Guild Wars 2

For those that don’t know remove the auto attack from Hammer ¹ by using ctrl+right click. As Brutaly said it will help u control position on Symbol of Protection, along with the melee assist tweaks he suggested.

This why I suggested going with a balanced Amulet like Knights, with a Toughness jewel of your choice. Using Toughness armor runes like Guardian runes would help your build. With this setup u should have about 1500 in Power, Precision, and Toughness. 2k in Vitality. Very balanced attributes. Stacking Might on a balanced setup helps a lot, since your Power isn’t capped. Add the Retributive Armor trait in Valor to get close to 40% crit chance in most builds.

I’ve been playing with this balanced setup since late alpha, and its by far the best combo I’ve tried. I’ve played with high Power builds and low crit chance, and I can really feel the difference. Its like night and day.

That builder is currently down. Personally if u want to burn, and going with a block build take Guardian runes. One burn per block with seemingly no cooldown. Also I’d suggest Torch as an off-hand. Virtue of Justice burn and Torch ⁴ burn is 8 secs. Since it looks like u are going with a Med build, u should be able to keep the burn going.

As for Might I have been doing some testing myself, and Sigil of Battle and better might traits are all u need. The rest u can make up with Blast Finisher (Hammer ²/Focus ⁵) and a Fire Field like Purging Flame, which fits into your burn build. If u are going to do that go with Knight Jewels for a attribute balance.

I play a build like this myself and it works really well.

Do your testing in the Heart of the Mist. There is a number of buggy number issues with the game.

Good stuff! I’ve been playing the Guardian since way back in alpha, and personally I’ve had trouble with the pace of Hammer. I’ve pretty much mastered the other weapons, and have made builds focused on each different combo. Hammer has been my weakest weapon, although I’ve always known its full power. There is no doubt its a good weapon, it just hasn’t fit my normal playstyle.

I wasn’t that interested in Hammer, until I had to play it to fill a team role in sPVP. While I did average on it, my interest in Hammer changed. When I started looking at builds, I got the Hammer bug. Now I’m working on a Hammer build that is looking really interesting. I just need to put in the time to practice pacing my Hammer skills.

A few things people might not understand from your post:

1. Mighty Blow does its Blast Finisher at the base of its jump
2. Soldier Rune only removes 1 condition from allies and 2 from caster with Pure of Voice trait. Unless they changed Soldier rune to apply to allies as well. The description is a bit ambiguous I know.

A few thoughts:

1. Writ of Persistence trait can give u up to 12sec plus of Protection with a few Hammer auto chains. Better protection between fights. Increasing Virtues and going Boon/Protection duration also helps on armor runes. Something like 2xMonk/2xWater/2xEarth. I believe there is a cap, which I’m trying to test currently. Might not need all that Boon duration.

2. Another reason to go Virtues is the Master of Consecrations trait, and Purging Flame. You touched on how good Sigil of Battle is, but with a Fire Field its pretty sick how much Might u can stack. You get 3 stacks of Might form the Blast Finisher for 25secs. Sigil of Battle reapplies the timer and adds another 3 stacks of Might. Make friends with an Elementalist is right:)

Note: Purging Flame is buggy for me however. It should remove 1 condition per sec, but it only seems to remove just 1 condition.

There are a few other things, but I’ll save that for my Guardian review.

Go to the Heart of The Mist and right click and preview all the Torch skins in the PVP bank. Even if u don’t have the items u can still preview all the skins the game has there.

Remember a player with Stability Boon gets past Sanctuary. In the case of ranged attack they shouldn’t be hitting u, unless they aren’t a projectile. Also because of how small the radius of Sanctuary is u can still be reached by most melee weapons, if enemies are really close. A AoE ground target or PBAoE attack will get past Sanctuary as well. Its really a weak skill in my opinion, and the cooldown and radius need to be changed.

I made a a suggestion to add projectile finishers to the skills that seem like they should have them during the last days of alpha. It was the last balance weekend. I asked a Dev (I believe it was Jon Peters) specifically why these skills didn’t have a projectile finisher, since their skill descriptions listed them as projectiles. In the case of Zealot’s Defense, its clear it a projectile attack. The Dev said that Guardians already had finishers, and although they were trying to give professions more solo combos Guardian was unlikely to change. I made a comment about Guardian projectiles being magical as a joke, thus making them special, and the Dev agreed magical projectiles aren’t combo finishers.

Here are the skills that are combos:

Weapon Combo Fields:
Downed ³ Symbol of Judgement (4sec) Light Field
Mace ⁵ Symbol of Faith (4sec) Light Field
Shield ⁵ Shield of Absorption (4sec) Light Field
Staff ³ Symbol of Swiftness (4sec) Light Field
Great Sword ² Symbol of Wrath (4sec) Light Field
Hammer [1-3] Symbol of Protection (2sec) Light Field
Hammer ⁵ Ring of Warding (5sec) Light Field

Utility Combo Fields:
Sanctuary (6sec) Light Field
Wall of Reflection (10sec) Light Field
Hollow Ground (10sec) Fire Field
Purging Flames (5sec) Fire Field

Leap Finishers:
Great Sword ⁴ Leap of Faith

Projectile Finisher:
None

Whirl Finisher:
Great Sword ³ Whirling Wrath
Great Sword ⁵ Binding Blade
Mace ³ Protector’s Strike

Blast Finisher:
Focus ⁵ Shield of Wrath
Hammer ² Mighty Blow

Here are the skills that could be combos:
Sword ² Flashing Blade — Leap Finisher
Sword ³ Zealot’s Defense — Projectile Finisher
Scepter ¹ Orb of Wrath — Projectile Finisher
Mace ³ Protector’s Strike — Whirl Finisher to Blast Finisher
Shield [5-2] Shield of Absorption — Blast Finisher on Chain 2
Focus ⁴ Ray of Judgement — Projectile Finisher
Torch [4-2] Zealot’s Fire — Projectile Finisher
Staff ² Orb of Light — Projectile Finisher
Staff [2-1] Orb of Light — Blast Finisher on Chain 2
Staff ⁴ Empower — Blast Finisher at end of cast (though it did this at one point)

Granted some of these could be OP, but I’m just putting my thoughts out there. Zealot’s Defense would work great as a alternative condition removal skill with a Light Field.