191 replies to this topic

[GuanglaiKangyi]

This is a pretty outdated thread.  You'll notice the last post was from back in February, and the OP is from September.  I'd go so far as to say that with the current PvE meta, none of the original post comments are really accurate anymore.

The current "requisite" meta for guardians at this point, I think, is;

1) 10 in Zeal.for Fiery Wrath.
2) 25 in Radiance for Radiant Power
3) 20 in Honor for Empowering Might

In other words, go 10/25/0/20/0 minimum on stats, and the rest is really up to you.  If you do that you'll have a strong all-rounder build that can tackle just about anything.  Personally, I prefer 10/30/0/30/0 as an all-rounder build, with the last 10 points in Honor being flexible.  You can put it into Virtues for Consecrations or Valor for the extra DPS, if you want, but it doesn't really make a huge difference.

[The_Kaizz]

I like the skeleton, the only issue I have a problem with is the first bullet, always having 10 points in Virtues. I don't use cons in dungeons. It's not that I don't think they're useful, I just don't like using them to much. Most of the time I have my 10 points in Zeal, just for a tad bit extra damage on burning foes. It really is hard to trade off having 5 points minimum in Virtues, though. I tried it for a month, and it's really hard not to have the extra boons anymore. Honestly, I'd change that to a minimum of 5 in Virtues. Really a matter of preference, because I run Mace/Focus+Staff/Hammer in dungeons, so I have enough support without the extra support from my Virtues.

[Feandro]

Wall of Reflection is amazing in fractals, that and the spirit weapon duration trait in the same line make the 10 points there worth it in Fractals.  Anywhere else, they're nice but not important.

Kangyi's skeleton is great for a damage build, I won't lie, although If i was going to have 25 points in Radiance, I'd throw in atleast 5 in virtues just to get might on F1 because you can spam it in mobs.

A more survivable build is the altruistic healing set up which sacrifices crit chance, not all that much damage though due to Toughness being tied with crit damage in that trait line.  I use this taking retirbutive armor and purity in the Valor, that said you are investing a lot of points into a trait which marginally increases your survivablity.

[Sarsans]

Royal_Guardian, on 29 April 2013 - 09:20 PM, said:

Somebody probably already answered this somewhere in the 7 pages of text, but after about 3 pages I got bored, so I figured I would just post my question. Is there a build that is effective for general PvE and dungeons/group play that doesnt require too much trait changing? I mean, changing a single trait for consecrations instead of spirit weapons or something is fine, but I dont want to have to go to the trait master every time I want to do dungeons I want to have max survivability, and weapons/gear doesnt matter at all, I'll run with whatever. Anyone got any ideas for specific traits?

NatasMC, on 29 April 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

0-0-30-30-10 beast in all aspect of the game

In reference to NatasMC's post above, I would suggest Strife's 'Anchor' build which I found of real help.  It can be found here:

http://www.guildwars...lyssa guardian

I also liked Venyarth's 'Guardian of Lyssa' build as well:

http://www.guildwars...lyssa guardian

Both have their pro's and con's - but this being said, you wont have to swap and change your traits very much in both PvE and dungeon settings.

Edited by Sarsans, 30 April 2013 - 01:51 PM.

[Strife025]

0-0-30-30-10 for anchor in a group with 4 other berserker classes in certain dungeons

or

0-30-0-30-10 for a dps build with full zerker gear and switching out 2 hand mastery for pure of voice in easier dungeons where you don't need an anchor.

If you don't want to retrait, then you want master of consecrations for pretty much any of the more challenging dungeons and almost every fractal, since warrior is better for pure dps class, the reason your guardian is there is for the utility while providing good dps, so giving up 10 in virtues and/or 30 in honor is only good if you only farm CoF and don't have a warrior.

Edited by Strife025, 01 May 2013 - 12:48 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Strife025, on 01 May 2013 - 12:47 AM, said:

0-0-30-30-10 for anchor in a group with 4 other berserker classes in certain dungeons

or

0-30-0-30-10 for a dps build with full zerker gear and switching out 2 hand mastery for pure of voice in easier dungeons where you don't need an anchor.

If you don't want to retrait, then you want master of consecrations for pretty much any of the more challenging dungeons and almost every fractal, since warrior is better for pure dps class, the reason your guardian is there is for the utility while providing good dps, so giving up 10 in virtues and/or 30 in honor is only good if you only farm CoF and don't have a warrior.

If you want 10 for Virtues, you should take it out of Honor, not Zeal.  Fiery Wrath is pretty much the best trait guardians have at this point and you'd be stupid not to take it.  By comparison Guardians don't really need any more than 20 in Honor for any weapon besides hammer (in which case you need both Writ of Persistence and Empowering Might).  Otherwise GS only gains about 4% damage from 2H Mastery or Writ of Persistence, compared to 10 in Zeal which gives about 5% from the extra power and 10% from Fiery Wrath.

[Shroomhead Fred]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 01 May 2013 - 02:08 AM, said:

If you want 10 for Virtues, you should take it out of Honor, not Zeal.  Fiery Wrath is pretty much the best trait guardians have at this point and you'd be stupid not to take it.  By comparison Guardians don't really need any more than 20 in Honor for any weapon besides hammer (in which case you need both Writ of Persistence and Empowering Might).  Otherwise GS only gains about 4% damage from 2H Mastery or Writ of Persistence, compared to 10 in Zeal which gives about 5% from the extra power and 10% from Fiery Wrath.

Just curious what you find so good about Fiery Wrath?

Doesn't seem that great if you're only burning skill is Virtue of Justice (5s burn with 30s CD).  If your utilities consist of Purging Flames & Judges Intervention, sure I can understand then.  The +50 power is useful, but stats can always be added through armour/trinkets.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Shroomhead Fred, on 01 May 2013 - 02:46 AM, said:

Just curious what you find so good about Fiery Wrath?

Doesn't seem that great if you're only burning skill is Virtue of Justice (5s burn with 30s CD).  If your utilities consist of Purging Flames & Judges Intervention, sure I can understand then.  The +50 power is useful, but stats can always be added through armour/trinkets.

It's very easy to maintain burning, especially in a dungeon group where you can get VoJ on all allies and stack it for 25 seconds.  Then you add in condition duration and any other potential incidental sources of burn and you've got 100% burn uptime, easily.

Even in regular open-world content, most guardian weapons hit for 2-3 times per second on average, so it's not too hard to get at least 50% burn uptime from passive Justice.

[Strife025]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 01 May 2013 - 02:08 AM, said:

If you want 10 for Virtues, you should take it out of Honor, not Zeal.  Fiery Wrath is pretty much the best trait guardians have at this point and you'd be stupid not to take it.  By comparison Guardians don't really need any more than 20 in Honor for any weapon besides hammer (in which case you need both Writ of Persistence and Empowering Might).  Otherwise GS only gains about 4% damage from 2H Mastery or Writ of Persistence, compared to 10 in Zeal which gives about 5% from the extra power and 10% from Fiery Wrath.

We don't take 2H mastery anyways, 30 honor is for pure of voice since the berserker guardians runs ruby orbs and condition removal is actually good if you run dungeons other then CoF which you wouldn't run on guardian anyways. This lets the warriors take frenzy most of the time.

[Drops]

Strife025, on 01 May 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

We don't take 2H mastery anyways, 30 honor is for pure of voice since the berserker guardians runs ruby orbs and condition removal is actually good if you run dungeons other then CoF which you wouldn't run on guardian anyways. This lets the warriors take frenzy most of the time.

This is my experience as well.  I am required to bring Pure of Voice and Master of Consecrations so the rest of my team can focus on other things.  0/30/0/30/10 is Identical to my 1h damage oriented setup.

I bring the requisite support first, then trait and gear to bring as much damage as I can after.

[Xunlai Agent]

Red_Falcon, on 24 September 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

The following are pretty much mandatory for any decent PvE Guardian, and also happen to be our best traits.
1) You'll always want at least 10 points in Virtues.
Minor is great, and T1 is needed because you can use it to either reduce CDs on Cons (which you'll use in all dungeons) and 50% longer-lasting spirit weapons (bow of truth AoE heal is huge).

I'm not interested in Spirit Weapons and as I run with another Guardian that has the reduced cooldown on consecrations I don't need to bring this. So no, I won't always want 10 points in virtues.

Red_Falcon, on 24 September 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

3) 5 points in Valor to get Aegis @ 50% health. A real wipe/life saver.

I am not going to waste five trait points and invest them in the worst trait line that Guardians have, How about no points in Valor? Sounds about right to me. If you need an automatic aegis @ 50% health then you need to consider focusing on improving your playstyle instead.

[Archon_Wing]

Mm, there's no point on picking on a post that was made not long after the game came out. Although this is probably why you should never say mandatory as the metagame evolves.

Though I admit the 15 radiance/5 valor (what??) makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in any context.