Guild Wars 2

20-30 in virtues is still stronger than not running it even without master of consecrations. It is good to take master of consecrations because consecrations are very strong in dungeons (either reflections, condition removal, might stacking (fire fields). But it is also to pick up Absolute Resolution which is our strongest condition removal, pure of voice is weaker if you don’t take 3 shouts and it forces you to use your shouts in order to remove conditions well. Which means you can run less skills on your bar, also Absolute resolution can be re applied if you want to by using renewed focus and doing it all over again. Not to mention boon duration and virtue recharge rate is better than healing power and vitality. In conclusion 20-30 points in virtues is better than 0-5 points in virtues

Oh my life, a good guardian guide on the forums sticky pliss

eles in gw1 pretty much just blew stuff up with meteors ( I used 2 of them in my hero team and with the right skill combinations the aoe damage is big)

Is it just me that is happy with my damage using a sword focus build, I’m not gonna complain obviously but a 5% damage increase on sword isn’t exactly needed, Anet really need to rework the valor trait line :/

I would say sword/focus and hammer are top builds for pve,
generally sword focus is better in my opinion as the permanent protection isn’t needed a lot of the time and s/f offers brilliant dps along with lots of utility, but there are some dungeons where hammer is better because of protection on bosses/mobs ect (fractals, CoE (debatable), AC) so it’t really up to you. Anchor guardian is still meta because it is bad, popular and easy. I like 15,15,0,20,20 for hammer and 10,30,0,5,25 for S/f (0,30,0,30,10 – lower dps higher support/regen might stacking/dodgeroll healing/sustain/support variant). Full zerker is optimal but a few knights pieces can be used on the hammer build if you are just getting new to it and get downed too much and valk can be used for s/f if you feel you need the extra sustain, but guard got so much defensive utility anything but zerk to me now seems kind of silly, but yeah it’s up to you, also shield of the avenger is kick kitten

Yeah I that is included with 25 in virtues, you don’t need any more most of the time and if you do just bring purging flames

or even more use renewed focus and pop it again

I do a lot of speed runs on a guardian and I gotta say that ele has amazing synergy with Guardian. If you use fire fields then the ele can use LH and get 25 might stacks very quickly. They also provide fury which guardians lack and can help out with condition removal with healing when needed. Guardians using a sword/focus build have some of the highest crit chance in the game ( I run S/F with accuracy sigil and I get 74% crit chance on sword skills without fury, banners, or perception stacks) I dunno I just feel an ele really complements guardian

You can be very high damage and very high support, that is the beauty of Guardian. You can run a 10,30,0,5,25 dps sword focus build using full zerk gear, bring shield of avenger and wall of reflect, along with all your blocks and blinds and natural healing/condition removal from virtues you are very survivable. You are able to hit your enemies hard and protect your allies well. Don’t be fooled by pugs opinions on every guardian should be a tank and can’t deal dps.

If you are bad at dodging knight armor with zerker trinkets would eat up your mistakes, but by no means should you make a build which allows you to just facetank stuff as the dps will be very bad, If you took 10,30,0,5,25 took shield of the avenger wall of reflect and retreat you could just not dodge and still not get hit, you got like blocks from everything and you could cycle through your blinds/blocks, also shield of the avenger will keep you protected, I love wall + shield for example if i get aggro on slave driver or if the effigy comes over i just place down wall = shield and i am safe

Surely it’s a good thing as it encourages people to dodge roll more, I feel for pve it would impact a lot of builds

hammer does tonnes of aoe damage, stacks consistent vulnerability and grants permanent protection, not to mention the 2nd skill can smash 5k+ all day on crits. It is actually a very good and versatile dps weapon perfect for most group play

I don’t play AH anymore because it’s bad but here is the build i used months back which is fun and easy to play with (if you are a new player I would recommend something like this).

Hammer: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlUgiC3FyIEf4ESmCRCBxUoRe01DKKhYIA-jAzAYLA0GE9BiKAk9UWTgCiVxioxqrxUuER1GcFNbeqt6AA-e

Great sword:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlUgiC3FyIEf4ESmCRCBxUgRw31DKKhYIA-jgzAYLA0GE9BiIAk9UWTgCiVugU6iWFMs6aMlLRUtBXRzmnarOAA-e

Hammer is more protection based with slightly more sustain due to rune 6th ability and boons/healing ect and GS is more DPS based with good party might stacking, note neither of these builds are good but they work, if you are a good player then don’t use these builds. (They are both fun and offer 4/10 for dps)

So the best build for dungeons really depends on your team, when running with good players a 10,30,0,5,25 sword/focus build is best, but I would say when running with pugs a 15,15,0,20,20 hammer build is best because of protection. Also worth noting the hammer build is better for higher levels of fractals (probs like 35+ I guess). Gear is optimized at full zerker for obvious reasons. Knight armor can be used if you can’t use zerk or soldiers armor for sword focus.

Here is a build I used to play months back, It is low-mid dps but it gets the job done, it’s easy to play with and good for getting used to guardian.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlUgiC3FyIEf4ESmCRCBxUoRe01DKKhYIA-jAzAYLA0GE9BiKAk9UWTgCiVxioxqrxUuER1GcFNbeqt6AA-e

but there is much better build choices now, that build is just fun and easy

It would be a nerf not a buff, players who would benefit from this are usually running 25 in valor which would benefit basically no pve players except those who still use AH

I don’t know how big the dps increase is but it makes protection last longer and it makes more vulnerability if traited with symbolic exposure

for wvw runes of the traveller are great, for solo pve content they are also great but for dungeons you are looking at something more like scholar runes

for pve play you need at least 10 in virtues, ideally 20 for master of consecrations and absolute resolution. also 5 points in honor for permanent vigor is very strong for pve and needed for some places

I love my hammer build on guardian 15,15,0,20,20 but I think 10,30,0,5,25 s/f might be too good not use. If you think about the damage bonus’s from radiance, it will be:
(from 20 radiance up)
10% more dmg 10% more dmg 15% crit chance for 1h weapons
that’s pretty dam solid for 10 more trait points
add that with 5% more from virtues, 10% more from fiery wrath and 10% more from scholar runes

That’s a whopping 45% damage boost and 15% crit chance

so which build has good dps and uses AH?

Damage comes from damage multipliers as well as stats. An AH build looses out on tonnes of stats aswell as atleast 25% damage from trait multipliers. Even if you think you deal high damage using AH you don’t. Convince yourself all you want, AH is a BAD trait as it requires 30 points in a pretty useless trait and has no help to your team. The point of a guardian is to be a ‘selfless defender’ what the hell is selfless about keeping yourself alive better missing out on damage which kills stuff quicker which puts less pressure on your team instead of killing stuff longer thinking you are an anchor even though aggro mechanics is far more complicated than just stacking toughness. to put this straight and people who don’t use AH will agree with me here.

YOU CANNOT BE A DPS AND USE AH

Exactly what the guy above me said

for dungeons zerk gear with scholar runes would do you much better

I can see it working for wvw but for pve no

To be honest a bit of CC isn’t worth it, especially as it is 20 points in valor. (this is pve i’m talking about)

in pve warriors certainly do not need a buff. all they do is 100b and they are worshipped by about every dungeon group

Warrior is a little bit too powerful at the moment in my opinion in comparison to other classes at the moment. Simply because highest health, highest armour, very high (maybe highest) damage. They also provide brilliant offensive support and since GW2 is nearly all based around damage they play very well. I don’t like the lack of defensive support though, I mean I think it is important to provide condition removal, combo fields and sometimes protection which warrior struggles to do successfully. Saying that though it is more than made up for in the sheer damage

There is no such thing as a DPS AH build and there never will be

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

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

They really need to fix it, I run at around 15-35 FPS normally depending on which map i’m in generally but my FPS drops to about 5-9 and when I try to jump its near impossible. I die constantly when trying to jump and my team mates are always too impatient to kill the mobs. I even use a rule of jumping before the edge and using swiftness, but it’s still dreadful. I even got kicked out of a team today because I died while attempting to jump. Anet is ignoring this and needs to do something about it.