Guild Wars 2

Right now I’m running a hammer build and getting wrecked by the monsters there. They seem to hit very hard and CC all the time.

But everyone tells me to never wear soldiers because it makes you a worse player.(?)

The logic is to kill everything before it has a chance to kill you. But your room for error is much smaller with a low health pool.

The problem with PTV armor is that by killing slower it gives them more time to break down your extra defense and health.

Marauder’s is your friend. You get a huge health boost for only a small DPS loss. Give it a shot…

Problem with hammer is that it’s not a good lead-in weapon. You should lead in with scepter or longbow and then switch to hammer as you close in. Do as much damage as you can from range.

Berserker gear is fine for HoT, but hammer does not play to its strength when faced with open world trash mobs that die quickly. It just takes way too long to put down the symbol of protection. You might want to try sword+x or possibly greatsword.

I like my open world builds to give me enough survivability to solo most champs/group events. So far the only class I’ve found that can really get away with full offensive stats while under those conditions is necromancer. I have builds I like on my thief (marauder) and ele (celestial) that get the job done nicely as well, but they are high damage classes that can afford to sacrifice damage for survival in solo play without feeling slow.

Given this criteria, what would you experienced guardians recommend for a build?

Marauders armour, durability or defenders runes.

Run honor/valor/DH with scepter/shield and gs. Force sigils each set, accuracy sigils are good on paper but actually not that great. Plenty of sustained damage and burst if you take test of faith.

I run full zerk with scholar just fine. It’s honestly no problem at all. The content is just too easy for that.

You can run glass equipment in HoT. Just swap your traits and skills around depending on what you’re having trouble with. Condition clear, stun breaks and stability are the biggies here.

Also, after a while, you’ll learn your enemies’ telegraphs, then dodging becomes easier.

guards can output so much burst dps in HOT maps with zerk gear its not even funny, you should have no problem useng zerker gear +GS

Even better in sinister or viper due HoT monsters usually have high thoughness.

Buran.3796:

Even better in sinister or viper due HoT monsters usually have high thoughness.

I think you’re specifically referring to the husks. Most other mobs have normal levels of toughness and power builds are fine there.

onevstheworld.2419:

Buran.3796:

Even better in sinister or viper due HoT monsters usually have high thoughness.

I think you’re specifically referring to the husks. Most other mobs have normal levels of toughness and power builds are fine there.

I’d almost guarantee that power builds are not just fine, but superior against any standard mob but husks, which are not that common anyway.

onevstheworld.2419:

Buran.3796:

Even better in sinister or viper due HoT monsters usually have high thoughness.

I think you’re specifically referring to the husks. Most other mobs have normal levels of toughness and power builds are fine there.

The new monsters are also rich in evades, escapes/phasing and cc. Easiest way to deal with those is kitting at range with condis. Also, instad of viper/sinister one can just run dire stats and do huge damage being supertanky (20k+ HP, 3.2k+ armor while having ~1800 condi damage in full ascended gear).