Guild Wars 2

hi,
I’m trying to figure out at 80 what my goal should be for toughness while trying to play a defensive dps guardian… meaning that i can take some decent damage and deal some as well. i have 30 into the toughness trait line and 25 into vitality. i don’t have numbers on how high my toughness is nor vitality and most of the armor i wear is Bezerker with i think 1-2 knight pieces and trinkets a mix of Berzerker and with 2 rings that have power/toughness/vitality 33 i think of each.

So basically asking what amount should i consider right for toughness and vitality. also would like to know how much if i need to make a tank set.

Also is there a point of diminishing returns?

If it matters i am currently using great-sword and sword/focus (rarely) but am considering trying sceptre/focus for ranged and give the sword up.

traits i think are 0/10/30/25/5 but may be changing them after reading some posts.

thanks for any help

I’m no expert, so here goes.

“So basically asking what amount should i consider right for toughness and vitality.”
Enough for you to comfortably stay alive.

“Also is there a point of diminishing returns?”
Not that I know of or experienced.

I suggest going Knights on all pieces, then adding more zerker if you need more dps or Soldiers if you need more survivability. Or adding other pieces inbetween until you reach a balance that suits your play style.

Guard is my main and I run 50/50 crit chance/dmg with 16.5k health and 3.2k armor(with sigil and traits). I run 0-15-30-20-5 with soldier’s runes and it allows me to facetank while providing enough dmg and support for dungeons.

Im not an expert ( and i love crit dmg ) But I feel kinda comfortable with Medi healing build and these stats buffed – Crit / prec food or omno pie ( 66% LD/ 80 prec ), and 6%/4% to power from toughness and vit:

around 3,200 attack ( thats around 2k power++ ) with bloodlust rune ( +~200)
~2640 armor total ( it’s fine for me )
42% crit chance
94(102)% Crit damage depending on food.
and 16,5k hp…

While solo farming/dungeons it feels kinda safe, got a lot of healing from meditations as solo build so I can’t complain and still most stuff dies before they can seriously hurt me…

Highest crit with #1 chain I’ve noticed with bloodlust (25 stacks ) and 6 might stacks was ~3,5k, in groups (events ) with lots of might stacks ( from block ) etc and buffs I think I would be able to get over 4k crit…

But I love crit dmg

So for better numbers for you and my preferences.
3000 armor will not you about 40% reduction from all damage (not conditions)
2500 is only around 25% reduction.

If you run 15khp with 40% reduction this nets you around 24k “effective hp”
This is the perfect number for me and I know also a lot of people will say around 3k armor is good.

It really comes down to how much crit damage do you want to give up.

I went mostly zerkers at first where I had 2500 armor with 13k hp or so.
While I tended to stomp some noobs 1v1 with 5-7k crits, anyone who was worth their kitten would kill me super fast if I wasnt 100% on my game.

So now I crit for around 4k and have almost twice the effective health that I had before and it feels so much better for me.

Just slowly swap your zerker gear for knights/soldier until you feel comfortable.
I would work to get the armor higher first because knights does not sacrifice much in terms of damage at all and gives a ton of toughness. Not to mention higher toughness makes the HP you do have so much more awesome.

Mrowqa hit it on the head for a more crit/burst build. That will net you those 5-7k crits. My opinion is more hybrid, where some well prefer even more tankyness than either of these. Just go with w/e you want man.

it’s about finding what you’re comfortable with. how do you feel in most encounters playing the current stats that you have now? if you feel HP pool is too low, try to make up some of that. if you feel each direct hit you take it too big, maybe some added toughness will help.

i’ve run a number of different builds, and as much as i’d like to stay to my “comfort zone”, i’ll break the barriers with toughness or vit or other stats here and there to make things work. which they do! one thing to take into account is how much active dmg mitigation do you do, how much passive mitigation do you get? do you use your dodge rolls effectively. do you have enough passive healing, condition removal? they all play a part in the equation as well : ))

some Guards never run with less than 3k armor, some go as low as 2.6k. some think 14k HP is more than enough while some like to push it to 20k.

In Fractals is all about damage and Agony resistance, so i would suggest you go full berserker/dps and have around 2400 toughness and at least 13-14k hp to avoid one-shots early on.

At later levels 30+ nothing matters except for damage and dodging.

OneManArmy.5617:

In Fractals is all about damage and Agony resistance, so i would suggest you go full berserker/dps and have around 2400 toughness and at least 13-14k hp to avoid one-shots early on.

At later levels 30+ nothing matters except for damage and dodging.

This mentality only exists because higher level fractals will kill you regardless of how much toughness/vitality you stack.

Outside of fractals, toughness and vitality can very much improve your staying power. Carrying the “lol dps” mentality into WvW will likely get you killed. Repeatedly.

If I were You I’d go first for zerkers to farm events and do solo farms.

Full zerker ( with low hp ) etc will give You that nasty good habit of doging. Trust me.

Later on You can start wtiching gear for those stats:
Power/Prec/Toughness
Power/crit dmg/Vit ( valkyrie )

This worker Out well for me, because first few days when I played in full zerk with 11k hp I was dying a lot, now when I got proper habit of using dodge I feel safe with my 16,5k hp

With an AH build, I shoot for armor between 2,800 and 3,000, crit chance somewhere between 45-55% with full consumable/sigil buffs, hit points > 16,000, and then maximize power and crit damage subject to these limits — I run with 1900ish base power and 67% additional crit damage, and use staff/GS for might stacks. These kinds of stats will give you good tankiness with decent (but not amazing) damage. I mostly WvW, with the occasional dungeon or low-level fractal.

The more toughness the better.

As much vit as you need to feel like you can survive bursts decently well. For me that is zero outside of traits.

high toughness – low Dmg and still proper builds in dungeons : AH for shouts
0/0/30/20/20 or 0/0/30/30/10

will give you enough Healing to cover low Toughness.

Problem with guardians is that We don’t have huge base damage, So either You will focus on high HP + toughness sacrificing dmg Or go with VIt/ medium toughness and huge dmg

Choice Is yours tbh.

With Amount of guardian migitation abilities and Shouts with AH build Your hp in dungeons won’t go down even by 1% bth even with zerker build

thanks for all the replies
i looked and can remember that i have about 2500+ armor and 16k+ health so i would like to up my armor/toughness closer to the 3k mark. i do ok with health though i think i would feel a tad better with a little more.

I do ok with damage or so it seems to me with using a great sword but not sure what to use for secondary. i am torn between sword and focus which is my norm or trying a sceptre for some range. i have seen some threads though havent really read them yet about sceptres being broken so not sure what to do.

I have yet to run a dungeon but really need too since i am at the end of my story line and need to kill the dragon. i am trying to figure out what to use in terms of weapons, traits and skills to make it easier and much more group friendly.

Once again thanks for the info

Xante.2184:

I do ok with damage or so it seems to me with using a great sword but not sure what to use for secondary. i am torn between sword and focus which is my norm or trying a sceptre for some range. i have seen some threads though havent really read them yet about sceptres being broken so not sure what to do.

Scepter is not broken at all, I run lev 40 fractals every day with a 20/30/0/10/10 build, it gives me 15% crit on 1h, I can switch from 5% damage on scepter or greatsword, I use Scepter, Torch, Shield, 1H sword, Greatsword, Hammer throughout the various maps.. the 10 in honor gives me vigor on crit/shout cooldowns, the 10 in valor gives me unscathed contender (20% damage with aegis up, this is what makes Scepter really work, gotta dodge and position well) or I can use consecration duration/cooldowns instead if it’s a hard fight with lots of projectiles to block. HOWEVER my pvp builds have never included scepter, no comment on that.

I switch from full berserkers to full power/tough/vital or whatever, depending on situation in the instance… not every dungeon is fractals or anything i’m just trying to give you an example.

Guardian is a super deep class that has endless valid trait setups, no tree sucks, you really have to analyze the traits and think it all through based on situations you find yourself in game.. that’s my advice.. while unemployed I play 2-3 builds per day, respeccing all the time(thank god its cheap)

the correct answer, of course, is: you can never have enough

but you don’t really need it that much if you know where the dodge button is and you can properly time your blocks.

with mace/focus, shelter, Aegis, Retreat, and Save Yourselves only, you can block 8 attacks in a row, entirely, one of these blocks attacks over time, and aegis can be reapplied as soon as it’s removed if it’s recharged.

you have options to avoid it altogether in smaller fights.

I run

3K Attack
50% crit buffed
35% crit dmg buffed
2.9K Armor
17K hp

0/15/30/20/5 currently and utilize Hammer, GSword, Staff, Scepter and Focus. This is a solid build with AH and heals you can ‘face tank’ with Hammer for quite a while on most stuff. Still need scepter there for some content, just adjust as needed.

Blood~

Personally I use greatsword/staff with power/toughness/vit on both, superior sigil of bloodlust on greatsword.

With this I get around (with 25 stacks of bloodlust) 3.2k attack
10% crit (need to get more really :/)
2.8k armour
and 23k hp

20/0/20/30/0 And I use this generally for dungeons but not so much for fractals (it was good up to level 15 or so but agony outweighs that with only +5 agony resistance).

This works well for me but it does need tweaking slightly. However it is incredibly tanky and since I use the passive virtue of resolve trait and soldier runes which keeps the whole team happy (as well as the 12 stacks of might the staff grants) with ‘hold the line’ ‘save yourselves’ and the signet which grants protection (i forget its name xd).

It isn’t really the MOST effective build out there but I have found it very good for what I like to do in game – dungeons.

Hope this helps

Fyrngarm

The average build should have anywhere from 2500 to 2800 armor, up to 3000 but no more. If you’re going full damage and are good at dodging/set up for defraying hits with blinds and aegis and protection and so on, then frankly just go nuts. I currently have 2200 and I do fine.

Mrowqa.3861:

Problem with guardians is that We don’t have huge base damage

Actually, base damage of guardians tops warriors’.

I don’t want to tell you what to do; however, I see a major flaw in how you are designing your character. When specing your traits, spec it according to the bonuses they give, not which attribute points you are going for. (ie. Spec into traits by looking at things like reduced skill CD instead of X number of toughness etc.) Also, there is no ‘enough’ toughness/vitality in GW2. There is no DR on vitality but there is one for toughness. However, the DR for toughness is made such that it increases so slow that it almost looks linear (so essentially the DR is very small). In general, vitality is better than toughness for guardians (better EHP), but toughness is still a good attribute.

When choosing attribute points for your armor, the priority is like this.
Damage: Power > Precision > Crit Dmg >>> Condition Dmg
Defense: Vitality > Toughness

Do not ever go condition damage on your guardian, it is incredibly bad when used with burning. It literally does like +20 dmg extra per tick when you spec in it which is essentially nothing.