Guild Wars 2

For hundreds of hours, I’ve played my Guardian that focuses on a shout build with Altrustic Healing, Empowering Might, and all that- using Knight’s gear, PVT, and all that good stuff.

It has served me well. I’ve never had a problem with dungeons at all.

However, lately, I’ve been striving harder to obtain my first legendary. I’m at the point where all I need now is hundreds of gold. Unfortunately, I went to the dark side and invested in full Berserker’s gear to get into those super quick CoF p1 runs to get gold.

Then, I decided to take my Warrior to other dungeons- Arah exp, CoE exp, and I found myself not really dying much at all. I’ve become confident in my ability to dodge and kite and to simply not die. The damage output on my Warrior is about 4x+ the damage of my Guardian. It made me think about giving the legendary to my Warrior instead.

However, I love my Guardian. I’ve played it for hundreds of hours like I said, and would like to give it the legendary and to continue keeping it as my main- but I just feel so much more useful on my Warrior.

I think my skill has grown so that I can sacrifice all that toughness and vitality in favor of precision and crit damage without going down. I’d like to carry this over to my Guardian so I can remain playing it. I already know that I won’t achieve the same damage output as my Guardian, but I’d like to dish out as much damage as I can.

Is this a good idea? Are there any strong zerker-focused Guardian builds that you would recommend?

TLDR:
Just tried a zerker Warrior, and am loving the damage output, and am finding my skill to dodge and stay alive to be worth it, as I hardly go down and I dish out insane damage. I love my Guardian and would like to carry that over to my Guardian. I can’t just “play both” because I’m striving for a legendary that I’d like to give to my Guardian so I can continue using it as my “main.” Any power based or zerkers build you have that you could recommend? Or is this just not a good idea?

Khairos.3890:

For hundreds of hours, I’ve played my Guardian that focuses on a shout build with Altrustic Healing, Empowering Might, and all that- using Knight’s gear, PVT, and all that good stuff.

It has served me well. I’ve never had a problem with dungeons at all.

However, lately, I’ve been striving harder to obtain my first legendary. I’m at the point where all I need now is hundreds of gold. Unfortunately, I went to the dark side and invested in full Berserker’s gear to get into those super quick CoF p1 runs to get gold.

Then, I decided to take my Warrior to other dungeons- Arah exp, CoE exp, and I found myself not really dying much at all. I’ve become confident in my ability to dodge and kite and to simply not die. The damage output on my Warrior is about 4x+ the damage of my Guardian. It made me think about giving the legendary to my Warrior instead.

However, I love my Guardian. I’ve played it for hundreds of hours like I said, and would like to give it the legendary and to continue keeping it as my main- but I just feel so much more useful on my Warrior.

I think my skill has grown so that I can sacrifice all that toughness and vitality in favor of precision and crit damage without going down. I’d like to carry this over to my Guardian so I can remain playing it. I already know that I won’t achieve the same damage output as my Guardian, but I’d like to dish out as much damage as I can.

Is this a good idea? Are there any strong zerker-focused Guardian builds that you would recommend?

TLDR:
Just tried a zerker Warrior, and am loving the damage output, and am finding my skill to dodge and stay alive to be worth it, as I hardly go down and I dish out insane damage. I love my Guardian and would like to carry that over to my Guardian. I can’t just “play both” because I’m striving for a legendary that I’d like to give to my Guardian so I can continue using it as my “main.” Any power based or zerkers build you have that you could recommend? Or is this just not a good idea?

Legendaries are Pow/Tough/Vit matey

Legendaries

Rhogall.4179:

Khairos.3890:

For hundreds of hours, I’ve played my Guardian that focuses on a shout build with Altrustic Healing, Empowering Might, and all that- using Knight’s gear, PVT, and all that good stuff.

It has served me well. I’ve never had a problem with dungeons at all.

However, lately, I’ve been striving harder to obtain my first legendary. I’m at the point where all I need now is hundreds of gold. Unfortunately, I went to the dark side and invested in full Berserker’s gear to get into those super quick CoF p1 runs to get gold.

Then, I decided to take my Warrior to other dungeons- Arah exp, CoE exp, and I found myself not really dying much at all. I’ve become confident in my ability to dodge and kite and to simply not die. The damage output on my Warrior is about 4x+ the damage of my Guardian. It made me think about giving the legendary to my Warrior instead.

However, I love my Guardian. I’ve played it for hundreds of hours like I said, and would like to give it the legendary and to continue keeping it as my main- but I just feel so much more useful on my Warrior.

I think my skill has grown so that I can sacrifice all that toughness and vitality in favor of precision and crit damage without going down. I’d like to carry this over to my Guardian so I can remain playing it. I already know that I won’t achieve the same damage output as my Guardian, but I’d like to dish out as much damage as I can.

Is this a good idea? Are there any strong zerker-focused Guardian builds that you would recommend?

TLDR:
Just tried a zerker Warrior, and am loving the damage output, and am finding my skill to dodge and stay alive to be worth it, as I hardly go down and I dish out insane damage. I love my Guardian and would like to carry that over to my Guardian. I can’t just “play both” because I’m striving for a legendary that I’d like to give to my Guardian so I can continue using it as my “main.” Any power based or zerkers build you have that you could recommend? Or is this just not a good idea?

Legendaries are Pow/Tough/Vit matey

Legendaries

Transmutation stones

I’m in the exact same boat as @Khairos.3890, and am curious to see if anyone has an awesome Guardian setup focused around as much damage as possible 8|

Check the builds that focus on burst dmg with GS/Sw+T and keep burning/blind/vul on targets.
Great burst and mobility.

Hey khairos,

I currently run a 0/30/30/20/0 shout build with a sword/shield. I use 100% zerker gear and also consider myself pretty good at surviving based on my ability to dodge. I use 6/6 runes of divinity. Between the shouts, shield 4/5, f2 and f3, and the elite skill, surviving is pretty easy even in a wvw zerg setting. I do really good damage (though I’m sure damage with a gs is even greater, I just like how sword/shield plays). I usually switch to staff if I’m being focused by 3 or more players and can use staff 4 to heal and staff 5 to kite.

In my opinion zerker gear is the bees knees for guardians.

Ill post video if I remember when I get home.
Hope this helps!

Edit: realized you might be talking more about a pve setting, in which case I would still recommend zerker gear. I’m not too much into pve but the dungeons/fractals I have done were not much of a problem

For GS/sword+x template build would be something like 10/30/0/0/0. Rest 30 points you can put freely but I would seriously consider at least 5 in honour for perma vigor. 10 more in zeal will give you 5% more damage as well as 100 more power (which should be about 5% damage increase as well). Another trait worthy considering is elusive power but with perma vigor it’s rather hard to keep the bonus up unless you dodge very often.

One thing you should remember is that guardian gets most of his dps not from valor but from traits that increases damage by percentage – they stack multiplicatively.

Look for the builds by Amins, Bash, and Brutality. They are your zerker masters. Do as their bidding commands!

Also, check this out for some great advice: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Silven-s-PvP-Guardian-Build-Guide/first#post1731355

What’s your current trait build OP?

It depends on whether you want a GS build or a sword build. They are sort of the main competitors in a max DPS Zerker build. I tune my build toward greatsword but run both. GS is much better against multiple targets.

My GS build: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h1|c.1g.h14.d.1g.h2|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.8g.67|a2.p26.0.u29b.5|55.1|0.0.0.0.0|e

My Sword build: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h1|c.1g.h14.d.1g.h2|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.8g.67|a2.p26.0.u29b.5|55.1|0.0.0.0.0|e

Indure.5410:

What’s your current trait build OP?

0/0/30/30/10

I use mostly Knight’s so I’m using Retributive Armor, Two Handed Mastery (Cause I use Greatsword primarily), Altrustic Healing, -20% on Shouts, and Empowering Might.

Soldier runes on armor to remove conditions on shout.

I like Empowering Might and Two Handed Mastery.. and the whole shouting thing to control conditions. Is it a good idea to continue this build, except using Zerker gear?

Khairos.3890:

Indure.5410:

What’s your current trait build OP?

0/0/30/30/10

I use mostly Knight’s so I’m using Retributive Armor, Two Handed Mastery (Cause I use Greatsword primarily), Altrustic Healing, -20% on Shouts, and Empowering Might.

Soldier runes on armor to remove conditions on shout.

I like Empowering Might and Two Handed Mastery.. and the whole shouting thing to control conditions. Is it a good idea to continue this build, except using Zerker gear?

I’ve use zerker gear with your build and it works fine, but you are still building your traits like a tank and expecting high damage numbers. Go with a 20/25/0/25/0 build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQBYiwmBBBYli4dPcGYE+A

and you will notice a substantially higher damage output. Sure you will be a glass cannon, but in PVE if you know how to dodge it is very doable. To save some money throw ruby orbs on your gear since they give the highest damage output and they are cheap.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not claiming this is the highest damage output build, but if you try it out, the damage difference will be like night and day to what you have now (so will the survivability LOL). To help with survivability use omnomberry pies for the lifesteal. With high crit chance they give a lot of regen.

Thanks so much! That looks like what I was looking for. What utilities would you recommend? If I’m leaving behind Altruistic Healing and Soldier Runes, then I should go with other utilities right?

Elusive Power is totally worthless, don’t take 25 points in Honor. You expend more DPS by not attacking during your roll than you recover from the damage bonus. Not to mention you have permanent vigor up from Vigorous Precision which makes the problem even worse.

Either go 10/30/0/30/0 for pure of voice or just 20/30/0/20/0. If you’re not going to use 1h weapon drop 5 from radiance for something else like virtues 5 minor.

Khairos.3890:

Thanks so much! That looks like what I was looking for. What utilities would you recommend? If I’m leaving behind Altruistic Healing and Soldier Runes, then I should go with other utilities right?

Shouts are still great utilities regardless of your build. But utilities aren’t meant to be set in stone. That is why we can and should hot-swap them as needed. I love Save Yourselves!, Wall of Reflection and Stand Your Ground, but I switch my utilities per fight because each provide their own benefit.

haviz.1340:

Either go 10/30/0/30/0 for pure of voice or just 20/30/0/20/0. If you’re not going to use 1h weapon drop 5 from radiance for something else like virtues 5 minor.

Either of these builds will work as well. The most important part is hitting the two +10% damage bonus traits in Radiance and Zeal.

Indeed! I normally switch Wall of Reflection in when I know I’m going to go into a dungeon like HotW or Arah.

I’m currently using the utility that does area damage and more damage if you have a condition, and the AoE ring of fire combo field, with Stand your Ground, and switch in based on the situation.

Seems to work great! Should I continue to use Renewed Focus? I haven’t really touched the other two tomes..

I feel obligated to point out that the chance each mob aggros onto you (and not your teammates) is affected by how much armor your character has.

This means you can expect to get focused much less if you switch your guardian to zerker gear. It also means that the difference you notice between your warrior and guardian is more than just that you are more skilled…

Khairos.3890:

The damage output on my Warrior is about 4x+ the damage of my Guardian.

DPS almost seems to be dependent on the perception of the player. How have you done your calculations?

I’ve been using almost full Zerker gear and you can push some serious DPS with the right build. I’ve seen some calculations that show Guardians being only a couple hundred DPS lower than Warriors when looking at sustained damage. Haven’t found a formula that I fully trust but in most cases the numbers definitely don’t reflect a 4x increase, maybe if you compared a Zerker Warrior to a naked guardian.

Blood~

Khairos.3890:

TLDR:
Just tried a zerker Warrior, and am loving the damage output, and am finding my skill to dodge and stay alive to be worth it, as I hardly go down and I dish out insane damage. I love my Guardian and would like to carry that over to my Guardian. I can’t just “play both” because I’m striving for a legendary that I’d like to give to my Guardian so I can continue using it as my “main.” Any power based or zerkers build you have that you could recommend? Or is this just not a good idea?

power/zerker builds for warrior or guard?