Guild Wars 2

I have played Mesmer more than anything but it is time to move on. I rolled a Guardian and immediately purchased a full set of Zerk and knight’s. Thinking about a build to use, and am willing to spend up to around 40g to get all the gear for the majority of builds that can be used, just to get it all covered. Basically, looking for a world completion build and would prefer to use scepter and perhaps hammer, but the make or break point between me being hardcore like now and going casual and soon to quit is a nice roaming build. I like to change builds very very often and am looking for a variety, particularly for 1v2-3 builds and camp flipping. I looked in and around here and would like to know what the fun and effective builds are. A cookie-cutter fractal build and a cookie-cutter dungeon build and no zerg builds. Zerging is not fun. Zerging is mindlessly boring and I will spend literally no time at it. Big thank you in advance from a veteran GW2 fan. Hope I find what I’m looking for or I’m out.
P.S. If I find what I’m looking for, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me in the Guardian forum.

You’re looking for an fotm build. The following are a few that I’ve used and enjoyed.

1. Pure knights
2. Knights armor, berserker trinkets and weapons.
3. knights armor, cavalier trinkets, and berserker weapon
4. knights armore, berserker/cavalier triknets, cleric weapons

Weapons for fractals

1. staff (team buff/heal cc)
2. focus/scepter (for boss battles)
3. gs or hammer (gs is good to pull enemies, but hammer is good to give protection to your and your team)
4. trident berserker

I prefer using the following runes

1. lyssa
2. soldier
3. eagle
4. ranger+1 lyssa

traits and utilities are pretty much dependent on the stage, so you’ll have to change a lot, but having wall of reflection is always good, and stand your ground.

For weapon sigils, energy on your focus and force on your septer, and energy on your hammer. staff can be something that stacks hp/or the damage ones.

But in case you go wvw

here’s an additional thing even if you didn’t ask for it.

knights armor/cleric trinkets, and cleric weapon. pretty nice combo w/ soldier runes and energy sigils on weapons for your staff/hammer

Cookie Cutter Builds

This is probably the best Guardian dungeon build if you’re comfortable wearing Berserker gear. If you’re not, you can still use this build wearing Knights gear with Berserker trinkets.

Hammer is recommended in Fractals because the auto-attack gives your party protection.

Sovereign.1093:

4. ranger+1 lyssa

Just to point this out, i tested a few days back and ranger’s runes bonus #6 is working at all times, without companions. Last patch may or may not have fixed it, i could test again but i doubt they fixed it.

Overlord.7394:

A cookie-cutter fractal build and a cookie-cutter dungeon build and no zerg builds.

For Fractals and dungeons, just go full berserker with greatsword, sword/focus or hammer and maybe one of the builds mentioned in this thread. There some other ones which are good but I’m too lazy to make a full compilation right now. Use gear like knight’s only if you cannot manage to survive at all and have no hope of getting better, because otherwise it is just a giant waste of potential.

Thank you all. Yes I am absolutely comfortable in zerk but not fuuull zerk in WvW. I was thinking about getting some Clerics for a havoc AHEM build that seems pretty common and effective.

I think for a AHEM build you need to be more tanky, because with AH you have a slow sustainability and you have a low armor/low health guardian, you need burst healing. For zerker guardian maybe is better a triple meditation with monk focus. You need judge intervention if you are too squishy, and you need it for nuking focus 5 from 1200 units away.

Also, AH scale pretty bad with healing power.

I’m using triple meditation for roaming right now but I think that is selfish for small group

I would suggest 15,15,0,20,20 if you enjoy hammer. It offers good support through permanent protection and combo fields which are good for stacking might. Generally as much berserker gear as you are comfortable with using. For me it really depends on my party for example if I run with good players full zerk is absolutely viable, however if you run with less than good players (most of the time aka pugging) then swapping in a few Knight pieces for hammer is a good idea as you can survive the mistakes they make as well as just generally focus on keeping others alive instead of yourself.

If you enjoy sword/focus then I use a 10,30,0,5,25 build with full zerk trinkets half zerk half celestial armor and celestial weapons. I personally like mixing armor for pug groups as I can survive better. Sword/f is pretty much very high fast damage and defence through blocks and blinds.

Finally great sword, a 20,25,0,5,20 build would work well for GS but to be honest GS isn’t very good at the moment. The damage is only about 5% higher than hammer as well as missing more often and not providing any protection so for that reason I would say that the GS is fairly weak.

Overall sword focus will deal more damage but it is mainly single target.

Also note at least 20 in Virtues is very powerful as ALL guardian dungeon builds should use Master of Consecrations. For 10 more points you can pick up Absolute resolution which is a very strong condition cleanse.

In my opinion stay away from altruistic healing all together as the valor trait is pretty weak and your DPS will be much, much lower.

Hope this helped. Also Scholar runes are a great rune choice for guardian because health upkeep is easy due to blocks and regen. But taking a few more defensive gear pieces never hurts. If you run with anything other than sword focus you cannot afford to use any gear pieces without precision because your crit chance will be too low

Most of the stuff I said was right but i’m switching back to full zerk for all cause stuff which 1 hits you kills you anyway

Overlord.7394:

I’m using triple meditation for roaming right now but I think that is selfish for small group

Any berserker build is selfish in a group. You need to play tanky dps if you run in a coordinate team. When i play with berserkers in my team, we always have a lot of stress on protect him, because the enemy realize he is squishy and focus him, if the enemy team or group is tanky dps, the berserker is always the first down. I think berserker is only for fun and lulz, in real fight you cant do much with berserker, because in a organized team or with good roamers or duelist players they have the enough defensive skill/mechanics to absorb your burst damage.

If you want to be useful in serious roaming team go for healway (search in the forum), or you can use “stunningstyles” build (search it in youtube), or go for a tanky AH build like brutaly (pinned in the forum first page) or commando build (search it in youtube).

Both brutaly AH and Commando build are great for front line zergs too.

Cookie Cutter High Fractal/Dungeon Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNAsdRlUg6CHFyKEfIFSODRCBtZAQHUVh4BrAGB-jwxAYfBRiAIVIQJvioxWcLiGruGT5SEVDA-e

With video of me using it(though I’m using energy sigil weps which is why I have that ugly sword on):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXEx0R_KGo

WvW Solo to Small group roaming build:
(All credit to Amins, I used this build to build off when making my build)

http://intothemists.com/guides/1538-zealous_defender

video of Amins using it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8q9ZUSs1qg

Fun Build:
(Credit to Boons Burst build of Death)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU7Xkacekbg

video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjBWVeCRebI

Zergy Boring AH build:
Hate zergs and AH builds… Not saying don’t use it. Just not me.

Back to check on this again before I go to sleep. So, I looked around, I like what I see but I just don’t feel that spark with Guardian. Perhaps I’ll go back to Engineer. I’ll probably still use my Guardian for PvE in general, like, all of it… Basically to get all the ctap I want for my other characters.

So, sorry Guardian veteran but I’m putting the good old guy up on the shelf for a bit. I’ll come back to him later, perhaps.

Gosh. I’m seriously not sure what I’m going to do. My reason for perhaps going casual (hour a day before bed) is because I see nothing worth aiming for. I like playing the TP because it is good practice for real life but there is really nothing to aim at unless I meet some other good good players that I click with and will play with on the daily and maybe do 2-3 fractals a week, speed run dungeons, roam…. You know.

Okay, sorry for rambling. Go ahead ArenaNet Dev… Shut down this thread now lol. Thank you guys! I’m sure I’ll find something!

Overlord.7394:

Gosh. I’m seriously not sure what I’m going to do. My reason for perhaps going casual (hour a day before bed) is because I see nothing worth aiming for. I like playing the TP because it is good practice for real life but there is really nothing to aim at unless I meet some other good good players that I click with and will play with on the daily and maybe do 2-3 fractals a week, speed run dungeons, roam…. You know.

I’m right there with you on this. Everything I do at end-game feels like I could be doing something else that earns more money. But when I do things just to earn money (i.e. speed running dungeons right after server reset) it isn’t fun. They need better content to earn exclusive rewards. Perhaps currencies like corrupted spores (or whatever they’re called) should be account-bound, so we can’t sell or buy them? Anywho, off topic…

All I do is things I enjoy. Luckily I love running Arah and fighting lupicus, which nets me good gold. And I enjoy roaming to find out numbered engagements in WvW. I never do things to grind. I enjoy my time when I play, which is why I decided I will never make a legendary. Map completion will never be done by me, and the seer thought of it practically gives me cancer.

I love my guardian, and will never main anything else <3. To each their own.