Guild Wars 2

Bla bla bla, guardian /15chars

Not sure if anyone asked so far, but what food are you using in these videos?

War.2493:

You know what i’m calling you out on this, post a video of you doing PvE with this. Show your armor and all, then i want to see you facetank any champion in cursed shore alone and not go down once with that hammer. Then gather up 10+ mobs and kill them all at once without going down. I just tried everything you put there and YEAH RIGHT

I am not fully using his set up, as I still use my old full knight set and berserker trinkets, I actually only swapped my soldier rune set out for melandru and use the lemongrass poultry soup. With roughly 16k HP, 3k armor and 2.8k attack and 45% crit chance (still using my AH trait set up), I tanked the Melandru Risen Priest in the event yesterday, with an additional Champion Risen Gorilla on me. We were 3 people completing the event, I tanked the boss while an ele and a thief did the dps. I gotta say, I didn’t exactly face tank it, but I still took the hits, dodged CC though.

So this is definetely doable, as long as you know your character and when to dodge.

Only a Guardian gets double teamed by thieves and causes them to run for their lives.

Human Guardian, /15chars

I’ve been running into exactly the same problem as you have. Since I’m 80 I’ve been doing wvwvw alot and noticed that other classes, that get ganked on by about 5-10 people have a better chance to get out alive than I do, due to our heavy weakness to conditions. Also against thieves’ and warriors’ ridiculous single target damage I have nothing to throw in. Even with protection and retaliation up (which are pretty much the bread n butter of guardian’s defensive mechanics) they cut right through it, like it isn’t even there. Aegis is out of question here, 1 hit blocked of the 100 blades thingy from the warrior won’t save me. But yeah so I thought, guardians obviously are not the DPS class, and I didn’t even want it to be that. I picked guardian for the sake of the name itself, a bulwark, a class that might be able to save others by buffing/ taking hits for them. So yeah I’ve been running around with a staff/focus+shield combo for a long time in wvwvw now. I’ve grown to like it and even tho your teammates might not actively notice what great advantage you’re giving them, but squishier classes like ele will later thank me for the 5 seconds of 33% less damage or the group of enemies that was about to finish them that I pushed away with shield of absorption.

Also for offensive builds that still provide a good amount of sustainability and healing, you might wanna read the “Hammer Time!” thread. A on the third page, if I remember correctly, posted his crit hammer build. This one with knight gear and the needed vitality on your trinkets should work pretty well, theoretically. Right now I am upgrading my armorsmith to be able to craft the Knight’s Draconic Armor Set. This will give me a huge prec/power/toughness boost and I’ll compensate vitality losses with my accessory.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mccz0oMzmvLaomvLao0GxG0oMosqMR

As you can see, I’m using GS instead of hammer. I tried hammer, but realised I have better survivability with GS, don’t ask me why. The whirling wrath should work just as fine for the crit atomic bomb as hammer’s mighty blow. Empowering might will do the job for you, and with a crit chance higher than 40% it should give you a nice heal boost in a crowd. Purging Flames helps a bit with the condition removal, but it’s still bugged as it only removes one condition upon activation. Its burning gives you a nice dot if you’re up against 2 or more opponents on your own. Also Virtue of Justice resets if you kill the enemy – nice. Blinds apply vulnerability, more damage – nice. You can almost make them perma vulnerable with both GS and 1-h-Sword, also its single target range damage comes in handy.

I’m still trying this out and working on setting up my gear for it (only 34% crit chance so far), but it doesn’t work any less bad in wvwvw as my old 0/0/30/30/10 build so I’m good. You might give it a try!

Cheers! Thanks for that info. Helped me a lot :]

Ah too bad, I joined the Order of Whispers so I don’t have access to vigil’s armor or weapons. But that sure looks nice. Is Berserker a crafted set? or the one you buy with dungeon marks?

@Marthiarn: Can you post your exact gear here? Like what exotic set do you have? Which parts are knight gear, which are valkyrie or something else. I’m running on 3 pieces of whispering set and green knight/valkyrie accessories (yeah I know I’m not quite there yet, full exotic wise) and I was running a 0/0/30/30/10 build that was working okay for me in dungeons, PVE and story. Despite that, I barely hit the 1,6k toughness mark and 2,3k. armor mark, let alone my lousy attack (but I wasnt focusing on being a killing machine, rather a rock, that is hard to kill and I still get killed by thieves in 3 seconds in wvwvw). I have noticed tho, that in wvwvw my GS/mace+focus set up wasn’t really viable due to lacking range.

When I started a guardian, I rolled a hammer and just love the playstyle of smashing heads in. I’d like to go back to that, could you give me a few tips for wvwvw? also gear wise, since I spent too much karma on my whispering set already, to get a different set now (soldier rune btw).

It depends on the situation really. In solo PVE I usually play a mace/focus/GS burning build, pulling all people to me and burning them down to the ground while dishing out 3 with GS.
In WvWvW however, I tend to play a rather supportive role, so I take a shield, simply for the amazing 5 and 4 is useful too. Together with Hold The Line, I can put the protection buff on my allies for a really long time. Also now that the traits Defender’s Shield and Honorable Shield are put together, the toughness and cd reduction make it a bit more viable in wvwvw situations. you can take more hits.

But in general, you might need both focus and shield, it depends on what situation you’re in.

@Orcao: Here’s my current build : http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McccMz0MoNvamoNvam9MxxamRqMoqm

I’m only 50 right now, but this is essentially what I was going for. I can’t say anything about the endgame zones yet, but I was able to pretty much solo anything with it so far. I had my problems with some story quests of course, since I don’t do much damage, when a lot of mobs are hitting me and I don’t put protection on myself, they might just kill me before I can kill them. At times I switch to 1h-Sword for the blind and the ranged skills. I really like the auto-attack of it, only disadvantage is, no AOE dmg. I use shield instead of focus because of the +90 toughness trait. Then again, I’m not sure if those 90 toughness really matter in the end, when you’re all geared up in toughness/vit anyway. For now it gives me a nice boost tho, being at around 800 toughness at lvl 50.

Having our conditions in mind tho, I gotta say that blind is imo underpowered. It doesn’t do much other than make the first attack miss, I noticed that other mobs that come afterwards (which should also be blinded) still hit me.
Burn is a nice feature and I like it as it is, with a mace/focus or sword/torch set up plus the correspondent traits you can really push it to its full potential. I myself like to be rather beefy tho, which I noticed isn’t fully possible in dungeons. There are less mobs than in PVE mostly but they hit like a truck, no matter how much toughness and vit you have. So going supportive as in boon master or anti-CCer is the better way to go imo.

Gear wise, I have no set yet (apart from the heart quest trash sets), so I can’t really say anything about how they influence the whole thing.

@Orcao: Could you post your build here? Trait and slotskill wise.

I have tried Kindread’s build today with the same trait set up. I noticed I lost a lot of sustainability cuz of the different traits. Then again, I’m ofc not used to a condition based build yet. On the other hand, I noticed a big increase in damage, which was nice. Comes all down to how well you can avoid hard hits. Against big bunches of trash mobs that just don’t care about your aegis, it’s a harder challenge than in a dungeon for example, where you have smaller numbers of enemies that attack you at once.

Just to give some additional info, I’ma show you my build, which is still based on my old weapon set right now, but I’m gonna try out the sword build today. Probably without the Torch and rather my shield, but I’ll go for the weakness stuff.

As for Symbol of Faith, I cannot say it has been very useful to me or my group yet. The regeneration buff is just too low, it cannot outheal the hits you take, or even mitigate them a little.

Going for consecration skills is very situational and boss dependent. Most of the time in a dungeon, shouts or other utility skills will be of more use to the group. While Kindread is going for rather the offensive set up, it is because he has a fixed group he plays with, where everybody knows their role. Thing is, you will mostly end up in a PuG. So you have to see what your class does best, and that is imo shooting out boons. But ofc, every class is made so versatile, that you can play any build as long as you know how to and your group responds to it well enough.

Here’s my current build (I’m only lvl 40 tho):
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McccMz0MoNvamoNvam9MxxamRqMoqm

Kindread.9481:

Qelris.6901:

I’ve been struggling with my build. Still trying to figure out what I want before I do my first AC Exploration. I’ve read about it a bit, a guide, and then couple of whinings here and there. I’ve seen a video of the beginning(also assuming it just get worst as you progress) and now I just don’t know what I want anymore..

I have also been looking around YouTube for any Guardian videos, there are very few that actually show how to utilize defensive skills, which is KEY to survival in melee range. You have to juggle specific skills such as Aegis, and Blind if you want to play a melee support role in groups.

Qelris.6901:

For my weapon, my main issue is getting rid of Symbol of Faith(I don’t want to lose the regen from it), I want to keep that, but meleeing with a mace seems not possible.. I also want to keep my shield for Shield of Absorption. I’ve been looking at sword skills ever since I’ve first seen this topic. I’m totally lost about what I want..

I had the same issue when I dropped the Mace for a Sword. Symbol of Faith is a great tool for self, AND group regen. Also the Protector’s Strike is just awesome when in a group of melee players. The bottom line for me is that the Blind effect from the Flashing Blade skill from Sword is just too good to pass up. Also being able to attack from a decent range is vital for survival when you need to back up for a heal, or when you can’t get to the boss and need to keep burning it down. The Mace, unfortunately, has no ranged attacks. I tried a Shield for a short while, but soon realized that the protection it provides (unless traited) is primary against ranged attacks, which is still nice, but not great. Also the heal effect from detonating the Shield of Absorption is still broken.

Qelris.6901:

What I have atm..
Mace/Shield, Shelter, Wall of Reflection, Purging Flames, Sanctuary and Tome of Courage. Everything has Toughness/Vitality on my gears.
I have both 20% CD reduction/20% duration and ground targetting for Consecration(20 virtues) and larger symbol(10 Honor). (I’m only 40)
I haven’t done anything with this build yet, other than thinking more, I stayed up late last night trying to figure about a build, ended up with the above. Also wasted most of my time today sitting there checking skills, forum and being unsure. I also have a Staff, for the swiftness to move around, since this game has no mounts, but then it takes away my scepter for ranged attacks, and I’m not a fan of staff attacks..

Using a Shield with the skill Wall of Reflection may be overkill for ranged defense, unless you are PvPing a lot against ranged attackers. In PvE you just do not need that much. Purging Flames is nice for additional Burn damage, specially if you stack condition damage gear, but is quickly overcast if you use a Torch offhand from the skill Zealot’s Flame, which not only burns targets in an AoE around you, but you can also throw the flames a good distance for some nice ranged damage. I have not tried Sanctuary yet, but from the looks of it, it does not heal for much and is primarily a tool used for CC to keep mobs away from you or others for a few seconds. Unfortunately it only lasts for a few seconds and is on a VERY long 120 second cooldown. I can not argue with Tome of Courage, its a great support heroic skill, I just prefer Renewed Focus for the few seconds of complete immunity, and the fact that it resets the cooldowns on ALL your virtues. This has come in very handy for me when I need to rapidly pop Aegis, and with 5 points into the Virtues trait line you can get the boons Might, Protection, and Regeneration for a few seconds, then pop Renewed Focus, and pop them again for a pretty decent duration.
.

I’m fine dodging heavy hits atleast, unless it’s an instant attack, which are hards to predicts.. My build is what I’m having trouble what atm..

This is my build, though please keep in mind, even though it works for me, it may not be best for everyone .. great thing about GW2 is that it seems there are many different types of builds that are viable.

My Build:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mccoc9MzMxmamMxmamGxa0aoaoRqVV

But can you still provide the needed sustainability with that weapon combo? Do you gear up entirely in vit/toughness then to compensate?

And I agree with you on the sword part, I love it a lot and have been trying to find a use for it somehow while maintaining my usual role as a control/support in the group, I like the blink+blind on it a lot.

Yeah I play a more defensive style in general. I’m more of a boon master while healing myself and trying to take the hits. I use shield and mace when I can risk the melee encounter, otherwise scepter. Purity is not an option for me, because this trait skill is reserved for “Strength in Numbers”, which is just too useful to leave it out. I haven’t tried out torch at all so far, but I hear it’s quite nice while you’re questing. As for dungeons, I think someone has to take the hits tho, and I think guardian is the most suitable class for that with all those defensive/supportive traits. I think I should try out torch and see how the condition removal is working out for me, at the expense of a good amount of toughness.

Concerning WvWvW btw, Scepter/Shield + GS is just a huge choo choo mothakitten effect on the enemies. Run in, pull them all towards you, into your allies, see them all drop like flies. Scepter for another root.

Instead of going for the offensive trait lines, you could also go for Valor and Honor and use Pure of Voice together with some shouts to solve that condition removal problem. Then again, I don’t know if you’re affected by Pure of Voice too, or just your allies. As for the rest, looks quite interesting and yes, the aegis bit would still work, also with the Valor trait line you get another aegis when you reach 50% health. Just an idea tho.

Edit: Then with the Honor and Valor traits, shield is ofc more or less a must for the +90 toughness.