flame shield that also burns foes (and looks cool). Other players can also use the field to generate their own combos. If you find you like this skill I would suggest putting 10pts into Virtues so you can use a trait (forget the name atm) to reduce the cooldown time and increase consecrations duration time.

For your elite I would suggest Renewed Focus. This skill can be used on the move (wasn’t orginially) and recharges your Virtues. A good tactic is simply fire off all your virtues then pop renewed focus to get them back again. If you have you the 10pts into virtues you get the minor trait that makes your virtues give boons when activated. This combined with AH makes for some nice synergy.

@Tyber Valens

Thanks for the information! I was eyeing those runes in particular myself for more added shout utility. I was mainly using Retreat as a buffer shout skill and a map-clearing tool, wasn’t intending to use it for dungeons unless running back to help allies from a wipe. I do heavily agree with you on Purging Flames- great choice there.

I also intended to run 10 in virtues, and yes, I have ran Renewed Focus with the exact tactic you spoke of. I’m glad I wasn’t too far off in my initial design for my guardian. Very glad to have all this cleared up for me- thank you greatly.
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Lastly, I would like to make a small addendum to my initial post here (and this question is for everyone), what are your thoughts on healing power?

Now, whenever I’ve tried to apply it, the results were always unsatisfactory compared to the scaling of other stats- but after talking to some of my friends, they actually advise that I keep it as a mandatory stat, which initially made me hesitant. I even decided to get a set just in good faith, but it has yet to show any promise.

I just need to know if my reluctance holds any water or if I’m just not building correctly. Thanks.

ThatOneArtistGamer.2914:

@Tyber Valens

Thanks for the information! I was eyeing those runes in particular myself for more added shout utility. I was mainly using Retreat as a buffer shout skill and a map-clearing tool, wasn’t intending to use it for dungeons unless running back to help allies from a wipe. I do heavily agree with you on Purging Flames- great choice there.

I also intended to run 10 in virtues, and yes, I have ran Renewed Focus with the exact tactic you spoke of. I’m glad I wasn’t too far off in my initial design for my guardian. Very glad to have all this cleared up for me- thank you greatly.
__________________________________________________________________
Lastly, I would like to make a small addendum to my initial post here (and this question is for everyone), what are your thoughts on healing power?

Now, whenever I’ve tried to apply it, the results were always unsatisfactory compared to the scaling of other stats- but after talking to some of my friends, they actually advise that I keep it as a mandatory stat, which initially made me hesitant. I even decided to get a set just in good faith, but it has yet to show any promise.

I just need to know if my reluctance holds any water or if I’m just not building correctly. Thanks.

Well if your friends have something that works then great. Healing for Guardians can be kind of tricky. Pouring points into healing sacrifices both toughness and power in a game that (imo) prizes dps and damage mitigation. Personally I would rather rely on blocks, blinds, and dodges mixed with protection boon to survive. I also avoid healing focused builds because I think the devs will pay a real close attention to prevent outright tanking. We have already seen a nerf to AH with the changes to Vigorous Precision mechanic. I just don’t feel comfortable pouring gold and time into equipment for a build that the devs want to prevent.

Now I am not saying healing can’t be used. I use AH in my current build support build. However I use AH to supplement my boons which are the main focus of my build.