Guild Wars 2

Stand Your Ground and Hold The Line are on relatively short recharges, making them routinely available for most significant encounters. At 4-6 second duration, they last long enough to give your allies a boost of momentum, but can be squandered if used at the wrong time. It’s tempting to just lay out a Shout and hope it makes a difference—but don’t do that. Stand Your Ground is a great Shout when you want to give your allies a bit more momentum, and they’re in melee with several enemies. The Retaliation will add a lot of damage for every blow dealt by enemies, and Stability should prevent any annoying stuns, dazes and knockdowns.

Hold The Line, on the other hand, is a bit more defensive. You want to use it to soften the blow, just prior to several enemies attacking you. Use Stand Your Ground to give your allies a boost to momentum, but use Hold the Line to rob your enemies of momentum. Allies with Protection and Regeneration are going to be able to withstand the first wave of attacks pretty well, which means a better counterattack.

And don’t mock _Retreat. I know I do, but Retreat has a lot of general use. Despite the relatively long cooldown, the boons last a while. You don’t have to use it defensively at all—in fact, I recommend using it for the opposite of running away: Charging! This is a great shout when rushing into battle. The free Aegis will nullify the first attack of the enemy, and you’ll close distance fast, and be able to stay on top of any fleeing enemies. The free Block is also similar to Virtue of Courage—use it to give all your allies solid mitigation just before a big enemy attack.

If you see a lot of allies standing around in glowing red circles—you know, the ones that indiciate something bad is about to happen to them? Use Retreat. It’ll help.

Interesting Synergies

• Going deep in the Virtues traits improves Boon duration by up to 30%, which will help take your Shouts that extra mile.

• Altruistic Healing, the Valor XI trait, will heal you for every boon you apply to every ally. With several allies around you, Shouts are a good way to get those heals rolling. The heals, by the way, are relatively small, but combined with everything else you do, they can provide you with a fair amount of mitigation.

• Going down the Honor line? Pure of Voice and Superior Aria means your Shouts become much more reliable and become a potent form of condition removal.

• Shattered Aegis, The Zeal V Trait, makes “Retreat!” a more aggressive weapon. Every Aegis you apply to your allies is going to pay off as a Burn.

Signets: Almost like extra Virtues

The concept of the Signet should be pretty familiar to you. Virtues function in exactly the same way. While they’re equipped and inactive, they provide a constant passive bonus to you. Once you use them, you enjoy a shorter duration but more powerful bonus. Guardians can actually do some amazing things with our Signets.

Signet of Judgment has the fastest recharge of every Signet in our repertoire. At 20 seconds—16 with Signet Mastery—expect it up at every fight, if not twice a fight. This is an underrated but wonderful signet. While passive, you’ll take 10% less damage from every source. Activated, and all nearby enemies gain Weakness, further crippling their damage capacity, while all nearby allies gain Retaliation, punishing the enemies for the pitiful damage they somehow manage to deal.

Signet of Wrath and Bane Signet provide more control. Bane Signet’s long range interrupt deals a modest amount of damage, while knockdown functions as a movement control, an interrupt, and even a makeshift stun. Wrath adds a long immobilization, which, coupled with Hammer and Scepter, can keep an unfortunate enemy chained to ground for nearly long enough to kill it outright. Wrath provides +50 Condition Damage at 80, which is equal to about 12 more damage per second on Burning, and Bane Signet provides 90 Power at level 80, which is a little less than 3 stacks of Might.

Signet of Mercy is an oddball. It’s probably going to sit passive in your Utility bar for 90% of its use, partly because its Active power is so rarely used, and partly because its cooldown is so terribly long. For exactly these reasons, it benefits quite a bit from Signet Mastery (which reduces its cooldown by 48 seconds) and should be used with care. But Signet of Mercy is an instant revive. Not a rally. A revive. Any ally—player or NPC—dead nearby can be brought instantly to life with a click of a button. It’s hard to overestimate just how important having another ally alive can be, so judicious use of Signet of Mercy can competely turn the tide of a losing battle.

Consecrations: Or, Get Off My Lawn

Consecrations are Guardian skills that emphasize terrain control. Consecrations activate effects on the ground around you (or, with the right Traits, somewhere near you), which grant benefits to your allies and make your enemies regret stepping into your territory. Consecrations are governed by the Virtues trait, and run the gamut from routinely useful to highly specialized. Here they are:

Hallowed Ground and Purging Flames are your only two Combo Field: Fire abilities. For this reason alone, they deserve special consideration. Hallowed Ground has a relatively long cooldown and will likely require Master of Consecrations (Virtues VI) to use routinely. In general, while leveling, you probably won’t need to worry about stability much. Not too many PVE enemies are going to daze, stun or knock you back in ways that can’t be easily predicted and dodged.

On the other hand, Purging Flames is a powerful and useful ability that will find room in just about any build. If you’re in melee, Purging Flames is your friend. It’s a wide-field burn with a duration about equal to Virtue of Justice when activated, removes a condition from yourself and all allies. Any enemies that enter the area immediately trigger five seconds of burn, so use it to punish enemies swarming through choke points.

Sanctuary and Wall of Reflection are your two defensive Consecrations. Sanctuary itself is pretty ridiculous. Provided whoever’s inside it stays inside it, they’re completely safe from the outside world and all its scary existential threats for a good six seconds. And they’ll take a pretty decent heal on top of that (equal to about one and a half Healing Breeze on allies. Or half a Shelter). The problem with Sanctuary is that it’s small. With a radius of 120, this is a pretty small, if totally durable, turtle shell. Master of Consecrations, again, pays dividends in this skill. Don’t forget that you could, if you really wanted, use this to cut off a choke point. It’d have to be a tiny one though.

Wall of Reflection is different. Don’t confuse this with Shield of Absorption—this is actually a wall. A flat plane, two dimensional wall you drop in front of you. This is also the sort of ability that you want to use when you want to show off your mad Guardian timing. Wall of Reflection reflects all projectiles. All projectiles. If it flies through the air and wants to hurt you, Wall will send it right back.

Interesting Synergies

• Purging Flames is universally usable (more or less) and available often enough to exploit for its Combo Field: Fire. If you aren’t worried about closing distance (Purging Flames does require you and your enemy to stay put), this works great with Hammer and Greatsword for their Combo Finishers.

• Consecrated Ground (Virtues III) is ridiculous and you want to take a good, hard look at it. Consecrated Ground’s unhelpful tooltip doesn’t explain that it essentially turns every consecration from an AoE effect centered around your player to an AoE effect that you target. The distance is pretty long. This means you can drop Purging Flames on a pack of enemies and allies without actually being in the fray. Useful if you’re the sort to use Scepter and/or Staff, or just like having ranged options. This is particularly cool with Wall of Reflection, because it lets you cover a MUCH wider area of reflection. If you can properly gauge the trajectory of incoming projectiles, you don’t have to be anywhere near the projectile to send it flying back. Have you ever thrown a tennis racket to intercept a serve and sent it back? It’s kind of like that.

• Fiery Wrath (Zeal II) works pretty well with Purging Flames. Purging Flames sets all enemies on fire for five seconds. Because Burning duration stacks, and because we have so much of it, Purging Flames can be used to help keep burn up constantly, and therefore, help keep your Fiery Wrath bonus up.

Meditations: Finding Inner Peace In A Sea of Violence and Slaughter—Caused Mostly By You

Meditations are a relatively versatile set of utilities. Along with providing robust Condition mitigation, they can help fill in mobility gaps with useful teleports. Meditation bonuses come from the Valor tree, and despite the Valor tree’s (not entirely factual) reputation as a defensive tree, Meditations can and should be used aggressively as often as they are defensively.

Interesting Synergies

• Perfect Inscriptions deserves its own section. This is a Grandmaster Tier Honor Trait that fundamentally changes the way your Signets work. Perfect Inscriptions improves the passive effect of all signets by 20%. On its own, that might not seem like much. But it makes Signet of Resolve heal not one, but two, conditions every ten seconds. Take Purity (Valor V) and that’s three conditions every ten seconds. Take Inscribed Removal and Signet Mastery, and now all your Signets double as condition removal—with a sixteen second recharge on Signet of Judgment. So, theoretically, in the space of ten to sixteen seconds at the most, you could strip yourself of four different Conditions.

• Binding Jeopardy (Zeal I) applies five stacks of Vulnerability every time you Immobilize an enemy. This works remarkably well if you’re using Signet of Wrath with Zealot’s Embrace and Chains of Light. On top of eight seconds of Immobilization, you’re looking at 12 stacks of Vulnerability. So not only do you have an enemy rooted to the ground, but he’s about to take a ton of damage if everyone targets him.

Spirit Weapons: Look, I Already Made A Bad Gandalf Reference; Don’t Make Me Quote Thundercats

I don’t see nearly as much discussion on Spirit Weapons as I should. Are you guys all scared of using them or something? They’re totally independent pets. There’s very little micromanagement. They’re versatile. Dangerous. They deal solid damage, have great effects, and you can improve them to the sky with Traits. Seriously, why aren’t you using these? Spirit Weapons can account for a massive improvement in damage and mitigation, and you can use up to three at a time!

Spirit Weapons work like this. You summon one. It lasts its base duration, or you can burn it early for a powerful attack. Once it’s un-summoned, the ability begins to recharge. When it’s off recharge, you can use ita again. Some people have this notion that Spirit Weapons begin recharging the moment you summon them. This is false. You have to wait for them to disappear before they recharge.

Let’s go over your divine panoply of awesome weaponry:

Sword of Justice is your first (usually) available Spirit Weapon, and it is beautiful. Summon it, and for thirty seconds, this weapon bobs along beside you with all the glee and zeal of a happy puppy, slaughtering and slicing through whatever enemies you’re up against. Damage is strong, duration lasts a good while, and the recharge is likewise short. You can Command the sword to destroy itself before its duration runs dry, dealing high damage (the equivalent of about 4 sword strikes) to everyone in a wide radius. If you’re trying to spike damage, you should have a Sword of Justice.

Hammer of Wisdom is a bit more specialized. Damage comes in three-hit chains, with appended knockback. Command the Hammer to destroy itself for a big, 600-radius knockdown on all enemies for an impressive three seconds. Three seconds is a long time in the heat of battle. Hammer of Wisdom does take longer than Sword to recharge (45 seconds) and lasts for a shorter duration (20 seconds), but the control it brings is worth it. Consider Hammer of Wisdom when you want to lock down a group of enemies, or you’re more interested in mitigation than raw damage.

Shield of the Avenger and Bow of Truth are your defensive weapons. Both their cooldowns are longer than usual (60 seconds) and they last as long as the Hammer of Wisdom (20 seconds). The Shield of the Avenger will follow you and periodically lay down an effect visually similar to Shield of Absorption that absorbs projectiles. Remember that, unlike Shield of Absorption, the Shield of Avenger’s effect does not cause a knockback. Be aware of both the Shield and the Bow’s tendency to lag behind you as well, at the time of writing this guide. Command Shield of the Avenger to act as a more aggressive version of Shield’s Shield of Judgement ability. Instead of granting Protection to allies, it Weakens all enemies.

Bow of Truth is a bit more passive. Rely on it to keep conditions off your allies so you can focus on smashing faces. _Command_ing the Bow of Truth will create an area around you that provides steady healing over time to any ally that enters its radius. For this reason, you’ll want to position yourself so that Bow of Truth’s Command ability hits the allies that need it most. Don’t blow this on just healing yourself. Both Shield of the Avenger and Bow of Truth are remarkably useful for midline play, but support any playstyle effectively.

Builds in Guild Wars 2 are much more fluid. The key to understanding Traits is realizing that they’re temporary. Traits are not set in stone. There is no single damage Trait line. There is no Support Trait line. To top it off, the Traits you unlock aren’t set in stone—every 10 points you invest in a Trait line unlocks a set of Traits, all of which can be switched and mixed around at your pleasure. To top it off, resetting Traits is cheap, and at Level 80, costs 3.5 silver.

The lesson is that you shouldn’t feel tethered to your Traits. Your Traits are not who you are. Your Traits augment, enhance and enable your chosen playstyle, but they can, and should, and will, be changed to suit your situation, your build, your weapon, and—of course—your whim.

If you’re brand new to Guild Wars 2, then Traits are an additional way to customize your character’s abilities, first available at level 11. As you progress in level, you’ll unlock more Trait points, which you may invest as you please. By level 80, you will have accumulated 70 Trait points to divide among your five Trait Lines.

Throughought this guide, I have attempted to illustrate particular synergies between Traits and Skills. It’s important to disassociate the thought of a particular Trait line being intended for a particular playstyle. Different Trait lines enhance your build in different ways. What if you wanted better Symbols? You could go into Zeal. Or you could go into Honor. What if you wanted more damage? Honor improves recharge on Two-Handed weapons. But Zeal improves Greatsword damage. And Radiance is great for one-handed damage. And Virtues improves your damage by Burning.

The point I’m trying to make is this: Traits should free you, not lock you down. Traits should encourage you to experiment with builds, try new things, express yourself imaginatively and see what works for you. Traits exist to give you the tools to make your favorite playstyle work for you.

Here’s a quick overview of Guardian Traits, and a brief rundown on picking the Traits right for you:

• Zeal
  • Each point invested in Zeal improves your Power by 10 and your Condition Duration by 1%
  • Zeal includes Traits that support aggressive use of Symbols, aggressive use of Spirit Weapons, Greatsword, Focus and Scepter damage.
  • Players interested in Spirit Weapons will likely invest in Zeal. Players who want to capitalize on Burning should look into Zeal for Fiery Wrath and Condition Duration. Aggressive players of every build will get some mileage out of Zeal, either through improved Power, more aggressive Symbols, or superior Focus recharge.

• Radiance
  • Each point invested in Radiance improves your Precision by 10 and your Condition Damage by 10.
  • Radiance includes Traits that improve Signets, allow frequent Virtue of Justice use, enhance Blinds, improve One-Handed weapons and improve Torch skills.
  • Players who want to use Virtue of Justice often should take Radiance. Radiance is excellent for damage builds using one-handed weapons, sword+torch players, Burning builds, and heavy signet use.

• Valor
  • Each point invested in Valor improves Toughness by 10 and Critical Damage by 1%
  • Valor includes Traits that improve block mechanics, remove conditions, enhance Meditations, reward Mace, Hammer and Shield play, and improve personal survivability.
  • Contrary to the Shield and Toughness support, Valor is not just a defensive line. Players interested in more Crit damage, players who apply frequent boons to allies and make frequent use of Meditations will get mileage out of Valor.

• Honor
  • Each point in Honor improves Vitality by 10 and Healing Power by 10
  • Honor includes Traits that improve symbols, improve signets, improve Shouts, reward critical hits and improve Endurance regeneration. Honor also improves recharge on Two Handed weapons and allows for better reviving.
  • Honor is not just a healing tree. Vitality is useful for everyone (as is Healing, honestly), and Honor is an excellent tree for builds that want to capitalize on a high critical rating. Symbol support and shout support makes Honor useful for any build.

• Virtues
  • Each point in Virtues improves Boon Duration by 1% and Virtue Recharge Rate by 1%
  • Virtues improves the efficacy and availability of your Virtues, improves Consecrations, improves Spirit Weapons and Elite Skills.
  • Virtues are a core mechanic for Guardians, and consequently, any given playstyle can benefit from the traits offered here. Master and Grandmaster Traits are especially useful to players who want to make Virtue of Justice twice as dangerous.

Judge’s Intervention and Merciful Intervention are your two aggressive and defensive teleports, respectively. Judge’s Intervention works similar to Purging Flames, in fact. It has a shorter Burning duration and no persistent area, but it breaks stun, travels a considerable 1200 range and breaks stun to boot. With 45 seconds of cooldown, this is a modestly reliable ability which, augmented by traits, can be available every couple significant encounters. Use this to close distance instantly or break out of stun and reposition yourself. You can actually use this defensively by targetting an enemy en route to an ally. And, you know. Intervene.

Merciful Intervention is a bit trickier. It’s available half as often as Judge’s Intervention, so you don’t want to waste it, but it can be a lifesaver. Just be aware of the 1200 range; it’s a double edged sword. Merciful Intervention will take you to the ally with the lowest health in a relatively wide range, and that might not always be the ally you want to go to. Still, the hefty heal creates a kind of triage effect, and you can save a life. Depending on the situation of the ally, this would be a good time to apply boons and heals, or remove conditions, or just shove away whatever it is that’s smacking them. Despite its theme, Merciful Intervention is both offensive and defensive. It’s offensive in the sense that it can immediately take you to the point of most danger—which is often the front line.

Just be careful with it. The teleport is far and the advantage of instantly arriving at an ally’s side can be used to get you out of a tough spot too. But have an eye on your allies before you use this ability.

Smite Condition and Contemplation of Purity are your two condition removal meditations. Smite Condition is easy to use and straightforward. In fact, I recommend every beginner Guardian get used to using this ability. Learning to use Smite Condition will teach you to anticipate and react to condition application—and immediately punish every enemy around you for solid damage the moment they drop a condition on you. Any condition. At a mere 20 second cooldown, this is a reliable staple of any Meditation-oriented Guardian—or any Guardian.

Contemplation of Purity is a fascinating specimen of a Utility. Here is a perfect example of a Utility skill that can be easily wasted, but if used correctly, has enormous potential to change the tide of a battle. It’s a stun breaker that instantly converts every condition on you into a boon. Damage-dealing conditions become Regenerations. Movement reduction conditions give you speed. Weakness gives you Might. For general condition removal, Contemplation of Purity has a prohibitively long recharge time. But in areas and encounters where you expect heavy condition application, it’s a game-changer.

Interesting Synergies

• Obviously, any way to invite conditions onto yourself can be exploited to trigger Smite Condition and Contemplation of Purity. Keep an eye on the descriptions of your enemies. If it says something like “Applies Conditions” or “Bleeds,” then listen for the sound-byte your character makes when they’re inflicted with a condition. That’s your trigger.

• The most obvious synergy, however, is between “Save Yourselves!” and Contemplation of Purity. In a situation where multiple allies suffer from multiple conditions, Save Yourselves + Contemplation of Purity rids everyone within a 600 range of every condition, and then turns all those conditions into stacking boons on you. How awesome is that?

• Monk’s Focus, the Valor XII trait, gives every Meditation a modest heal component, adding to your personal survivability and mitigation. It also transforms Merciful Intervention into a double-dipper: you can retreat to a hurt ally, heal your ally, and patch yourself up at the same time. And Smite Condition with a heal component is just exquisite.

Shouts: Now Step Over To the Abdominator, and I Will Shout Slogans At You!

Shouts are utilities Guardians share with Rangers and Warriors. Powerful little bits of rhetoric we bellow and inspire you to acts of greatness or something. Shouts are versatile, the one common thread between them being their synergy with allies around you. The more allies you have, the better your shouts. The Honor trait line governs Shouts.

Let’s start with Save Yourselves, since I’ve already just mentioned it. Save Yourselves is a bit of a power-up. To be honest, in most PVE and general leveling, you’ll rarely draw conditions to yourself. In that case, Save Yourselves becomes a powerful, if selfish, shout that stacks a ton of conditions on you. Best used in anticipation of a tougher fight. However, Save Yourselves in a condition-heavy fight with allies can save a lot of lives. Just make sure you can survive it.

But hang on—how should I make my build? Where do I put my first trait points?

I can’t tell you specifically how to build, partly because I don’t know your playstyle, and I don’t want to feed you cookie-cutter builds. Traits are about experimentation, and I’d rather not get in the way of that. Still, here are a few quick guidelines and some synergies to consider when making a build:

• Your stat bonuses are important, but they aren’t everything. The closer you get to 80, the less your Trait line’s stat bonuses matter in comparison to the quality of gear available. Pick a Trait line for its Major Traits first, its Minor traits second, and its Stat bonuses last.

• In general, in this game, versatility will always trump pure specialization. No class, not Guardian, not Thief, not Necromancer, not Ranger, is purely specialized for one role. Combat is fluid and will require defense, healing, movement and support as much as it will require raw damage. If you’re building for a heavy damage build, it’s a good idea to include some traits or utilities that improve survivability. If you’re building a tough, survivable, defensive character, allow yourself some room for good offensive options as well.

• The most valuable Trait line is that which grants you several traits you want. Taking a Trait line for just one or two Traits is certainly an option, but your first priority should be going down a Trait line with as many Traits that appeal to you as possible. When you hit 80, then you’ll have enough Trait points to dip into different lines specifically for one or two Traits.

• Remember, you can switch Traits on the fly. Every Trait tier you reach unlocks a set of Traits. You can change these Traits at will. If you have a Trait that gives you +5% damage on mace, but you’re tired of using a mace and switch to a scepter, then just switch that trait out. Don’t feel like you have to take a specific trait just because you’re using a specific weapon. You don’t need 30 Zeal just because you’re using a Greatsword.

If you still need some direction, I’m going to include a very flexible build that I think is a good choice for beginners who don’t know what to take:

1) Go down Radiance. Go up to at least 15 for Renewed Justice.
2) After you hit 15 Radiance, take 5 Virtues.
3) When you’re done with that, take 10 Zeal for Fiery Wrath.
4) Put it all together. 15 Radiance returns your Virtue of Justice every time an enemy you’ve attacked dies. Solo, this means Virtue of Justice is up every single fight. Guaranteed. In a team, this means you’ll be spamming Virtue of Justice every time anything dies, granting you and your entire team multiple stacks of Might, plus 5s of burning against every foe. Finally, you’ll personally deal more damage on burning foes.

Why do I recommend this build? It’s the one build I can think of, right now, that’s flexible enough to fit any and every playstyle and every weapon. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, it’s newbie-friendly, and it’ll get you used to a few concepts:

• It will teach you to pay attention to enemy deaths and the details of a battle.
• It will give you some insight into how momentum works, and the benefit of stacking Might.
• It will make you feel powerful and active
• It will allow you to branch out and experiment after getting a taste of how Traits work.

When you’re ready to experiment with traits, here’s a small list of interesting synergies I’ve discovered. Feel free to come up with your own:

• Taking both the Zeal and Honor trees makes your Symbols potentially very powerful. They heal, deal more damage, apply vulnerability and cover a larger radius.
• Taking Radiance and Honor lets you support your allies through crits. Radiance adds a great deal of Crit chance to one-handed weapons, which Honor rewards by causing Crits to grant all allies five seconds of stacking Might, along with giving you near constant Vigor.
• Taking Valor and Radiance gives you very powerful crits, and allows you to build for Meditations, encouraging a highly aggressive, teleport-centric style of play.
• Power of the Virtuous works very well with “Save Yourselves!” granting you a sudden boost of boons, and therefore, a big boost in damage.
• Virtues and Honor work well together, with the improved Boon duration synergizing with Honor’s emphasis on shouts, and Honor’s improved Healing options working well with Virtue’s boosts to Virtue of Resolve.
• Zeal, Radiance and Virtues make Spirit Weapons monstrous, while providing you with a good boost to offensive power.
• Altruistic Healing works very well with Empower (Staff) and Empowering Might (Radiance)
• Tired of Hammer’s slow Chain 3 attack, Symbol of Protection? Boost it with some Traits, and make it one of the most powerful auto-attacks in the game.
• Elite Focus lets you cast certain long-recharge Tome spells twice.

Sword: The Best Scabbard Is The Enemy’s Face

Sword is one of the Guardian’s most aggressive weapon options. A fast attack speed, multiple strikes, a teleport to close distance and a high-damage ranged attack—all of which enjoy relatively short recharge times—facilitate a fast, mobile and active style of play. Sword deals damage—quite a lot of it—but its fast swing speed and dependence on Virtue of Justice triggers mean you’ll see smaller individual numbers than, say, Hammer, but more cumulative damage with the right builds.

It’s worth mentioning that despite Sword’s propensity for aggression and the high damage of Zealot’s Defense, Sword doubles as a competent defensive weapon. The key is Flashing Blade, which—at a mere 10 second recharge—is a wonderful mitigation tool. Time your blinds in anticipation of the enemy’s attack.

Furthermore, while Zealot’s Defense does include an excellent (if short-duration) projectile nullifier, don’t feel obligated to save it as an anti-projectile. Zealot’s Defense does enough damage on its own to justify frequent use. Plus it looks amazing.

Why Sword is Awesome:

• A very fast attack speed, with a total of five strikes in a 3-attack chain. That’s five chances to Crit. That’s one free Virtue of Justice trigger every attack chain.
• Flashing Blade at a 10 second recharge is a highly usable tool for closing distance and applying blind.
• Excellent spike damage. Zealot’s Defense hits hard. Use it in conjunction with other high damage attacks to deal a big dent in the enemy’s health.
• Good anti-projectile defense.
• You get to do this
• And this

Interesting Synergies

• Virtue of Justice: Sword works so well with Virtue of Justice that I feel the synergy deserves its own mention. Remember that Virtue of Justice’s Passive ability triggers once every five strikes. (Four, if you take Supreme Justice in the Virtues line.) Sword Wave, the third attack in Sword’s auto-attack chain, actually counts as three strikes, bringing the total number of strikes in Sword’s attack chain to five—just enough to trigger Virtue of Justice every single time. Zealot’s Defense strikes eight times, guaranteeing at least one second of Burning from Virtue of Justice—two seconds if you have Supreme Justice.

• Empowering Might: This Honor trait works surprisingly well with Sword. Empowering Might grants Might to all nearby allies every time you land a critical hit. Sword’s five-strike attack chain and eight-strike Zealot’s Defense gives you many more chances to land a critical hit, and therefore, almost guarantees multiple stacks of Might on all nearby allies.

• Sword/Blind: The Sword is an excellent candidate for a playstyle heavy on blinds. Blinds are free mitigation. A blinded enemy will always miss its next attack. Combining Sword with Focus gives you some robust defensive abilities: an extra Blind from Ray of Judgment, and a block skill from Shield of Wrath. Take the Justice is Blind Trait for a third blind every time you activate Virtue of Justice. Chain Blinds and Blocks in anticipation of enemy attacks, and Sword becomes a survivable and defensive weapon.

• Sword/Torch: I’ve covered Torch already in the Offhand Weapon section, but Sword/Torch deserves its own section owing to its remarkable synergy. Torch provides raw and pure damage, which dovetails nicely with Sword’s Zealot’s Defense. Use Flashing Blade to close distance. Use Zealot’s Flame to get five seconds of burning going. One attack chain, one Zealot’s Defense, and one Cleansing Flame should trigger another four or five seconds of burning. If the enemy survives that kind of damage, Zealot’s Flame should set them on fire again for an additional five seconds upon expiration. Sword/Torch is one of Guardian’s most damage-focused combinations. If you crave high damage, explore this option.

• Sword/Any Other Weapon: I’m absent minded and skipped Sword in my first draft. However, commentary on Sword synergy with other weapon sets is available in the posts preceding this one. The sections on Mace, Greatsword, Hammer, Scepter and Staff all cover their various synergies with Sword.

These are just a few suggestions. I haven’t even begun to figure out all the possible synergies, strategies and tactics available to Guardians. No one has, and none of us will for a long, long time. That’s part of the fun of being part of an MMO community during its earliest days—we shape the metagame.

This leads me to the end of my guide, but before I wrap things up, I want to talk about a few issues frequently encountered by new players:

What’s the best build for dungeons?

There isn’t one. Dungeons are challenging, instanced content for five players, but victory in dungeons depends on preparation. Preparation requires coordination with your teammates, setting up your Utility skills and Traits in accordance with what works best with your team. Victory in dungeons requires coordination, good dodging and smart play more than overdependence on a specific build.

If anyone’s asking you to “go healer” for a dungeon, they’re probably just misguided. Steer clear.

I’m getting overwhelmed by enemies. What do I do?

Two things:

• Make judicious use of your defenses.
• Dodge.

Fights end relatively quickly in Guild Wars 2, and unlike other MMOs, standing toe to toe with the enemy and exchanging blows doesn’t work. Every enemy has a rhythm to their attacks, a timing between blows. As you practice, you’ll develop an instinct for this timing. Keybind your Dodge ability somewhere simple, and learn to dodge in anticipation of powerful attacks. Dodging alone will mitigate a tremendous amount of damage if done right.

Along with dodging, learn to use defenses judiciously. If you’re using a Mace, learn to time your blocks just before an enemy attack. Learn to stack blinds with dodge. For example, if I have a trait that makes Virtue of Justice cause Blind, I might do this: Flashing Blade to get in close; the enemy is blinded and misses. Virtue of Justice; the enemy is blinded again and misses. Dodge the next attack. Block the next one. Flashing blade again, the enemy’s blinded again.

Proper timing of your abilities can completely nullify an opponent’s ability to hit you. Standing there and taking blows, though, or wasting your blinds, dodges, leaps and heals lead to sloppy habits, which lead to dead Guardians, which makes Dwayna cry. You don’t want that, do you?

What kind of gear should I wear?

At the earlier levels, it honestly doesn’t matter much. Just upgrade as you go. As you approach 55-60, you’ll want to take a closer look at your stats. In general, you want a relatively even spread of stats, with an emphasis toward the kind of playstyle you enjoy. Gear comes and goes fine, so don’t worry too much about having the wrong kind of gear if you decide to suddenly change playstyle. But in general…

• Power and Vitality are important for everyone. Everyone needs to stay alive. Everyone needs to deal damage.
• Crit is nice, and definitely nice if you’re going deep Radiance or Honor for crit-centric Traits.
• Toughness is always fun to have, and will reduce the damage you take per blow. Every Guardian should invest in some, but defense-oriented Guardians should look more closely at it. Pack a shield, too, and take a trait if you want Toughness.
• Everyone benefits from some Healing Power. It improves your own self-heal, your Virtue of Resolve and several skills. Guardians that emphasize heals through their traits and weapon selection should dig deeper into Healing Power.
• Condition Damage is important for every Guardian owing to our Virtue of Justice. However, it’s important to remember that 25% of Condition Damage adds to our Burning damage per second. So if you have 100 Condition Damage, that’s an extra 25 damage every second on Burning enemies. Build accordingly.

What weapon should I use to level?

A lot of Guardians swear by Greatsword, and for good reason. It’s a versatile and powerful weapon. But, you know what? I leveled with Sword and whatever I wanted, because my build supported it, and I wanted to make the most out of Virtue of Justice. You should honestly have one decent copy of every Guardian weapon in your pack for any given situation, and you should switch weapons around to see what you like best.

It’s not like leveling is particularly hard, and most of your leveling happens from events, exploration, crafting and Hearts, not actual kills. Don’t let anyone tell you to pigeonhole yourself in one weapon.

I will make an exception for Scepter though. The truth is that it’s our only 1200 range weapon at the moment, and in the course of leveling, you will come across situations where you just need a good ranged option. In that case, having a Scepter on hand will save you.

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That’s all for now. I’ll update this as time goes on, and clean things up and make edits. Thanks for reading, if you got this far. If you’ve enjoyed the guide or have any questions, please let me know. If I got something wrong, please correct me.

-Eveningstar