Guild Wars 2

More on support but of course I’d like to help my team through dpsing as well for PvE (dungeons etc..)

Any advice on what items are good for a lvl 80 guardian?

Total newb here by the way

The best support weapons in my opinion are the two handers: Greatsword, Hammer and Staff.
You can keep a 1 hander + offhand if you want a particular effect such as the Shield of Absorption for a 1300ish heal + absord projectiles every 32~40 secs, but I find it underperforming compared to any other 2 hander.
Except for the Mace but it’s damage kinda sucks, though it’s support is great too because of it’s Symbols.

You can use a Greatsword/Hammer for damage and Staff as secondary for support if you want more with burst healing, a bunch of might stacks and occasional mid-ranged attack.
Or just use Greatsword & Hammer and support your team through Symbols only.

For Traits, 30 in Honor is absolutely a must in my opinion:
Symbols Are Larger, Symbols Heals Allies, Two Handed CD Reduction, Empowering Might, Battle Presence and a bunch others. You can pick which you want most.
I use Larger Symbols & Healing Symbols so melee around me have an easier time.

For maximum group healing, use a Mace with Symbols are Larger, Symbols Heal, and Battle Presence for a constant regeneration + 2 effects of 100~130ish constantly to those around you.

The rest is up to you, I have 30 in Zeal for extra damage and Vulnerability on Symbols, with 20 points in here you can grab both Spirit Weapon CD reduction and Eternal Spirits, although they’ve changed lately to being killable, they’re still pretty powerful.

Or you can go at least 15 in Radiance to spam Virtue of Justice if you’re farming, but I find this effect not as effective in dungeons since monsters don’t die constantly (not to mention the skips).

Spending 10 points in Valor is also highly recommended, because you have a bunch of great options in the first Major: Retributive Armor (grants usually 3~5% crit chance depending on your toughness), Meditation Mastery (good condition removers, stun breaks & teleport, but they’re good for yourself mostly), Purity and maybe Strength in Numbers.

10 points in Virtues is also excellent if you use Consecrations alot, though they’re more situational, they’re great when you need them. Wall of Reflection can really make some encounters a joke, Sanctuary is a “omg panic skill” to get 6~8 seconds of breath, Purging Grounds is the only Fire Field we can get, if you use the Greatsword you can get Fire Bolts and Fire Shield or if you use the Hammer you can get 20 seconds (unbuffed) of Might x6 if traited (you can get the finisher twice in the time it’s up), and Hallowed Ground is totally situational but insanely powerful for it’s effect.

Less useful here is also the extended Spirit Weapons duration, though I don’t find it so useful. The only great gain in my opinion is the Bow of Truth’s healing (which is awesome, though bad to target) that you can use twice before running out.

There’s plenty of options, it’s up to you which play style you want to follow.

For gear, the best options if you plan on surviving are Valkyrie → Knight → Soldier.
Knight grants more damage via criticals, but less health and a bit less power than the other two.
If you’re in doubt which to begin with, go for Soldier (Ascalonian Catacombs set, easy to get) that you can’t go wrong, and then customize from there if you think you need more damage for less bulkiness.

For Runes I’d recommend Rune of the Pack, since you’re probably going to take hits a lot, it gives 165 Power (currently bugged, 115 Power only) and 100 Precision, and has the great thing of granting Fury when hit. Since we don’t have a constant uptime of Fury like other professions, our critical chance is really unreliable if you don’t gear for it, so this helps a bunch if you’re meleeing. It’s boons are granted to your party members as well so it’s great for supporting.

Avoid “on heal” runes because our heals have terribly long cooldowns compared to some other professions that would make a better use of it.

Another good Rune for support is Rune of Strength. If you use a Greatsword or Purging Flames & Hammer with Empowering Might, you should have Might nearly constantly, so this is a nice 5% extra damage (plus the 165 Power) and also have a 20% Might Duration (24 seconds on Purging Flames + Mighty Blow combo, 6 seconds Empowering Might) that also benefits your group.

Sword/Torch and GSword have comparable damage output, Sword on single targets and frontal targets, Gsword on AoE. Scepter is our ranged option with pretty good damage output.

Hammer and Mace throw more boons out but have lower damage than the swords. I like to run shouts for support. These with a shield, shouts, and boon/protection duration can give you 100% on protection and throw some of that to your party.

Mace and Staff supply some healing.

Gsword, Mace, Hammer and Staff all have some innate support through boons and symbols.

Gear stats will effect your performance quite a bit. I started with full Power/Toughness/Vitality gear but have adjusted to a more dps centered build with some Berserker’s/Knight’s/Valk’s mixed in. I like to maintain 16K hps and 2.7K armor minimum, then I adjust gear accordingly to optimize Power and Crit.

For DPS Power is your best stat followed by Crit% then Crit Damage I believe. I don’t like falling below 2.7k Attack.

If you want healing there is some debate over Clerics vs Magi gear but it’s probably safe to mix the two. If you concentrate on healing I’d suggest 1k minimum healing.

For dps/support I use* 0/10/30/30/0 or 0/0/30/30/10 using Altruistic Healing and Empowered Might traits, crit% plays a role here. The only weapons that aren’t really that great with this are Sword, Torch and Scepter but Scepter is still very useful as your ranged option. Read through the Altruistic Healing and Hammer guide stickied up top for some really great insight and info.

For full DPS I like a 10/30/20/10/0 Sword/Torch and Scepter/Focus setup.

GL
Blood.

*edit Sincerely apologize, please forgive me, I’m sure I have some spelling errors also.

Bloodgruve.6038:

The standard builds are 0/10/30/30/0 or 0/0/30/30/10.

lol wut?

the two standard builds for dps/support are

0/5/30/30/5 and 0/15/30/20/5