Guild Wars 2

Hello, brand new to both the game and the class. Decided to play guardian for my main class because I always have enjoyed the paladin arch type in past MMO’s. That being said I was wondering what the most effective leveling build is for the class. Everything I found when googling is 2+ years old and metabattle doesn’t have a leveling build listed. Also any helpful tips or insight into the class would be much appreciated.

Leveling isn’t to hard. but there isn’t a spec that is gonna be best for it, alot of it will come down to your playstyle. Keep in mind we are not a Tank as in most MMO style games. We have low HP and no ability to make mobs stick to us.

We are however the masters of damage mitigation. We have access to blinds through Radiance and weapons like sword, greatsword and blocks like Aegis Focus 5 and Virtue of Resolve. Or Shield of the Avenger or Wall of Reflection.

Your healing skills are only usefully for keeping people topped off on hp.

In so far as leveling, I haven’t leved a toon through normal methods in over two year, so there have been some changes. This is what helped me when I was leveling.

1. Attack non hostile mobs, you get an xp bonus based off the amount of time a mob is on the map. This means things people don’t normally kill will give you more xp so be sure to take advantage of this. (Moas also drop poultry which can sell for a decent bit on the trading post due to usage in WvW food)

2. Also harvest all resource nods you see, they give decent xp and you can use those materials or sell them. As things like Iron softwood etc are worth more since ascended gear was introduced.

3. Some event chains can be very good for leveling, but you won’t find many people doing them anymore. There used to be a good one in Kessex hills, to left hand side with the centaurs. but I don’t know if it works anymore. It would be harder to solo with the champs until you master the class.

4. Try and stick to maps near your level, those seem to help me level faster then fully completely lower level ones before moving on.

5. Take gear that increases your power trait into zeal which is our highest damage tree so you can kill faster in open world content. After you max Zeal, work on Radiance.

6. You kittene Retreat/Save your selves and staff 3 for swiftness so you can map faster. Bane Signet is also nice to slot if you don’t need a condition cleanse for mobs in the area. Open world content is painfully easy at this point so you shouldn’t have much of an issue with enemies in most areas.

I would suggest greatsword for your first real weapon, get the feel for it, and its skills as it is one of our most used ones. Number 3 can also be used to help you move about the world a little faster.

Mace is a solid choice as well, with either focus or Torch as an offhand.

Hope this helps a bit.

I personally run Greatsword for damage/mobility(Leap of Faith), Sword/Focus for mobility(Flashing Blade)/defense(Shield of Wrath), and using Retreat + Save Yourselves for Swiftness and Judge’s Intervention for more mobility.

For traits you can either start with Zeal for more damage and Greatsword cooldowns or Honor for more mobility through Shout cooldowns.

From level 1 start off with a Greatsword until you can equip Sword/Focus on swap, then
keep getting those utilities.

This is a good idea of an open world build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR8dlsAhShY/OwcIQQEHxDVOFfxYsGANQ9ivg/LLA-ThQfQAAdPc1fICAYHA-e

The food helps you get more experience, and having equipment with Power/Precision/Ferocity helps with fast kills, since you don’t want to whack one bandit per hour :P

Might want to buy cheap Fine(Blue) equipment off the Trading Post every 10 levels as well.

Thank you for all the helpful advice

ancientjay.4160:

Hello, brand new to both the game and the class. Decided to play guardian for my main class because I always have enjoyed the paladin arch type in past MMO’s. That being said I was wondering what the most effective leveling build is for the class. Everything I found when googling is 2+ years old and metabattle doesn’t have a leveling build listed. Also any helpful tips or insight into the class would be much appreciated.

Assuming your going to level with doing map completion in open world. It’s probably the best way for a new player to go.

Recommending a spec for leveling is pretty hard actually because you gain traits as you level and most of your build will be dependent on the traits you have access to.

Some recommendations:

1. Get your second adept level trait in Radiance as soon as you can; being able to blind with activation of VoJ for EVERY mob you encounter is probably the best thing ever for doing open world content.

2. Use a sigil of speed. Most your time is running, so you want some access to swiftness to minimize this ‘not-leveling’ time you’re spending running. I think this is the most economical way to get it as you level. Some people recommend you use a whole weapon slot AND some skill slots to get this … I feel that severely limits you far too much. Sigil is good approach as you level because the sigil slot isn’t too powerful at the lower levels anyways and the swiftness will stack so as you kill, you should never run out your stack.

3. This game design so that if you are highly capable and use your intrinsic defenses, you can focus in on damage traits and gear to speed up killing and therefore, completing maps and leveling faster than you would with defensive stats and traits. With that in mind, I would avoid traits that don’t help you do damage. Most of open world is killing trash, so for those things, you shouldn’t really need too many defensively-oriented traits or gear; using a focus would be the MOST defense I would recommend.