Guild Wars 2

I use the same 0/0/30/30/10 build but I don’t pigeonholing into the same major traits and utilities (ie. never or barely changing them between pulls). The beauty of this build is the ability to swap around weapons, traits, and utilities into a totally different role. The flexibility offered in 30 points in Honor and 10 in Virtue is too strong to give up.

Also, if it’s a dungeon build. 10 in Virtue is a given due to the fact that one of the traits improves our most powerful utility, Wall of Reflection.

Edit: 0/0/30/30/10 does not have a definite weapons/traits/utilities set up. If you do, you’re limiting yourself.

Name: [Blank]
Game Aspect: PvE Dungeon (especially pugging)
Philosophy: Emphasize on “flexibility” to adapt to any situation. Improve guardian’s strongest support: Wall of Reflection. Capable of switching from full “tank” to glass cannon DPS or even healing support with a swap on gears, major traits, and utilities.
Requirement: More than one gear set and all weapons.
Food: Omonomberry Ghost, Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew…
Traits Set-up: 0/0/30/30/10
Trait Explanation: Because we cannot swap trait points without visiting the trainer. This is the most balance set up between damage, survivability, and support. The point is being flexible so there’s no “fixed” traits set ups. Here’s some set up example:

• Scepter DPS:* abusing 20% more damage while under aegis. Protective Reviver is there to have another way of gaining aegis, but it can be swapped to anything (such as Pure of Voice on Legendary Archdiviner). Sword of Justice can also be swapped. Gear recommendation: full berserkers. Fight examples: Son of Svanir Legendary Shaman, Captain Amish, etc…

• Hammer on Trash: normal set-up with WoE and WoP against melee mobs. Switch WoP with Empowering Might if there’s a staff Elementalist or a bow Warrior present in the group. Swap Vengeful with Improved Consecration and Retreat with Wall of Reflect if there’s gonna be range mobs. Gear recommendation: balance or full berserkers.

• Range Defense: combination of Shield of the Avenger and Wall of Reflection with Improved Consecration (or Improved Spirit Weapon Duration). Gear recommendation: anything. Example: Grawl Legendary Shaman, Bloomhunger, etc…

• Healing Support: while I rarely use this. It still does its job if the situations call for it. Gear Recommendation: balance, berserkers, or magi. Example: Old Tom zerging strategy…

• Meditations Burst Healing: really situational. Gear Recommendation: any. Examples: Jademaw 40 (or any Jademaw if you don’t have enough AR), pre-fixed Legendary Archdiviner, Giganticus Lupicus, …

Comment: The above set ups are just examples. You can mix and match traits, gears, weapons, and food to anything. There’s a lot more hybrid crossing. Again, the goal is flexibility.

Sorry guys for no video lately. I haven’t found time to get some clips yet. The only raw footage I have is the Underwater Fractal.

Karril Daltaya.4980:

Loved your videos, but I was wondering: How do you hit that kitten hard with sceptre?

Unscathed Contender

With the buff to Unscathed Contender, scepter damage (and other weapons on certain bosses) has been greatly improved given that you can maintain aegis.

Here’s a trick: Using Renewed Focus will automatically refresh the count down of VoC passive and will grant aegis after VoC is refreshed. So if your 20 hours aegis (VoC passive) got cancelled, use VoC active. Wait for the active aegis to fade, use Renewed Focus and get the 20 hours aegis back.

Stridix.4260:

That video was lvl 20. Of course it’s not that hard.

Way to miss the point. I was just saying that you can glitch the arrow by strafing left and right. The video is just there to demonstrate.

You can glitch the agony arrow by strafing left and right in quick succession. Remember to stay a little bit far back though.

Forward to 2:25 and you’ll see it. Even though I don’t abuse it, I still use it from time to time.

I have a 99% pug success rate. Most of this is due to our profession because we have almost literally every counters against any situation. However, this is a story of one of those rare chances that I join a fail group that there’s nothing I can do about it:

It was me, a guardian, with two thieves, a warrior, and a engineer. We were on Volcanic Fractal and at the last boss. One of the thief and the engineer keep dying to the agony arrow (I even taught them how to glitch the arrow). The warrior is half AFK all the time. The other thief, which is also the leader, is alright but keep insisting in using the lava trick (We never even came close with that plan). The problem we had is not be able to break the shield (when you have two thieves and a warrior auto-attacking with a bunch of adds in front to soak the projectile, this is doom to fail). Even with my 50 seconds range immunity, I couldn’t carry this fail group since we either fail at the shield or they just die during normal phase. Warrior got fed up and left then group disbanded. I also did the Cliffside Fractal with this group before Volcanic. They all died to pre-fixed Legendary Archdiviner final fight leaving me soloing him throughout phase two (the circles + agony aoe phase). I think this was on Fractal 31-32. Yes, you can still find bads on higher Fractals.

Most of the time when I’m with pugs, I just suck it up and work with them even if they don’t perform up to my standards. However, those are rare. I have a lot of wonderful pugs and added them onto my friend lists. I usually prefer a more fun and relaxing atmosphere when it comes to pugs.

UncleDolan.9430:

…

If you want more damage, you can just swap your gears out to a more offensive set up (such as Berserkers). As for build, I think the best overall one is 0/0/30/30/10. Why is that? Because of flexibility, you have access to all the good traits for PvE dungeons. Let’s compare it to yours:

Gains:
-10% damage when endurance is low. Someone confirms that the extra damage will be boosted whenever you are not at 100% endurance. With ninja skips, you should have near permanent 10% damage.
-100 vitality or 1000 HP.
-Unlocked Honor Grandmaster trait slot and allow to pick and switch around one of these:

• Writ of Merciful: extra healing for yourself and whoever stands inside a symbol.
• Writ of Persistence: grant permanent protection without the need for extra boon duration.
• Two-Handed Mastery: 20% faster recharge on all two handers including both of our underwater weapons.
• Pure of Voice: group condition removal.
• Battle Presence: a more consistent group heal but doesn’t effect yourself as oppose to Writ of Merciful.

-5% boon duration and 5% faster recharge on Virtues
-Unlocked Virtues Adept trait slots:

• Master of Consecrations: greatly improve our bread and butter for dungeons, Wall of Reflect. Also improve Hallowed Ground for situations like the Inquests in Arah.
• Improved Spirit Weapon Duration: increase Shield of the Avenger duration. While the shield is not as strong as Wall of Reflection, it works against more attacks (Old Tom’s poison bolts, etc…).
• Unscathed Contender: 20% more damage while under aegis. On fights when you’re able to keep up aegis for a long time, this trait is extremely powerful. There’s numerous bosses in Fractals where you can just whack away with your scepter for 2-2.5k tennis balls with 80%+ up time on aegis.

Losses:
-150 power and 15% condition duration
-Symbolic Exposure: ~4% extra damage to the whole group.
-Zealot’s Speed: drop a symbol of wrath when you reach 25%. This minor trait is meh.
-Unlocked Adept Zeal trait slot:

• Fiery Wrath: 10% more damage to burning target.
• Spirit Weapon Mastery: faster recharge on Shield of the Avenger.
• Blinding Jeopardy: you can provide more burst damage for the team with vulnerability stacks for a loss of 10% personal damage. You can chain up to 18 vulnerabilities with Chain of Light, Zealot’s Embrace, and Signet of Wrath.

A 0/0/30/30/10 has much more flexibility in picking up traits that fits the situation since Honor has the most useful traits. Guardians are on the top of the food chain when it comes to dungeons because of the ability to nullifying range attacks (you can chain spells up to 50 seconds of range immunity). 10 in Virtues helps tremendously in our best category.

Again, if you need extra damage, swapping to an offensive set is more desirable. Unless you feel that even with full berserkers, it’s still too much survivability. Then you can trait into a more offensive role.

The best way to keep yourself up at the moment is the combination of Altruistic Healing/Monk’s Focus with Sigil of Blood and Omnomberry Ghost. That Sigil/Food combo has no shared internal cool down and can proc at the same time (Sigil has 2 seconds internal cool down to itself, and the food has about 1 second internal cool down).

Check this video out of me being down and how the sigil/food combo keeps me up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkjmq7cUHDY&feature=youtu.be
In less than a minute (around 40 seconds), I got a total healing of about 11331 on a single target from the food and sigil.

Updated with Legendary Dredge Powersuit boss fight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1tQ2Of1Ebg&feature=youtu.be

Rannug.2731:

7/10 for above. I like the ‘snobbish’ look and at least this one is somewhat manly looking not like some of the baby faces out there..

Here is mine, thanks Usagi.4835 for the tip, fixed my post (Duh):

8/10

I like the tribal feeling from the pic.

alcopaul.2156:

suggestion: you should post a video series wherein you were using only 1 trait/build setup so we could see how you would adapt your build to different maps.

edit: i also love the shield of avenger and traited 10 zeal for it.

So far, I’ve only used two builds, 10/25/30/5/0 and 0/0/30/30/10. For 10/25/30/5/0, I was just proving that a glass cannon with an offensive build can pretty much complete any dungeons with minimal downs/deaths. 0/0/30/30/10 is my true build.

I switch traits and utilities around every pull so I don’t see how I can only use one set up. That would drastically reduce my flexibility since a lot of our abilities are situational (the reason why I picked 0/0/30/30/10 in the first place is the ability to swap to all the good traits when the situation calls for).

Updated for Legendary Archdiviner fight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBvfxk5ILX8&feature=youtu.be

In certain dungeon (especially Fractals) boss fights, Unscathed Defender is extremely good if you know that you can keep up aegis for a good amount of time (examples: Legendary Archdiviner, Legendary Shaman Lornar, Kholer, Subject Alpha (yes, I pretty much have 80% up time on aegis there with well-timed dodges), Jademaw’s tentacles, Legendary Dredge Suit).

You have to pair with a range weapon if you want to keep up aegis however.

Not worth it, it only gives 1% of boon duration regardless of which armor pieces.

A renewed justice, blind exposure, and inspire virtue (0/15/0/05) build works great for leveling with the ability to spam mights, blinds, and vulnerabilities on AoE. You should check out the guardian beginner guide stickied at the top.

Tarn.1374:

Altruistic Healing: Just look at the name and the description. In no way should it work that we can heal ourselves by applying a boon to ourselves.

Altruistic definition: Unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others.

So it’s basically saying; helping others helps ourselves, that’s the crux of this trait. Furthermore it’s how guardians work (in principle). But that is not how it works now.

In truth I think Anet is a little hesitant to fix it though because so many guardians use it. In it’s current state it’s fairly wonderful. Additionally, if one’s smart fixing the trait will not change the effectiveness too much of us using the skill when in groups/others anyways. If we’re smart about it. After all, there’s plenty of opportunity for us to apply boons to allies throughout any length battle.

So just because of the name, you’re assuming it’s bugged? Seems pretty far-fetched to me.

The description is in line with any other skills since you count as an allies yourself. Look at Empowering Might, you also get the might boons as well as the whole party.

Uh…You get both the Pristine Relic and the ring. I just did 28 yesterday and got a pristine relic, infuse lunaria, some normal relics, and a bag of coins.

Gewd.8125:

People only need guardians for dungeons because of anti-projectiles. No other class has as many reflection skills. Anet needs to balance this.

For Fractals, they make the following levels 10x easier.

Shield of the Avenger, Shield of Absorption, Wall of reflection
- Grawl
- Uncategorized
- Snowblind

Tome of Healing
- Jade Maw

This is true. Without our reflect/absorb fields, our spot will fall down drastically, and warrior would probably be first.

On a different note about our damage, I make up for it by gunning full glass. With our survivability, it’s quite balanced out. So far it’s been good up to 32. If things get harder, I’ll probably swap to PVT.

Didn’t really affect me at all. Vigorous Precision is not the main source of AH healing.

Really happy with this. I finally got my infused Solaria and Lunaria combo.

Can a banner warrior give 50 seconds straight of range reflect/absorb like a guardian (Wall of Reflect x 2 + Shield of the Avenger). With two guardians, you’ll reach near range immunity.

As long as we have our reflect/absorb fields, we’ll always be the most sought profession.

Even in my PVT set, I can only afford one extra hit in the Ascalon Fractal (from the warriors and mages). I also want to point out that scepter damage is on the upper bracket of all our weapons so there’s not really any damage loss except in AoE circumstances. That’s also why I use it in most boss fights. If I do switch to it during trash mobs, it’s because I need the 3 blocks and AoE blind, or I want to stay behind my absorb/reflect field.

Overall, I fight almost 90% in melee on trash. In the Dredge Fractal, I use staff for a bit because I was charging my Sigil of Perception.

You can have guardians popping reflect/absorb like crazy during add phase. This is a video of me and another guardian owned the boss with near range immunity.
:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyl-wrwTIb0&feature=youtu.be

I’m trying to record all the Fractals with all the strategies I personally use. I call my guardian “glassy” because she runs in full Berserkers or close to. All of the runs will be with pugs.

Cliffside/Collossus – Legendary Archdiviner Final Fight
Urban Battlegrounds/Ascalon
Underground Facility/Dredge – Full run with Ice Elemental final boss
Underground Facility/Dredge – Legendary Dredge Powersuit
Volcanic/Grawl – Legendary Grawl Shaman

I used 10/25/30/5/0 for the Urban Battlegrounds/Ascalon and Underground Facility/Dredge full run. Any other videos are 0/0/30/30/10 and will stay with it for future videos.

I hope these videos will help other guardians maximizing their potential in their dungeon runs.

You can glitch the agony arrow by continuously strafing left and right in quick succession. Just remember to stay far away preferably 900 range at least (you’ll still get hit if you’re too close to him).

My strategy is unorthodox. I usually have an Elementalist with me. She just equips full healing gears, and all of us will just stay underneath the boss and out heal the room damage. I also use mace/focus as a Guardian with Tome of Courage for extra healing back up.

Two guardians for range immunity. Rest is whatever. I have a strong discrimination against rangers and thieves however.

Unlike Subject Alpha in which range or melee both have to keep dodging. For the Grawl fight, range only need to dodge his agony arrow while melee has to constantly dodging the AoE knock back and Lava Fonts plus the agony arrow on top of them.

Keep up burning is pretty easy with this build.

Bosses: Virtue of Justice lasts 25 seconds (5 secs x 5 party members). Cooldown: 30 secs
Trash: Renewed Justice spam

This is quite a slap in the face to all the players in 20+ Fractals. I’d be kitten if I miss my 20 and 30 daily today.

Here are the clips:

Urban Battlegrounds/Ascalon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb7NMK_XJDs
(I equipped a wrong ring for this run so I wasn’t technically full Berserkers).
Underground Facility/Dredge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfmxk8p4klM&feature=youtu.be

Both are on scale 20. If you don’t think it’s high enough, I’ll fraps some more on scale 30 later or I can upload Urban Battlegrounds, Underwater, and Snowblind from yesterday.

Romarix.5829:

For every situation, a weapon to suit it.

Guardians are walking armories. Start acting like it instead of lording the virtues of one weapon over another.

QFT

So I went and did level 20 twice and 30 daily today as 10/25/30/5/0.

I admit I struggled a bit with some downs on the very first fractal (Urban Battlegrounds – Scale 20) due to the lack of consistent self-healing (as oppose to burst heal like Monk’s Focus). I decided to switch over to Altruistic Healing with a hammer to see if it’s any better. To my surprise, my survivability has improved much better. I went on a complete the next two with minimal issues.

I then did some re-gearing and replacing my boon duration runes with 5 x Rangers and 1 Lyssa to further improve my crit chance. I also replace my sigils to “Superior Sigil of Blood” in conjunction with Omnomberry Ghost to improve my self-healing even further. Afterward, I went back in and did Fractal 30.

I got Urban Battlegrounds again. I actually liked it since there’s a lot of hard hitting mobs around to test my survivability. I survived much easier as oppose to the 20 Fractal earlier. I still get one shotted into down state randomly and finally figured out that 25 Mights stacked Monk’s Heal Area actually deals quite a massive amount of damage when there’s a bunch casting. Well, now I know to dodge back when they start casting it. I carry on and complete the 30 daily.

Now, I went back and do the level 20 again with much more knowledge and having adjusted to the build. I got Urban Battlegrounds for the 3rd time in a row as the first Fractal. I did exceptionally well if not better than my 0/0/30/30/10. I also want to point out that even with 0/0/30/30/10, I still had to swap to some Soldier gears when I stepped in this particular Fractal. This time however, I was in full Berserkers with an offensive build.

I am currently uploading this clip on Youtube and will put a link up tomorrow. I will also upload the next Fractal after this one which is Underground/Dredge to show my tactics and how this build performs. I also have clips of Urban Battlegrounds, Underwater, and Snowblind on scale 30 if you guys want to check them out.

AH will help on survivability much more than Selfless Daring ever will unless you are stacking up +healing. It also allows one to stack up on more damage gear wise (for me, to a point of being pure glass). Valor also gives 30% critical damage along side with the toughness as well as Retributive Armor for an extra 3% crit chance (at base armor +300 toughness from Valor).

So you’re using both melee set up for Grawl (Mace/Focus and Greatsword)? That’s a big damage loss comparing going scepter full-time during normal phase. You should never get hit by agony during add phase because you should have SoA up (or at least WoR but recommend to have both rotating).

kaffaljidhma.1496:

You can avoid AH in favor of selfless daring, especially during grawl. Empower is a death sentence there.

There’s no need to avoid AH in favor of Selfless Daring since you can have both.

Using a staff is already a death sentence on Grawl. You need to have a GS and scepter/focus out. AH is still good for grawl due to the fact that AH with VoJ can actually reach people across the map and provides steady enough healing for add phase. Meditations with Monk’s Focus are not so great since you will only have one med (the other two slots are WoR and SoA).

There’s no way you can get that stats. You’re basically saying that you want to lose 1% crit damage to get 200 power, 3% crit, 550 armor, 3k hp which is impossible.

Challenge accepted. I’m confident that a med build in full zerk can still do high fractal easily. I’ll modify it a bit into 10/25/30/5/0 picking up Vigorous Precision instead of Inspired Virtues.

The balance of Damage vs. Survivability is varied between each person. What works for you may not actually work for someone else.

10/25/30/0/5 was my original build way back during the release of GW2 (you can check my very first few posts, I was an advocate of this particular build). During that time, I had run 100% Berserkers with Ruby Orbs and did just fine on every game aspects (In SPvP, I ran with Knight amulet and Berserker jewel instead). This build is the most fun I’ve ever had in WvW with guerrilla tactic (I filmed a video, you can check it out on my previous posts).

I now run a more typical 0/0/30/30/10 set up due to its flexibility, but I’m still using my full Berserkers set at 30’s Fractal. I now however also have a more defensive set in the bag to switch around for certain fights. In WvW? Full Berserkers still.

Being that precision scales in linear with no diminishing return per point(unlike other MMOs such as WoW), I haven’t heard of any draw back of having crit chance too high (unless you break the 100% hard cap) unless you mean by sacrificing other stats.

There’s one thing that really helps if you have a really high crit chance. The burst damage you gain from multiple hit attacks such as Whirling Wrath (14 hits), Zealot’s Defense (8 hits), and Smite (15 hits) will be higher since the probability of having most hits crit will be higher.

I’m currently at 31 at the moment (been at this level for almost a week since I think it’s pointless to hit 40, it’s hard to get a group for it because I only pug). I use two monks, two water, and two fire for the might duration. I also have my PVT armor set in the bags for face tanking stuffs like Mossman.

For Cliffside, your group has to pull him into the corridor leading to a small room on the right side and fight him in there. This will separate him and the adds when phase two starts. After you smash the seal, your team can run back into the room and de-aggro the adds (remember to leave one member back in the room, and the guy that’s running hammer needs to have a stun breaker). The only downside to this is that the room is quite small for kiting.

I use a 0/0/30/30/10 flexible build. I used to use hammer most of the time with the old dungeons, but now a day, I found that you have to switch them around even if it’s your “main weapon”. In my opinion, I think this build is the best for Fractal since it’s a combination of Altruistic Healing/Monk’s Focus from Valor, all the great traits to switch around in Honor (Empowering Might, Pure of Voice, Two-Handed Mastery, etc…), and Master of Consecration/Improved Spirit Weapon Duration from Virtue. To make up for the damage lost from trait, I usually run full Berserkers on trash and most boss fights.

To get the best out of the hammer, you have to make use of the two animation skips mentioned in Brutaly’s guide especially the Ninja Skip (don’t even need to cancel the dodge, just utilizing it to resume the 3rd swing).

Also, a tip on Jademaw if you don’t have enough agony resistance: go Monk’s Focus with triple meds and pre-cast Tome of Courage’s full heal before agony hit in.

kaffaljidhma.1496:

Worth it on higher difficulty Old Tom in the Uncategorized Fractal. I promise that a guardian that keeps up perma retaliation is by far the fastest way to kill him before the crystals run out. Also helps jellyfish go by a bit faster if you pop SYG and just get in there when it starts doing the stun/electrocution spin.

I have never run into trouble making the “soft enrage” timer on Old Tom. I just tell my team to stack up directly underneath Old Tom to avoid the poison bolts and heal through the room poison damage with mace/focus (easily heal through since the damage is only 300 a tick per second). And I’ll advise against getting hit by poison bolts for the retaliation damage if you don’t want to lay flat on the ground.

Stability, toggle walking, and just waltz out.

You can make it a chance to get the infused one. Just like how 4 rares can turn into an exotic.

Or at least allow you to put in 4 ascended rings into the mystic forge for a chance to get ring with the stats you want.

For soloing, Signet of Resolve and Shelter are much better.

Guardians are made for Fractals. Our strongest contribution to the team is reflection/absorption due to the amount of range damage in these dungeons. Beside Jademaw (and Jellyfish?), all the other bosses’ agony can be avoided:

Archdiviner (Cliffside):
Agony comes from the obvious circles on the ground and the light AoE during phase two of the last fight. Circles can be out run with swiftness. The light AoE can be dodged easily once you figure out his pattern (circles > AoE pull > light AoE agony). I had to solo this boss during phase two because the other 4 pug members couldn’t dodge for kitten. We also have plenty of “back up” options such as aegis and focus 5 if you have to use endurance to dodge circles. Watch out on the reflect cause they can eat up your aegis.

Legendary Shaman (Snowblind):
Agony drops from the ice shard. There’s a safe spot in which you can just stand there and spam scepter for an entire fight. Check the picture below.

Mossman (Swampland):
His dagger throw give agony, can bounce, and stack up to 3x agony. Shield of Avengers and Wall of Reflect is the best for this. I usually equip into my PVT armor and engage him in melee, and hopefully that he will stay on me (be the first to engage, he won’t switch until like 80%). Use SoA and WoR to resurrect teammates.

Bloomhunger (Swampland):
SoA and WoR can be used against his attacks but no guarantee since his projectile pattern is upward and down like a parabola. I like to stay in melee range and use SoA on the boss and make sure he’s inside it.

Mobs and Dredge mini boss (Underground Facility):
SoA outshines WoR on this. SoA can absorb the cone attacks of the dredges (including the boss) trivializing the whole run.

Legendary Dredge Suit (Underground Facility):
WoR can reflect the bombs if you time it well. You can also double dodge his slamming agony attack. Just watch for the animation. Having Shield of Absorption on rez trait is nice for this fight.

Captain Amysh (Urban Battlegrounds):
His agony attack is 900 so just stay at max range and whack away with your scepter.

Legendary Grawl Shaman (Volcanic Shaman):
Guardians make this fight so much easier with SoA and WoR. His agony fireballs can be nullified by both of our skills. If there’s two guardians in the group, it’s range immunity if you guys rotate your skill. Adds are not an issue since SoA/WoR also work on their attacks. If you’re the only guardian of the group, use WoR liberally and save SoA for add phase.

Asura Golems (Uncategorized):
Same as the grawl shaman on above with SoA/WoR. Here’s another trick. Position the golem between WoR and the asura (ideally, WoR has to be on top of your character, golems a bit back in front that you can melee them, and asura is directly behind them), this will reflect the agony bolt onto the golems instantly killing them on higher fractal. When all 4 golems spawn, GS 5 and pull them in, then put up WoR and reflect back agony. 10 seconds later, loot your chest.

It means that its heal ticks 5 times over ~two seconds as oppose to a burst heal like Signet of Resolve.

I’m trying to find a dye combination to match the capacitor in the picture below. Particularly, I want a dark bueish color on the cloth of my human t3 armors that matches the blue cloth of the capacitor (closest color I can get is Midnight Sky). If you guys know a good color for the metal parts, please let me know also.

Much appreciated.