Guild Wars 2

Hey:
So i started a gaurdian and I wanted some advice on building him. First off I main a Charr Warrior and a mesmer but now i have the sylvari gaurd, but anyways, im crafting him twilight currently and i want to know what kind of armor, runes, trinkets, and traits work for a greatsword build? Do i need to go condition damage or healing? So any advice would be great! – Thanks!

(PS I read most forums on him)

For greatsword, you’re arguably best off with a tanky DPS build. What that entails is up to you, really, but do be aware that condition damage is most definitely not a Guardian’s best option, due to our lack of any damage conditions outside of burning.

ok awesome! Ill consider that, So i was thinking, Knights armor with healing, vitality, and toughness… Seems tanky DPS but need more info

I wouldn’t recommend “tanky” DPS for the greatsword since it’s a raw damage weapon and you’ll be gimping yourself trying to tank with a weapon meant for DPS. You will be able to do more damage, for example, if you use a more defense-oriented weapon like hammer or mace with an offensive spec, you will both be tankier and deal more damage than if you tried to run tanky DPS with a greatsword.

For greatsword, you want full damage spec to be able to get the most out of it. Full berserker gear, 20/30/0/20/0 on traits, etc.

Why does everyone use great sword then> It is the only weapon I ever see on them?

I’d agree with Kharel Arhew, GS guardian is best suited as a tanky dps build. The setup Guanglai gave is a glasscannon guardian which isn’t bad but since you mained a warrior previously, it would be kinda pointless since warriors make better glasscannons. A “Tanky DPS” build doesnt automatically refer to full soldier with absolutely no crit ability. I usually recommend a combination of soldier/berserker/knight armour to get a good balance of tankiness and critical ability. The traits vary but I would highly recommend speccing 30 into valor for one of our 2 main healing traits coupled with 30% crit damage and 300 toughness. Altruistic Healing is for a shout based build and Monk’s Focus is for a meditation build.

I personally use a 0/5/30/30/5 AH build with GS/Hammer, soldier runes, and a mix of the armour I mentioned above.

The setup gets me about 3k attack, 42% crit chance, 58% crit damage, 19k health and 3.1k armour on top of amazing healing ability, condition removal and support.

The great thing about guardian traits is that most of them are applicable to any weapon set. A good guardian will have each of his possible weapons in his inventory to use for different situations. A decent gs-based build is 30/0/30/20/0, but you’ll notice that the first line of traits (Zeal) is pretty lackluster. I currently run 0/30/30/0/10 and almost always have one two-handed weapon and x/focus as my swap.

As far as equipment, guardians do well with knight’s gear, tanky runes, and dps trinkets/weapons. Coming from your warrior and mesmer experience, I’m sure you’re versed in damage mitigation, so you can sacrifice defense for offense. Combine that with the amount of blocks and heals guardians have and you should be set! Guardian is a fun class! Enjoy!

Legend of Rogue.5394:

Why does everyone use great sword then> It is the only weapon I ever see on them?

People like big swords? I wouldn’t be surprised if that was actually the only reason.

What I’m talking about here is tradeoffs; between hammer and greatsword particularly. Greatsword is a very strong DPS weapon, especially at the high end of the spectrum where every little bit matters (GS hits about 7k/s in optimum team situations), while hammer has a slightly lower base DPS and is locked into certain traits, so the absolute best it can scrape out is around 6.4k/s.

The difference, however, is that the hammer gets a very strong inherent defensive buff built in (Protection) which means that if you try to adjust the greatsword’s stats so you get a degree of defense equal to that protection boon by taking knight’s armor instead of berserker’s, your DPS will drop to around than 4k. That means that a “tanky” GS build equivalent to a hammer build’s level of defense at any point along the spectrum will be lower.

What I’m basically getting at is that the real strength in the GS is its ability to reach that highest point of damage on the spectrum, which hammer can’t do no matter how much it gives up. However, if you are aiming for a middle-ground “tanky” build, the hammer almost always wins out.

if i play hammer, while hitting hard, i am going for more “survivability”. while with the GS, i am aiming on hitting as hard as i can, killing as fast as i can. and in gw2 at least, there are points where i try to find balance, but i want to say though in general strengthen what you’re good at, before making up for what you’re lacking. i.e. GS i feel is best focused on more DPS, though not to say, to completely ignore your defenses. finding that balance will be half the fun. : ))

Ok so final 4 skills should be what and what traits are standard? Lots of different opinions? Thanks btw guys. Really helps!

hmm, you can build in almost any way, and the greatsword could fit in well. so depends how far down the DPS line you wanna go vs how much survivability you can retain while doing so.

what areas of the game are you mainly interested in with your Guard? and what level are you now?

p.s. are you going for the sylvari cultural armor?

akamon.2769:

hmm, you can build in almost any way, and the greatsword could fit in well. so depends how far down the DPS line you wanna go vs how much survivability you can retain while doing so.

what areas of the game are you mainly interested in with your Guard? and what level are you now?

p.s. are you going for the sylvari cultural armor?

Hey man! Um I will be doing Dungeons and PVP mainly. I am guild leader so Ill be running and leveling alot of players! Also I am considering going cultural armor but i was going to transmute my stats into the looks. i like the idea of mixing knights and Beserkers, maybe 3 of each

hmm, i like playing with builds and coming up with stuff. i’ll try to put something together real quick, or maybe even a few examples after i come back frmo lunch.

ni the meantime, lot of great threads about there about builds and you can check them out too! most of them also do a great job of explaining how the build works as well and not just giving you a stat spread.

[edit]
and oh, by PvP, do you mean WvW? or sPvP?

here are a few builds i’ve super quickly put together with a brief description. you can test ‘em out and see if you enjoy them. and of course, mix and match anything you want to get to where you need to be! do note, these are not min/maxed stats if you’re into that sort of thing.. but it’s friday afternoon, rainy outside and i am getting sleepy after lunch lol XDD if you do want to discuss further though, i’d eb more than happy to try to help!

Since you mentioned you’re gonan be helping a lot of other players, i’d recommend maybe trying this build first. pretty standard, survivable, but by no means do you hit softly.

i’ve left 10 points up to you where to put ’em.

• 10 in zeal for fiery wrath is aways fun.
• 5 in radiance, 5 in virtues is a nice set up. activiating Virtue of Justice, your F1, each time will give you an AoE blind, all allies next attack burn, and you get 3 stacks of might as well.
• 10 in radiance is atually really nice with GS as well. blind exposure inflicts vulnerbility on mobs with blinds. and nto sure if they fixed it yet.. or if they will, but as it stands each blind is supposed to give 3 stacks of vuln. but with Leap of Faith GS #2, it inflcits 3 stacks of blinds per mob you hit. so if you leap into a mob of 5 and blind all of them, it will throw on 15 (5×3) stacks of vuln on each mob. so that’s an extra 15% increased dmg already. if they HAVE fixed this since last patch, do forgive me! XPP
• 10 in virtues also works for either Vengeful (longer retal duration) or the consecration traits are nice too (i take Consecrated Ground – so sanctuary, wall of reflection, etc you can groudn target them.. and ithink it MAY be a bug, but the duration is also slightly increased iirc).

i’ve slotted soldier runes so you’re pretty “tanky”. so obviously shouts are a clear choice here – each shout will remove 1 conditino and convert 1 to a boon with Soldier rune set 6th piece bonus and Pure of Voice trait.

altenatively, for runes you could go 2x Water 2x Monk and then 2x Major Sanctuary or 2x any protection runes or anything else you want. boon duration is pretty strong in a group setting and as a Guard, you have access to a ton of boons. if you are goign this route, i’d suggest the last 10 in virtues.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1n.h17|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.7x.1g.7x.1n.7x.1g.7x.1c.7x.1g.7x|1c.61.1n.61.1n.61.1i.67.1i.67.1c.67|0.0.u26b.u29b.0|39.7|w.18.19.16.0|e

once you get used to this you can start slotting in even more berserker stats or try out different builds.

for e.g. this next one is slightly more DPS focused, though not to the point of the build Guanglai listed above, which would hit even harder. i played this in WvW for a bit and you do pretty nice damage. though you’ll have to be on your toes a bit more. and i actually feel meditations and Monk’s Focus works ebtter so feel free to go that route (Monk’s Focus heals you for a decent chunk each time you use a meditation). though in dungeon setting, if you’re looking to have some “passive” support to your goup, shouts are always good. have tried this abit in dungeons as well and i definitely kill faster, so ultimately, more support in the form of alleviating your allies of dmg from mobs.

more than enough armor, more than enough health and use your blocks, blinds, heals and dodges at teh right time, you’ll be more than fine. you can even take Signet of Judgment for some extra dmg mitigation. you can definitely switch up the runes for even more crit chance / damage or power for more damage. ruby orbs are easily the best choices for straight up damage (and they’re a lot cheaper lol).

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1n.h17|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.7z.1g.7z.1n.7z.1g.7z.1c.7z.1g.71|1g.61.1n.61.1n.61.1i.67.1i.67.1c.67|k27.0.u26b.k29.0|39.7|w.18.19.16.0|e

alrighty don’t want this to get TOO long.. so i’ll leave it at that for now. there are still a ton more builds that you can explore. check all the traits, all the weapon skills, rune sets, etc and try to find something that works for you. i have about 7 builds lol (in terms of gear sets) and i still constatntly change trait distribution around and stuff. going from full healing —> bunkerish play --> raw DPS —> high crit buils.. lsit goes on. : ))) hope this was somewhat helpful!