Guild Wars 2

@foofad

Of course, a straight up 5% damage will be better than a 5% critical damage (2.5% overall damage). The most important thing is that we don’t know how much power will equals to that 5%. It could take 10, 50, 100, or even more power (stat wise). In my case, I assume that attack equals your damage, so with 300 power increase, that’s 9.6% damage increase (3136 to 3436 atack). Also, one % of crit damage equals to about 12-14 stats. So if you spend 30 points in Valor, you’ll get 20-40% more stats comparing to spending 30 points in zeal.

Fabsm.5897:

I really can’t decide about the sigil, i think 5% damage is lousy, tempted on Hydromancy but i don’t really know if it is efficent.

Not related, i am having a really tough time with ranged guys, especially the bombardiers in Caduceus Manor Exp… they trash me everytime sigh. I guess adding a little more toughness could be useful, but i fear that i will lose on DPS.

Thanks in advance for the answers, and good job on the other posters too. You are really helpful for us newbies

The 5% sigil is pretty much equal to a major trait. If you have more than 50% crit damage on the stat sheet, 5% crit will be better. Wall of Reflection is your best defense against most range mobs (and bosses). I believe they do work against those guys in CM ex.

@Brutaly

@Trunglalunga
Sorry if i misinterpretated your statement as that you dont need to dodge in most dungeons.
English isnt my native language so i actually interpretate both those sentences in the same way. You dont need to dodge in dungeons while having aggro.
The fact still remains, if you want to do max dps you need 2h mastery but the rotation is chain, 1st step of the chain and mighty blow.

I’ve been trying to do some test on it, but it’s way too complicated and taking way too much time (especially with no add ons and the combat log is a piece of crap) So I’ve pretty much dismissed it as a play style preference.

On an entirely different note, you should collect the feedbacks and edit the guide into a more organized format so all the new players can look for the info easier. I’m willing to offer my help on this. Also, calling it a crithammer doesn’t roll off the tongue. Since this build is slowly reaching the meta, it deserves something more “flashy” like “Hammer of Protector” or just Protector or something (I just pick a random name since we give a lot of protection boon). Your guide deserves a sticky.

0/0/30/30/10 Crithammer

Jack of all trades. Relying on the boon protection for the survivability, it frees up my dependency on gears to allow going with a more damage set up. So pretty much, I can do damage (full berserker gears), survive (permanent protection and altruistic healing), control (with hammer #3, #4, and #5), and support (permanent protection in melee, empowering might, wall of reflect, stability with SYG and Hallowed Ground, etc…). I also bring a blast finisher on a 5 seconds cooldown that will further improve the group synergy especially with elementalists.

Yes, I’m a swiss army knife since I don’t really run with a specific group. But I don’t need to “hope to be useful” since I am pretty much built for every roles and good at them. I can even further improve that role with my on switch weapon such as GS on switch for max damage, staff on switch for more support, scepter on switch for range, etc…

Due to the fact that we don’t know how power scales. But let’s assume that it scales in linear (like others such as experience, crit chance, etc…).

Valor vs Zeal (30% crit damage vs 300 power):

In my current exotic berserker gears with only 25 points in Radiance (0/25/0/0/0), I have 3136 attacks and 53% crit chance. So if I go in Zeal for the 300 power, it would be an increase of 9.6% (from 3136 to 3436). On the other hand, if I go 30% crit damage, I would gain around 15.9% overall damage.
So let’s say I don’t spec in Radiance anymore (41% crit chance). That would be 12.3% damage gain with 30% crit damage from Valor.
Now with no precision gears and 25 points in Radiance (16% crit chance), I get around 4.8% damage off 30% crit damage.
This is not counting in Retributive Armor from Valor (0.9% damage for 3% crit in gears with no toughness).

So yeah, crit damage becomes much more powerful the more crit you have. Like a lot more powerful.

Crit based works. You just need a lot of crit damage and precision to compliment each other.

I use the same build for SPvP. I would argue using Judge’s Intervention instead of Contemplation of Purity since we have so much condition removal already.

If you want to go full time greatsword, you can use 10/25/30/0/0 with 5 points to go into Vigorous Precision or Inspired Virtues. The GS’s change has no effect on this build since it doesn’t use any symbol trait or retaliation. In PvP, your enemies are not going to stand in your symbol anyway. I would argue it’s a buff in PvP since you get shorter recharge time on Leap of Faith.

In WvW, it suffers the same as any other melee builds. Greatsword would be better choice than sword/focus due to having more control and burst damage. My general tactic would be chain of light, judge’s intervention into whirling wrath. Most of the time they will not expect it since you teleport out of nowhere and crit them for 10k+. Then I would leap back and retreat to my group. You can use ZD from the sword instead of WW if you want, but it will does less damage (still a really good move in SPvP though, chain of light > teleport > ZD).

This build has been my build of choice for SPvP since beta (I frapped a video in beta if you want to check it out). For most of my time in WvW and PvE, I’ve been using the GS meditation build above until the crithammer.

In a full zerk set up, getting 6-8k crit is normal on solo play, at least with my old build. By the way, you cannot get 250% crit damage. I have no idea how you get the number, but at most you can get like 100-110% crit damage (without counting the 50% base). For my highest burst ever, it’s 23k (granted that I have few might stacks plus the boss has 21 vulnerabilities).

I like to call the hammer a “jack of all trade” weapon. Its damage is very good with the best chain attack in the game when traits into Writ of Persistence. For defense, you have permanent protection. On support, your group can stand in the symbol and leech the protection. The hammer also has a 5 seconds (4 if traited) recharge blast finisher. And finally, your #3, #4, and #5 of a hammer are fantastic for control. It certainly is the best all around weapon for guardian.

You can’t compensate for a loss of permanent protection on survivability. Even if you can extend Symbol of Faith to near permanent (doable with some boon duration runes and Writ of Persistence), protection is just better for survivability, especially when there’s a lot of incoming hits at once. Also, unless you have right-handed strength in Radiance with sword/torch, a hammer will out damage it. And when you switch to sword, your survivability will go down comparing to a guy just facerolling with a hammer and get the best of both world, offense and defense.

Not to say that mace for 0/5/30/30/5 wouldn’t work, but I can’t see a reason to use it instead of a hammer.

Hammer if you don’t mind the cast time of the 3rd hit.

I didn’t say “I could tank most dungeon without dodging”. I wrote “I rarely need to dodge”. Most of the bosses normal attacks can be soaked with just altruistic healing + protection (Kholer is a good example, you only need to dodge his pull). There’s some cases that the boss hit way too much that even 600 more armor won’t help (the troll in ac ex for example, every normal attacks deal more than 3k on protection boon plus 5 bleeds). On trash, good use of skills help tremendously. Such as the risen deadeyes, inquest, and risen guardian pull in arah ex, run both hallowed ground and syg to stop its stun. Use Gs to pull all of them into ring of warding.
These are just example. I’ve run a lot of dungeons which allows me to know the best trait/utilities set up for that particular pull.

Depending on the fights and the situation, I usually always have Writ of Persistence up instead of Empowering Might due to that’s our attacks are not fast and Symbol of Protection’s ticks don’t crit.

My set up is Writ of Exaltation/Superior Aria for Adept, Writ of Persistence for Master, and it’s either Empowering Might, Writ of Merciful, or Two-Handed Mastery for the last trait. I usually have Writ of Merciful if there’s more melee and Empowering Might if the group is more range-centric. For Two-Handed Mastery, I usually switch to it when I have to go greatsword on switch to maximize the damage.

I use a mix of berserker and precision/vit/healing gears. Even full berserkers, I can faceroll on most mobs with good rotation on shouts and consecrations.

Edit: Seems that I made a mistake. The 3rd hit is also called “Symbol of Protection” which screws me up when I look at the combat log. You’re right that’s it only gives 3 ticks without trait. Now it actually makes sense with Writ of Persistence giving 50% duration. This however will pump up the damage gain from 25% to 33% more damage to the symbol.

I tested in the mist. It gives 4 ticks without the trait. You’re also right that if you add in between dodges, you’ll get a more damage out with 2-handed mastery. But since this build survivability is really good in dungeon (Temple of Grenth is a meta dynamic event which requires a lot more than 5 people. Of course, tanking for a long time is not gonna be doable), I rarely even need to dodge in there. On fight that I actually need to keep dodging every time it’s up, grabbing a scepter to do range is better for damage.

Brutaly.6257:

snip

Due to no actual facts or numbers, please disregard my last post as anything serious. All those numbers was from my memory so I actually got a lot of things wrong since I couldn’t log on and get the real numbers. So I rush home after work to do some small tests:

Okay. Let’s talk Writ of Persistence. Symbol of Protection normally only gives 4 ticks of the symbol. With the trait, we get a total of 5 ticks or 25% total increase in damage. I also just want to note that Symbol of Protection is the only symbol on a weapon with 4 ticks (5 with the trait) comparing to others that have 5 ticks (7 with the trait).

I went into the mist. Take off all my armor and use a steady hammer. At 1051 attack, all three of my chains attack combine for 129 total damage excluding symbol. The symbol alone does 96 damage without Writ of Persistence. So overall, Symbol of Protection does a total of ~43% damage (96 out of 225) from our Hammer #1. With Writ of Persistence, it deals ~48% damage for the whole chain attack. So with Writ of Persistence, our hammer #1 damage is increased by 5%.

Two-Handed mastery, it reduces Mighty Blow from 5 to 4 seconds recharge. This does not allow you to use Mighty Blow every rotation (Hammer chain #1 > #2 MB > repeat). You will have around 1 second left on Might Blow to finish its recharge after completing the hammer chain. So to maximize your damage, you still have to go with Mighty Blow once every two chains (hammer chain #1 twice > #2 MB > repeat) since you don’t want downtime in your rotation. This also does not include in that you have to delay your Mighty Blow for a combo field (wait for an elementalist to put down a fire field so you can give might to your group for example). So in a PvE environment (dungeons or dynamic events), Two-Handed Mastery will not improve your damage in a Patchwerk style fight. However, this is not to say that Two-Handed Mastery is useless. There’s time that you want to smash Mighty Blow every time it’s up for the burst AoE damage, but in my humble opinion, the 1 second is not gonna make much of a difference. The trait still reduces other skills and weapons which still makes it a fantastic trait, but in a strictly DPS point of view for a hammer, it’s not a good one for damage.

So overall, do you want a permanent protection boon without points in Virtues or any rune (up to 5-6 seconds extra to move between) and 5% damage to your chain attack or 20% reduction on recharge time for ALL two-handed weapons, not just the hammer.

A hammer build guardian can soak up most of the mob’s damage (thanks god for permanent protection) beside the big attacks. It also doesn’t mean I can just sit and faceroll in melee. I still have to move out a bit to recover (waiting on cooldowns, etc…). Even though guardians are heavy armor class, we have the lowest HP so you still need to build for survivability. Running a dungeon with a glass cannon 30/30/10/0/0 in berserker’s gears for example is like asking for a repair bill.

Thanks for doing all the testing. I’ve always wondered how much is the gap between a lowbie and a downleveled 80.

Bobnintendo.1256:

I think it should just be targeted on the Ground. Like the Mesmer’s and the Ele’s teleport ability. I understand why they don’t want you to target allies. Imagine having to select your ally, teleport and then reselect the enemy. Feels very clunky compared to how dynamic GW2 combat currently is. I assume they made it this way because they didn’t want you to have to click your allies. But targeting it on the Ground would be perfect in my opinion, although it might be too good for escaping, especially with the instant meditations trait.

I really don’t know where to go with this skills, it’s an awesome concept but it’s hard to come up with a way it can really work in combat without being too strong.

There’s still problems with this such as using the skill to exploit teleporting for example (teleporting on top of the keeps in wvw).

@Brutaly

The best part with the crithammer setup is that i dont have to respecc for any activites in the game, im perfectly valid in all aspects.

I just swap some weapons, gear and utility and this alone convert me from a dps monster to a survivor and teamsupport soldier.

It’s true that this build is usable in anything beside SPvP when switching points around. In WvW , I can switch point around in 0/0/30/30/10 into a support staff so I pretty much use the same build. If I need to take command of the guerrilla squads, again I can switch around into a high mobility greatsword build. It’s quite versatile. However in SPvP, I use mostly one hand weapons which is why this 0/0/30/30/10 has no place in my SPvP style.

Back to the Consecration vs VoJ blind. In WvW, both are great but consecrations diminish greatly due to players’ movement (only wall of reflect is worthwhile in WvW). In dungeon and PvE, consecration is a clear winner due to monsters will just stand in your consecrations.
@Trooper

1) is longer symbol duration any good?

Here’s my take on the trait. It increases your symbol duration by 50%. That’s a 50% damage increase comparing to 27% flat damage from Symbolic Power in Zeal. Symbol of Protection is a really big part of your damage so 50% duration makes it even better. With Writ of Persistence, your hammer should have the BEST damage chain attack in the game. It also allows you to keep protection permanently without boon duration increase. In conclusion, it’s a must take for a hammer build since it helps both offensively and defensively.

MysticoN.5068:

Not sure if you acept my answer, but here it goes.

1) Wel it gives you longer time to finish your combo, it also trigger 7 times instead of 5. so thats another 77 x2 (+/-) hp for each group member walking over it.

So it all comes down to what you have to get rid of to get Writ of Persistence.

I run with Empowering might and two handed mastery. I find that bether due to more mighty blow (its our bread and butter) and i also run with 2 two handed weapons.

cant answer nr 2 since i havent tested it my self yet.

Symbol of Protection ticks 4 times without the trait. So you get the full 50%, makes it a 6 secs duration.

Here’s an easier explanation of how much damage it will do:
If I remember correctly, the chain will do around 2k damage (not counting symbol), while the symbol alone is 1400 damage (this is downlevel to 35 in AC ex, don’t remember 80 stats). But due to that symbol cannot crit, so it’s damage account to be anywhere from 40-50% (not exact number, just a guess). So 50% increase duration will up your damage by about 20-25% for your chain attack.

Out of all the traits in Honor for Valor, Writ of Persistence is a MUST HAVE trait for a hammer build.

Personally, I see two handed mastery as overrated for a hammer. Beside 3, 4, and 5 which rarely gets used, only might blow cd is reduced. In a rotation, you’ll have to delay mighty blow for symbol of protection with or without 2h trait (chainx 2 > mb > repeat). You’ll also have to delay MB for combo field in a lot of cases too.

Above is all perspective in PvE and dungeons. In PvP, things are much different. For example, you can’t stand in SoP for the whole 6 seconds. It’s the same with your enemies. They’re gonna stand inside SoP for the whole duration. Hammer #3, 4, and 5 are used much more in PvP making 2h mastery trait much more valuable. I just want to add a PvE perspective into this instead of making it an all PvP thread since the crithammer build is probably the BEST at running dungeons and PvE.

MysticoN.5068:

For me its mainly going to play sPvP, WvW and some solo pvp.

I use the crithammer for pve and dungeon. I go offensive meditation in spvp and support build for wvw.

MysticoN.5068:

I also think its superior in both PvE and PvP. Dont think that 5 points in randiance is worth it alone, you need to put another 10 points into it then.

I know that Wall of Reflect is good (tho i havent even tryed it yet) but i cant find room for in my build.

*stand your ground – my only CC protection
*hold the line – Self surv, self heal and group buff
*Purging flames – For dmg and combo that give might and heal.

So realy strugle to what i should get rid of for the wall of reflection :/ This is also the first time i run without a Condition remover utility, hope those 2 each 10 sec is going to be enough.

Going to miss smite Condition for sure. Good dmg and its so nice to use it for instant condition remover.

I have the same utility set up. I’m rotating Purging Flames, Hallowed Ground (amazing in Arah Ex in conjunction with SYG), and Wall of Reflect depending on the situation. Wall of Reflect is total pwnage on fights like Kudu or last boss in Arah Ex jotun.

Melizande.7230:

@ MysticoN and Trungalung

How does that affect your stats or gear choices if you have no points in Radiance? That’s a lot of lost Crit.

The 5 points in Radiance is only 50 precision which is only around 2-3% crit (21 precision for each % ). I already have 40% crit on both my damage and support gear sets which is plenty.

0/0/30/30/10 is what I run for dungeons. Master of Consecration is amazing. Allows you to do two fire blast finishers with Surging Flame (6 mights). Switch it out for Wall of Reflect and it’s ownage on some fight. It’s clearly superior to the 5 points in Radiance for dungeons.

Trying to put a new set together with a dark theme.

I think he meant 3333 attack, not power.

Ruby Orb x6 for straight up damage.

Currently using my own customized Crithammer build with berserker’s gears. I’ll say give it a try since it’s exceptionally strong in dungeons and PvE. You can find a whole thread about it at the top of the page.

@Danicco

Valor is not all toughness. It also provides crit damage. Depending how high is crit chance, that 30% will boost your total damage substantially (at 50% crit chance, it’s 15% damage overall from the bonus). According to 80 berserker gears, every % of crit damage equals to about 12-14 stats. Therefore, every point in Valor will equal to 12-14 stat bonus comparing to every point in Zeal for 10 power stats.

Schakal.6091:

Trungalung.7850

Hm…Since Selfless Daring is 1:1 scaling, I’m quite intrigued by the idea of stacking precision/vita/healing gears then just roll around in a dungeon. However, I also fear that Selfless Daring may be bugged due to it having a way too high scaling comparing to other skills. Anyone with full healing gears plus the sigil that can comment on how much it heals would be deeply appreciated. If every roll is 2k heals, it’s extremely powerful.

My line of thinking here is, most any other heal is a two-way street. Do I burn it now and risk having it on CD when someone gets spiked down, or do I trust the other guy can take a few more hits? Selfless Daring adds the consideration that you might not have the Endurance you need when you need to dodge. Also, incidental healing when you do dodge is likely to not be ideally timed.

The latter is me assuming you’re dodging out of a big attack and someone else gets hit. Chances are your healing hits before he takes the damage, not after. Unless you’re cutting it really close at any rate.

Or it might be an oversight. But I could see how it can get away with being comparatively powerful.

You rarely ever need to do a double dodge in dungeon. So you can always use the first dodge to heal your group and save the rest of the endurance in case you need to evade the attack. With vigor, it takes about 5 seconds to regenerate half of your endurance. So depending on how much it heals with full healing gears, the heal may be worth it to build around.

Really weird that how my hp in the tab is only 13k comparing to 14.6k on my hp glob.

Hm…Since Selfless Daring is 1:1 scaling, I’m quite intrigued by the idea of stacking precision/vita/healing gears then just roll around in a dungeon. However, I also fear that Selfless Daring may be bugged due to it having a way too high scaling comparing to other skills. Anyone with full healing gears plus the sigil that can comment on how much it heals would be deeply appreciated. If every roll is 2k heals, it’s extremely powerful.

@ImariKurumi
I saw precision/vita/healing at the AC vendor.

There’s a set with precision/vita/healing which fits pretty well with Vigorous Precision if you want to go support route.

The crithammer build’s survivability is so good because the fact that you have protection up time at permanent or close to. There’s no way GS can come close to that. Since its survivability is so great, it allows you to use damage gears such as berserker without consequences. About the damage of hammer, it has the best damage chain attack with Writ of Persistence. It also has great synergy with Altruistic Healing that adds even more survivability.

For GS, you can go offensive meditations. It’s either 10/25/30/0/5 or 10/0/30/20/5 with 5 spare points for w/e (or 0/15/30/20/5 if you want to take Renewed Justice). The first one will be more “bursty” due to the 10% extra damage and crit bonus from Radiance. The second one will provide more survivability with Vigorous Precision, Selfless Daring, and keeping 2-Handed Mastery. Run double or triple meditation utilities and you should be able to survive.

For dungeon running, Crithammer will destroy any build out there. It’s packed with offensive and defensive power as well as the ability to give out boons and heals as support (permanent protection in melee).

If it’s not in there, then there’s probably no set with that combination.

For the people that use +boons duration for hammer, do you think you need that extra boon duration to keep it permanent? With just one single trait Writ of Persistence (symbol lasts longer), you’ll already be able to maintain permanent protection in a Hammer chain #1 > #2 Mighty Blow then repeating #1 twice > #2.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor_Stat_Combinations

Yrch.2086:

Envy.6902:

You definitely want a meditation build.
This is my trait set up that works with particular gear.
Berserker Armor and Valk Jewelry with 10/10/30/20/0.
I have 3.1k attack, 40% crit, 90% crit damage, 2500 armor, 16.1k health.
My utilities include 2 meditations which heal for about 2.5k each, with one of them having a 15 second cooldown essentially making it’s effective heal per 30 seconds the 2nd best heal for a Guardian (Signet of Resolve being the highest, marginally.)
I use Judge’s intervention because it’s a 1200 range blink, inflicts burning which activates the 10% damage to burning from the zeal tree, and it heals for 2.5k from the meditations now heal trait. I use Smite Condition because it removes a condition, does nice burst (3-4k aoe crits), and another 2.5k that you can use every 15 seconds with the reduce meditation cooldown trait. My last utility is Retreat and that’s just because to me mobility is king, but you could put another meditation there and have three 2.3k heals on top of your signet of resolve.
Let me know if you try it out and tell me what you think.

this may sound stupid as a question:

is this a PvP build?
you mention valk jewels and the only ones i can find are the ones from the pvp venor in the mists.

Search for Beryl stuffs on the AH, it’s power/vita/c.damage. I also want to note that Monk’s Focus (meditation heal) only heals for 2k while Signet of Resolve can heal up to 8k (smite conditionx 2: 32 secs cd for 4k heals, signet of resolve: 32 secs cd for 8k). He kinda oversells its effect.

On Zealous Blade, if all you WW hit (14 hits) combining with SoW on a single target, you’ll heal for 475 in one combo (19 hits x25). Also, the chance of you to land all 7 projectiles is not dependable so the heals would be less (on average, it’s around 2-5 projectile hits). However, this is not taking into account of other attacks beside WW and SoW.

Against 5 mobs, it’s 7 hits from WW (total of 35 hits on 5 monsters) plus 7 projectiles and SoW will give 25 hits (5 hits x 5). Total of 67 (35 + 7 + 25) hits which is 1675 heals in one combo. On AoE, I’ll say this trait is exceptionally strong and get stronger with the more mobs. Again, this is not taking into account of other attacks beside SoW and WW.

Imo, I don’t like this trait since it forces me to use only one weapon, but it’s not a bad trait at all.

Inspired Virtue is already strong just for the 3x mights. I think of it like a Warrior’s Signet of Might (however with 2 less might but effect your whole group). 5 points for an extra signet in theory, I’ll take it. It also has great synergy with Renewed Justice for some might stacking. Regen and Protection bonuses are just a plus. There’s time that you have to activate them because they’re your last line of defense (they can save you). The only tier 1 minor that is better than Inspired Virtue is Vigorous Precision. Also, Virtue of Justice passive will activate more with sword and hammer (activate once every chain attacks) thus overall, it will deal more damage than activating VoJ. This only applies on solo however.

Can’t really edit the thing, I meant to say use a mix of knight and soldier gears.

Those builds are for dungeons. For WvW, I’ve used and be successful with 10/25/30/0/5. Unless it’s a small battle, once you get caught by a zerg, you’re gonna die anyway no matter how high is your toughness. My toughness is at 2400 in full zerk. If you want higher, you can use Knights instead. My HP is low, but meditation build is a big counter against conditions so I don’t really have trouble. I also use guerrilla tactic in most of my time in WvW. Command a small high mobility group to flank the other team zerg army. Use the teleport surprise attack and one shot lowbie while the main zerg is too busy pushing without looking back.

I’ve run AC ex extensively (got1800 tears). Here’s a few points in doing this.

For Hodgins path, you’ll want to leave the first north burrow up and kill the others. Leave one person behind to keep it from overwhelming. The point of this is to delay the spawning of scavengers (burrow on the southeast) which is the cause of wipes in 99% of my runs. After the 5th burrow is down, leave a few to defend Hodgins against the scavengers. I usually just leave 4 to defend him since I can solo the last burrow by myself quite quick.

For Tzar’s collector, it’s a DPS race. Drag elites on top of the burrow and AoE it down. This is totally depending on your group composition. If you have too many crit base, condition, or support builds in your group. You’re pretty screwed. Tell your group change their weapons ahead such as a support guardian to go GS for more burst damage.

For dpsing the burrows, if you’re melee, you have to move/wiggle around it so you can successfully land the hits. Pure power spike damage is ideal against this since conditions and crit are useless.

If you’re struggle with staying alive, you can use the offensive meditation build and go 2-3 med utilities to keep yourself up. It’s either 10/30/30/0/0 for one hand or 10/25/30/0/5 for two hands.

You can also use a more versatile meditation/altruistic build with 0/15/30/20/5 (or 10/0/30/20/10) build, but it will be less damage than the other two. However, if you grab a hammer, you’ll live much longer in melee with these builds.

All of the builds above requires a high amount of crit if you’re going to be doing damage. Knights, Berzerkers, or even the precision/vit/healing gears would be best.

Every crit % will give you 0.5% damage increase overall since you’re not gonna increase your crit damage. So every 21 precision, it’s a 0.5% damage. The more crit damage you have, the more valuable precision is. Precision is also valuable for all the on-crit sigils.

Before 40, you can trait however you want them. My recommendation would be: 20% shout reduction in Honor, 10% damage increase against burning targets from Zeal, and Inspired Virtues in Virtues.

After you hit 40 and get the book to unlock your next tier, I would strongly recommend 10/15/0/0/5 (take Fiery Wrath in Zeal). Every time you kill a foe, your Virtue of Justice resets. This allows you to spam it when AoEing mobs (thus stacking Mights from Inspired Virtue). Since you will have VoJ up most of the time, it will guarantee the mob on fire to get the bonus of Fiery Wrath.

For the AC scavengers, there’s a lot of things to counter it:

First is pretty typical. Dodge it. There’s an obvious animation you should watch out for. After you dodge it, don’t be stupid and stand in front of it.
If you somehow got knocked down, you can stun break out and dodge back then proceed to go behind it. The same scavenger will NOT stun you again due to it’s being too busy hitting nothing.
If there’s more than one scavenger, they will generally both do the knock down at the same time or close to.
You can interrupt them while they’re on top of someone.
Don’t be stupid and stand in front of them after the leap.

I think the change makes it more in line with other retaliation traits that we have.

I’d give you the range weapon in PvP thing since it’s actually a valid point. In PvE, we’re extremely strong. You just have bad groups so it’s not the guardian profession that needs help. You should communicate with your group more coordinating strategies, synergies, and cross profession combos. If I’m a warrior or any other class looking for dungeons, I’ll take a guardian and an elementalist first due to the utilities that they bring.

Like Bassario pointed out, communication is a good thing. Get to know their builds and roles so you guys can create synergy. Like when I group with elementalists, I usually tell them put Geyser/Lava Font next to me so I can use MB for the blast finisher. Or tell them to stay behind our Wall of Reflect against range monsters.

I prefer GS for leveling but other weapons still work wonderfully. Definitely recommend that you have all the weapons in the bag and unlock all the skills. Other weapons I’d recommend are: sword/torch, scepter/focus, and hammer. A guardian can also be built to do anything: damage, defensive, or support.

It only increases endurance regen and it’s not “tiny”. It’s 100% for god sake. It is one of the best trait we get as guardians, and with decent crit, it’s a permanent boon. It also has good synergy with Altruistic Healing, Power of the Virtuous, and Selfless Daring.

Your build is support heavy so probably grabbing a staff and sit in the back and spam boons and heals. For stats, a mix with toughness/vita for survivability and healing would be good.