Guild Wars 2

Hey, I’m fairly new to playing Guardian. I’ve one that I’ve leveled up through playing Edge of the Mist, but that’s all.

I currently have gear providing me with bonus Vitality, Toughness and Power. As a heavy armored Guardian, should I keep that gear up? I see a lot of meta berserker nowadays which would suggest me to roll with Power, Precision and Ferocity. Some also state that the new meta is condition damage based, so I should go with Power, Precison and Condition Damage.

What I’m doing is mostly running Dungeons or playing some World vs World (Edge of the Mist) with my Guardian. I’m planning on buying some ascended “Accessories” aswell as some definite exotic piece of gear. For a newbie Guardian, what stats would you recommend me the most and why?

One thing I would recommend is that you don’t run the same stats in WvW as you do in PVE dungeons.

I think right now, the jury is out on what the BEST meta is in PVE and it could change again when HoT is released. If you want the safest bet, Zerkers would be my advice.

As for WvW, I can’t advise but I don’t think Zerkers is a currently popular choice unless doing something very specific extremely well. You’re not likely at the point.

For PvE in general, direct damage is going to be most beneficial. As such you’ll be advised to run gear that Prioritizes Power > Prec > Ferocity (aka Berserker) as well as choosing Specializations that promote damage.

In WvW, stat selection depends on what type of role you are trying to fill.

Frontliners need to stay alive as they are brought for buffs and a small amount of crowd control. For this you’ll want Vitality and Toughness. As a third stat you can go for Healing Power if you want to be a tank with legs, though Power is mostly advised so you can do minor damage to enemies and full damage to siege (they cannot be crit so something like Soldier’s and Berserker’s end up doing the same amount of damage).

Roamers tend to have a mix of both defense an offense. The ideal striker will stack on all Berserker’s/Sinister’s (Condi, Power, and Prec) to be able to take down targets quicker, but in reality some defense in needed. On top of your ‘roaming’ traits you’ll want to slot in some Toughness and/or Vitality. With conditions starting to re-emerge you really need to play it by ear to see what stat you need more of.

If you’re not really sure on what gear you’re going to settle on but you do EotM a lot, I’d probably suggest getting mostly zerker ascended trinkets, then having a couple of different armour/weapon stat sets. You’ll likely have the badges for them which makes it relatively cheap to have multiple exo armour sets (whereas it’s only really rings if you do FotM a lot that are in plentiful supply as far as ascended gear goes), so you can have a full zerker set for PvE, PVT armour and weapons for WvW, etc.. Of course, the obvious caveat is that seeing as you can’t salvage WvW gear, don’t put any really expensive runes/sigils in any of it unless you’re sure you want to stick with that stat set.

Speaking about PvE, Berserker’s gear (Power, Precision, Ferocity) is meta as it provides the most damage. Condition guardian (running Condition Damage, Power, and Precision) is in the “viable for casual runs” category post-patch, as it provides a respectable amount of DPS, but it simply does not output as much as zerk.

So, I’d suggest you go full Berserker’s gear for PvE. You might feel squishy at first, but once you learn how to use all the defenses your class has to offer, you’ll find that Guardians are extremely durable in PvE. Since you mention dungeons, I’d check out: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-Playing-Guardian-in-Dungeons/first as well as https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first

For WvW, AFAIK the meta for guardian is Soldier’s gear. (Power, Toughness ,Vitality), and it sounds like you already have that. You definitely want a set of different gear for WvW than you do for PvE. I am not a WvW expert though, so I’d recommend just listening to whatever the hardcore WvW Guardian players suggest regarding gearing for WvW.

for PvE, try this : http://goo.gl/ri7rzu if you’re still getting used to the defense (dodging etc)

once you’re pro at it swap to all zerker…

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_GS_Mace/Focus/Torch

I run it in dungeons, I run it in open world PvE and its good. Feel free to tweak things but the armor and weapons are basically the best weapons for Guardian right now.

azizul.8469:

for PvE, try this : http://goo.gl/ri7rzu if you’re still getting used to the defense (dodging etc)

once you’re pro at it swap to all zerker…

That looks terrible. Why would you suggest anyone use it?

The gear has way too much defense. More than you’d ever need for “training wheels”.

You’re still using Sword for some reason, despite Mace being much better. I’m not sure what’s up with the Scepter/Focus as a general recommendation and not a Greatsword.

Valor is pretty “meh”. Zeal is much better.

The utility skills don’t look great. Why isn’t the heal skill shelter? It’s a hugely important part of the active defense of playing a Guardian. Why is Judge’s Intervention suggested as a utility skill at all? I mean based on everything that’s been suggested, this can’t be a condition build, so that suggestion can’t be for the burn, can it?

If you want to maintain a WvW bend, and don’t like full zerks in PvE, you can try a Zerk Soldier Mix. You’ll need still a good amount of Precision for your DPS side, so usually it ends up being soldiers earrings and maybe a ring or amulet. The rest is zerks to synergize direct damage. That is unless you intend to run full time Medi guard, as they can stack fury pretty easily.

Finding an optimal mix for both is pretty much impossible under one gear set. But Zerks armor tends to be the center of most builds, and you can get ascended rings and amulets for cheap with Laurals, and even cheaper in WvW using Badges+Laurals. If you want ascended earrings, the only cheap option is Guild commendations (the cost increases significantly using the laural route). That way you keep the armor (which is the most expensive to obtain), and swap trinkets to adjust your build needs.

get zealots.

use zerk trinkets for dungeons with good people
use clerics trinkets for dungeons with bad pugs
use soldiers trinkets for wvw
don’t pvp. use another profession for that.