My Guardian Build

I was asked this week by Inunabe what my plans were for gear and build.  This by no means is the end all be all guide, it's just what I've built so far and my plans for the future.  So far, it's served me very well with the weapons and style of play I like.  If you're more a ranged guardian or glass cannon, it may not fight the bill.

Weapon choices

I run hammer/staff, but I love to be in players' faces.  If you're more of a ranged guy, Scepter torch is a great option.  Staff just can't be beat as a support tool in WvW, but it has terrible range for fighting on or at walls.  With hammer, I get 3 cc's: Ring of Warding, Zealot's Embrace, and Banish.  With staff, you get mainly one (line of warding), but you can use symbol of swiftness (SoS) to close the distance or run away.  If I'm on the offensive and running after someone I typically pop SoS to catch up, cast LoW behind their path of retreat, then switch to hammer, use ZE if I have to, cast RoW if I need to, introduce them to the working end of my hammer, Banish back into our zerg if appropriate and use any remaning cc if they try to get away or switch back to staff if they do get away. 

Stats

I'm personally going to go for stats in the following manner:

1. Toughness
2. Healing
3. Vitality
4. Power

Only issue is all the gear I've seen, if I go for the top 3, give Power no matter what.  So even though Power is lower on my priority list, I'll still get a lot of power added to my character.  Upside of that is no matter what I use, I will do halfway decent damage.  Downside is I'm not a 100% tank (which from looking at all the available gear, no one has that option).

I'll be either doing 50/50 cleric named gear (only the stuff that has power/toughness/healing) and invader gear (only the stuff that has power/vitality/toughness) or 66/33.  Be aware that some "cleric" items or possibly even "invader" items have +condition or +precision-I plan on not using these at all.  Right now I'm leaning towards 50/50, but I go that route and later find I'm not happy with my +healing, I'll switch a couple pieces out to get 66/33 cleric/invader.

Trait Build/Utility Skill Choice

As I said in game, I'm doing 10/30/30 with 10 in toughness/30 in healing/vitality, and 30 in boons/virtues.  I try to keep retaliation up 100% if possible and use "Stand Your Ground" in this regard, but also for its stability effect.  I also slot "Wall of Reflection" for its protection for retreating but also to hurt range zergs greatly.  "Signet of Judgement" is also fantastic for my style for its extra 10% damage reduction, but also because I can cast aoe Retaliation on friendlies to help keep that boon up (with Stand Your Ground, I can aoe cast Retaliation about 50-60% of the time if I'm really trying).  For healing, I use "Signet of Resolve" since it gives the most personal healing over time and helps remove conditions (although how this synergizes with "Purity" is anyone's guess-I'm hoping the two of them remove two conditions every ten seconds, but I haven't been able to test it).  If I'm worried about being stun-locked while using SoR, I will typically pop "Stand Your Ground" before I use it, especially if I have half a zerg on me.  I also love that "Stand Your Ground" prevents the knockback that downed players get as skill #2--great for solo killing two players or more, but also to help zergs kill players more effectively.   

Major Trait Selections

For the valor line, I picked "purity" for the passive condition removal.

Because I try to keep retaliation up at all times, for the Honor line, I've picked "Wrathful Spirit" and for my weapons "Two-handed Mastery" (this is something you may not want/need, but it's extremely useful for someone like me that both choice weapons are two-handed).  For group support I picked Battle Presence (but I may just use this for pve and pick "Pure of Voice" for WvW--I need to play with these more.)

For the "Virtues" line, I picked "Vengeful" to increase my retaliation refreshers (but if I'm doing prolonged defense, I'll pick "Master of Consecrations").  For PvE I typically pick "Improved Spirit Weapon Duration."  Initially I used this in WvW for when I soloed, but the knockback from the hammer actually made it harder for me to close the distance and the knockback would actually knock them out of my ring of warding much to my dismay.  I usually always have "Consecrated Ground" up for WvW for when I use "Wall of Reflection" but I also might include "Sanctuary" for Defensive sieges and attempts at using Pandora.  If I can alternate Line of Warding and Sanctuary on a door with other Guardians while we have 3 arrow carts firing on that location we could kill a LOT of enemies.  Finally I've picked "Absolute Resolution" because not only does it mean I get better +regen, but if I have a lot of conditions on me, it'll remove THREE instantly (and possibly everyone around me).  Very handy if I'm going against someone that has condition dps build. 

Wrap-up

A ton of information, but hopefully it gives some ideas about what you can do with a guardian.  I've personally had a lot of success with this build so far.  If anyone has a build for ranged guardians, by all mean, post it. 

Is there also an offensive build you like to play on during WvW as well?

hard to say , i have tried with up to 700 healing power and it was barely better then having just 200 from points in honor , from reading the forums they talk about having 1300 + healing but when they read off the stats of the healing its not much more . according to what i have read healing power scales really bad , you can try it but for me i`d rather just go knight set , power, perc /toughness slot vitaly runes and vitalty jwewlry for hit points since guardiand have low hp base . You could go for the gear off the dungeon or karma vendors that is power/tough/vital . then go with your build , and use swaping out traits or wep set if you need to be more support role . like i`m playing around with a 10 radience , 20 valor, 20 honor 20 virture build atm that gives me the passive buffs and boost to virture to help allies , as well as swaping out a couple traits and wearing a mace instead of sword i can pick larger symbols and all symbols heal , combined with dodge heals allies along with resolve passive heals and aoe heal on use to help support , you can run save yourself to pull conditions from people around you then trait resolve cleasnse 3 conditions off you trait , or use purity to turn all conditions into boons etc , lots of possiblites . or run purging flames , you can build your guardian for pure dps and their are some great guides , i tend to run all my melee /hybrids as a balance spec good surivablity , with ablity to support and have enough dps to put up a fight and not wait there hoping someone shows up . If you need help or more info i`d suggest you head to GW2 GURU.com and browse both of the guardian forums they have 2 one for pve and 1 for pvp, they have several guides sticky at the top of each forums well worth reading them all to get better idea of what you like etc .

» Edited on: 2012-10-12 18:30:43