Guild Wars 2

I just hit level 65, so I figured it was time for me to shift from “economic” to “optimal”. Until now I’ve been using the best blue gear I find/craft with little thought to optimization or synergy. I did this for two reasons. First, PvE isn’t so difficult as to require a high degree of meta to make it through the zones (I’ve not yet tried any dungeons). Second, most of the gear is outdated so quickly that it isn’t really worth worrying about at lower levels.

But as I approach the 70 to 80 stretch, and ultimately the level cap, I think it’s time to start thinking about optimizing my character. My character is built for (primarily) solo PvE. As such, it is designed with a mix of offense and defense.

I run Mace/Shield when alone, and Staff for DE’s with large mobs of enemies. My other skills are Shelter, Hammer of Wisdom (for added dps), Shelter (for emergency situations), Signet of Judgement (for damage mitigation), and Renewed Focus.

My traits are going to be:
– 30 Zeal: Spirit Weapon Mastery, Eternal Spirit, Wrathful Spirits
– 20 Honor: Writ of Exaltation, Writ of Persistence
– 20 Virtues: Improved Spirit Weapon Duration, either Supreme Justice or Indomitable Courage

As for gear, Power and Vitality are musts. After that, I’m not sure if I want Toughness, Healing Power, Condition Damage, or some mix of the three. So now I turn it over to you fine folks. If you have any suggestions on how I could improve my build, making it more efficient at PvE content, I’d be glad to hear them. Thanks.

Search through this forum for examples of builds. They will have descriptions of the synergy and playstyles. It should help you to develop your own build to your own playstyle.

KensaiZen.3740:

Search through this forum for examples of builds. They will have descriptions of the synergy and playstyles. It should help you to develop your own build to your own playstyle.

Thanks for the reply. I’m actually looking for specific advice to this build. Rather than searching through scores of AH, GS-offensive, Hammer-control, and full-on tank builds for any pertinent tips that might apply to a balanced PvE build, I’d rather just ask here.

Any tips like “+Healing isn’t worth it unless you go all out”, “you’ll need plenty of +Vitality as a Guardian when you get to Orr”, or “you’d get more mileage out of X traits that you will the symbol-boosting traits” you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated.

if your looking to run a tanky build i would suggest something on the lines of great sword and staff the great sword gives amazing dps rate and lots of melee AoE so you can deal with mobs quickly and painlessly i can take on about 4-7 vets by myself and don’t get me started on regular mobs if i can give u some info on build if you wish and how it runs it works great in PvE, Dungeons, SPvP, and even WvW and theirs not to much to worry about after that but if you want more line backer like wand or mace i really don’t got a lot of info on that

OP are you dead set on that build? And what exactly are you looking for in the ways of playstyle, do you want survivability? Support? Or dps? Or a mix of all 3 specializing in none.

Are you primarily planning in running Orr events and staying in the lvl 80 zone, or are you planning on doing dungeons as well?

With some more info I will gladly help you.

I have ran a large mixture of gear sets on my guardian (although in tournament pvp, i still do pve and understand which stats benefit the guard more) and have done a lot of testing with the guardian. If you are not planning on going with altruistic healing or a monks focus build (which do not benefit from healing power) then healing power could benefit you. You do not need to go all out on healing power to get the benefits. In my experience the guardian does better at mitigating damage (through blinds and aegis, and protection) rather than healin through it in large chunks. Now healing power will affect regen a which is good considering we get a lot of it, and more healing power will cause your activation of virtue of resolve to give you a very large chunk of health back. I prefer to take more vitality and toughness over more healing power on the guardian (different on my ele) as having the higher health pool is of better use to me, in mitigating conditions in dungeons.

Now this is not to say healing power is not good, as selfless daring (the dodge roll heal) benefits from healing power, as well as your virtue active and regen sources.

With more info from above I can help you limit down the choices for which is better for you.

There’s a reason why people complain about ranger and minion necro, and that’s because pet ai is not so good in this game. If you’re using spirit weaps, you’re pretty much a heavy ranger with the same bad pets and less control over them, wasting skill slots. But by ditching spirit weaps, you get your skill slots back, AND you also don’t have to drop 30 trait points in the worst trait line guard has (zeal). And if you’re really only going to use spirit hammer, is it really worth it to spend 30 trait points on one skill?

I promise you, direct damage is the way to go. Those mindless (although awesome looking!) pets usually run around behind you while taking forever to catch up, and by the time they hit your target once or twice, they’ll be on cooldown.

Use a shout or two and get some retaliation, might, fury, or another free Aegis. If you’re completing Orr, you can use F3 and Retreat, get aegis twice and grab a commune-type skill point solo without even engaging the champ that guards it.

There’s not much room to experiment with guardian while still being effective.
There’s a reason why everyone uses 0/15/30/20/5, or 0/10/30/30/0, or 0/5/30/30/5 or 0/0/30/30/10. You can get power from other sources, and zeal is only good for spirit weaps, which in turn are good for nothing. It’s true. I’ve tried it for a while; I thought spirit weapons looked really cool, but I wish they had a lot more to offer.

We’ve all experimented so that you don’t have to. I’m not trying to discourage you from playing how you want, it’s just that spirit weaps (other than maybe shield of avenger) are the absolute best way to gimp yourself. Please, for the love of yourself, pick ANY other skills; they will be better — even signets for solo play.

On the bright side, you can experiment with weapons pretty well.

Okay I went off on a tangent. As far as gear goes, don’t worry about rares ever. I don’t think I’ve worn any rare armor. I used those cheaper karma armors from cursed shore when i hit 80. They’re masterwork and run about 1000 karma a piece I think? I don’t remember. Then slowly switch them out for exotic pieces, whether you get em from dungeons or crafting, or TP. For guardian, go with PTV or TPP or PPC in order from best survivability to best damage. I wouldn’t worry about stats too much until you get exotic armor. But condition damage for guard is pretty useless.

Thanks for the replies, guys. There are a few things I upon which I should expand.

First, what I’m looking for in this build is the same thing I’m looking for in all of my builds. That is self-sufficiency in PvE of the non-dungeon variety. I’m looking for a balance of offense and defense that puts me somewhere in that sweet spot between “taking forever to kill mobs” and “every fight is a near-death experience”. I’ve not been to Orr yet, but I’m assuming that’s the benchmark for non-dungeon PvEers. So I’m looking for something that can handle that efficiently without fundamentally changing the way I play my character.

Which leads me to my second point of emphasis; I’m wanting to build a character with a “sword and board” playstyle. I have several characters, and I build and play each a different way. So my warrior is a hard-hitting melee character, my ranger is a ranged combat glass cannon, my necromancer is a conditions-producing machine, my thief is an evasion tank (lots of dodging and evading), and I’m playing my guardian as a “face tank” (survival through damage mitigation and health replenishment). I certainly recognize the foolishness of pigeonholing my characters into specific playstyles, but PvE isn’t so difficult that I can’t get away with it (atleast it hasn’t been to this point) while having fun.

I know that asking for tips on optimizing a character and then admitting that I don’t play optimally must seem a bit silly, but I find that forcing myself into differing styles with different characters allows for a fresh change of pace when switching characters (which I after every zone or two…I’ve been in no hurry to get to endgame). So that’s why I’m running the mace and shield while using the staff to tag large groups of mobs when farming DEs.

My thought process is Virtue of Resolve, Faithful Strike, Symbol of Faith, and the defense afforded by heavy armor should keep me standing against weaker trash mobs while my healing skill and dodges (traited to heal upon completion) will be used when necessary. I run an “oh crap” utility skill on each of my characters for those instances when things start to get out of hand, and thus Shelter is on my bar.

For offense, the mace is slow. So to supplement it’s damage I’ve boosted Power through the Zeal line and traited symbols to inflict better damage and Vulnerability. As with an “oh crap” utility skill, each of my characters also has a damage-boosting utility with a short (preferably) cooldown. For my guardian, this is the Hammer of Justice. As with symbols, it too is traited to inflict better damage.

My biggest uncertainty lies in equipping my character once I reach 80. I’m probably going to go with Power for even more damage output and Vitality to elevate my health to a respectable level. After that, I’m torn between Toughness for added survivability against large hordes of trash mobs (of which I’m lead to believe Orr has no shortage), Healing Power to boost my mace’s healing skills and my VoR’s passive, Condition Damage and/or Power to boost the damage increase offered by my VoJ’s passive, or a mix of any/all of these.

Of particular interest to me is whether or not it’s good to load up on three main stats with armor and another two/three supplemental stats with trinkets, or if it’s best to just overload three main stats with both armor and trinkets. Rather than running a bunch of trial and error tests with gear, I figured those of you with “field testing” experience and/or a deeper understanding of the ins-and-outs of the formula regarding Healing Power, Condition Damage, and Condition Duration as they relate to the guardian could save me the time.

Anyway, that’s a more detailed layout of what exactly it is I’m looking to get out of this character. I’m looking to meta my non-meta guardian character for non-dungeon PvE without abandoning what it is that makes distinguishes it from all my other characters. Thanks again for the replies; please keep them coming.