11 replies to this topic

[mkingan]

First let me say thanks in advance to any input i get. I am new to the guild wars and still learning the ins and outs. I am playing a guardian and last night hit level 60 and ready to buy my manual and reset everything till 80. i have read so much out there on what leveling build to use that i'm starting to get confused. It seems that some put most in zeal and radiance others go for valor and honor. I am basiclly  always solo unless an event pops up and others are near. I havent done any intances or any other events except PVE. Trying but can't seem to get in. Anyway i use GS as primary weapon and secpter/torch as secondary. so far been pretty good to me. Now that i'm at 60 what trait lines should i focus on to be able to continue my solo play? I don't have the greatest gear (greens) all with power, prec, crit. i'm just looking to have enough power to solo veterns and quests but still survive. Please point me in the right direction. thanks!

[jpg1]

Some people think that since Guardian are innately Defensive that they can actually shave off some points from the defensive traits Valor  and/or Honor. This may work for some, though I haven't tried it. Given that you're a newcomer to the Guild Wars world, I'd probably want to try mixing offense and defense first. You said your Gears are all for Power/Precision/Critical Damage so I think it's best for you to invest points in Honor at least to extend your HP pool. Guardians have a health pool similar to Elementalists, so if you stick mainly in melee a larger health cap will be a friend to you.

Here's a level 60 build, I would probably use. (That's more or less 50 points.) I basically used the usual route of getting a reset on Justice when I kill or tag a mob so your offense is boosted constantly. I also went for maximum Honor so I get to buff Two-Hand Recharge and buffs to Shouts/Symbols. You can basically switches the shouts to what best serves the situation you are about to get into. I also pick Signet Heal since it's the highest heal value, and Signet of Judgement on passive so you have 10% damage reduction by default. (43% when you hit "Hold the Line!")

I used Mace and Focus as a back-up set so you can get into a defensive style when you need it. You can swap it for the Scepter if you need to use range. (Always have it with you, even though it's not the best range weapon in the game.)

[Gerroh]

You've made a smart choice in having one melee set and one ranged set. I really don't get how anyone can play with two melee sets, the ability to switch to the backline or put some distance between you and your enemy when needed is invaluable.
I'll try to be concise, my only advice is that you play what you enjoy. PvE general is easy enough that you don't have to have a perfectly set up build, especially if this is your first character. Just take it easy and do what you like to do.
Greatsword - Easy to use, high damage, good for slaughtering things en masse.
Hammer - More defensive than greatsword, has a lot of control, a bit more complex to use.
1h Sword - Pretty much like the greatsword, primarily offensive
Mace - Pretty much like the hammer, but uses healing instead of protection and control. Very defensive.
Staff - A must-have for any guardian, in my opinion. I wouldn't even take a guardian seriously if they said staff sucks. It has everything you need, but no strong focus aside from support.
Scepter - It's pretty awful compared to ranged weapons on other professions, but it's workable, and I keep one with me in case I need the 1200 range.
Focus - I don't use it much, but it is primarily defensive and slightly trickier to use than the shield.
Shield - Primarily defensive, of course. Great for saving lives. The bubble shield can also be used to interrupt and push enemies.
Torch - Offensive weapon, does really well at adapting to a variety of ranges and maintaining burning on enemies. It's got some other side benefits that are too small and too many to list off, mainly to do with synergy with traits.


I see a lot of people suggest mace/focus, but I think that's going way overboard with the defense. I used mace/torch for awhile and my defense was just fine, I was able to keep myself alive using dodging, blocking, and common sense.

As for utilities, again, use what's the most fun for you. I've had success with shouts, consecrations(which are totally underrated), and meditations. I don't like spirit weapons much myself, but I've seen people use them effectively. Don't do a 4-signet build, because 4+ signets on any profession is usually garbage.
Shouts are easy to use, meditations a little more difficult, and consecrations are probably the most difficult to use to their full potential due to the importance of placement. That said, there are a few pve bosses that will take a beating from wall of reflection(a consecration) and you can hit for like 100k against one of them if you reflect their projectiles.

[mkingan]

Excellent thanks to both! i'll take your advice and go from there. i haven't tried a staff just cause i was thinking melee with staff??? that's a bit odd. but i see it more and more. i mainly use the septer to peel one from a mob to get them in melee range. thanks again ill try the build out! thanks again appreciate it!

[GuanglaiKangyi]

jpg1, on 13 December 2012 - 12:11 AM, said:

Some people think that since Guardian are innately Defensive that they can actually shave off some points from the defensive traits Valor  and/or Honor. This may work for some, though I haven't tried it. Given that you're a newcomer to the Guild Wars world, I'd probably want to try mixing offense and defense first. You said your Gears are all for Power/Precision/Critical Damage so I think it's best for you to invest points in Honor at least to extend your HP pool. Guardians have a health pool similar to Elementalists, so if you stick mainly in melee a larger health cap will be a friend to you.

Here's a level 60 build, I would probably use. (That's more or less 50 points.) I basically used the usual route of getting a reset on Justice when I kill or tag a mob so your offense is boosted constantly. I also went for maximum Honor so I get to buff Two-Hand Recharge and buffs to Shouts/Symbols. You can basically switches the shouts to what best serves the situation you are about to get into. I also pick Signet Heal since it's the highest heal value, and Signet of Judgement on passive so you have 10% damage reduction by default. (43% when you hit "Hold the Line!")

I used Mace and Focus as a back-up set so you can get into a defensive style when you need it. You can swap it for the Scepter if you need to use range. (Always have it with you, even though it's not the best range weapon in the game.)

Actually your best DPS options are in the defensive lines, so you can actually go full defensive trait-wise and still have optimal offense.  The +30% crit damage from Valor line gives about the same amount of overall damage as the +15% you'd get from Radiance line and Empowering Might/Elusive Power/Two-Handed Mastery in Honor lines are all substantial sources of damage.  The only other comparable line DPS-wise is Radiance.  You can get most of the benefit from Zeal just going 10 points in so I wouldn't bother with that one.

At 60 I'd recommend just going 30 in Valor (for AH, which is the most faceroll trait ever) and putting the rest into Honor.  You will get more of a damage boost from Empowering Might than from any other use of 20 points except via Zeal, but you'll lose a ton of defense as well.

[draxynnic]

Zeal is pretty lacklustre - I'd probably say 10 points at most for Fiery Wrath and access to Protector's Impact if you're going to be doing vistas and jumping puzzles with the character. Mostly, though, you can get power of gear, Might stacks, and other sources.

Beyond that... I'd say it probably depends in part on how much you expect to face hordes of weak enemies alone, and how much you expect to face smaller groups of powerful foes which are individually hard to take down. I would regard at least 10 Valor, 20 Honor, and 10 Virtues pretty much mandatory for Retributitive Armor, Empowering Might and Master of Consecrations respectively. If you're on your own against hordes of weak foes, 15+ in Radiance really shines - if you keep up with your Justice activations, you can get a lot of blinds, burns, and Might stacks from that - while Altruistic Healing doesn't really help if you're on your own. Conversely, if you're facing powerful foes with a lot of allies (like many dungeon situations, where even the trash mobs are often more powerful than veterans outside the dungeon), Renewed Justice isn't going to proc very often, while the benefit of Altruistic Healing scales up.

Now, if you're not as inordinately fond of well-placed Walls of Reflection as I am, you could potentially get the best of both worlds with a 0/15/30/20/5 spread. But that's just crazy talk.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

I never saw the point of those Radiance traits.  Blind is pretty useless in general and otherwise a 5s burn on one target and +5% damage for 5 seconds isn't really worth investing 15 points in traits for.  You'd be better off just putting those extra points in Zeal for Fiery Wrath (+10%) and Honor (+10% from Elusive Power).  You'll get a bigger constant damage damage boost and you don't even need to kill things to do it.

[jpg1]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 13 December 2012 - 04:27 AM, said:

Actually your best DPS options are in the defensive lines, so you can actually go full defensive trait-wise and still have optimal offense.  The +30% crit damage from Valor line gives about the same amount of overall damage as the +15% you'd get from Radiance line and Empowering Might/Elusive Power/Two-Handed Mastery in Honor lines are all substantial sources of damage.  The only other comparable line DPS-wise is Radiance.  You can get most of the benefit from Zeal just going 10 points in so I wouldn't bother with that one.

At 60 I'd recommend just going 30 in Valor (for AH, which is the most faceroll trait ever) and putting the rest into Honor.  You will get more of a damage boost from Empowering Might than from any other use of 20 points except via Zeal, but you'll lose a ton of defense as well.

Given that he is using Power/Precision/Critical Damage Gear, I see your point. Agreed.

[Snarvid]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 13 December 2012 - 05:46 AM, said:

I never saw the point of those Radiance traits.  Blind is pretty useless in general and otherwise a 5s burn on one target and +5% damage for 5 seconds isn't really worth investing 15 points in traits for.  You'd be better off just putting those extra points in Zeal for Fiery Wrath (+10%) and Honor (+10% from Elusive Power).  You'll get a bigger constant damage damage boost and you don't even need to kill things to do it.

Blind is useless?  For unshakable creatures, sure, but besides that its pretty strong pve (ie this forum). Jump in greatsword aoe blind, when enemy whiffs Justice aoe blind, enemy whiffs, you've got aegis and two dodges left to kill something and renew your blind.

Also, the burn and might get pretty punchy when you're applying them to four allies as well.

[draxynnic]

Indeed, blinding every foe around you can stop a lot of hits landing, and that can mean a lot of damage (and possibly more importantly, control) prevention, especially if you time it for when a couple of them are winding up something big.

I've also been in situations where foes were dying so quickly that Justice was being recharged every couple of seconds... and thus could be reapplied just as rapidly. Admittedly, this doesn't happen every combat, but such constant reapplication of Might plus regular reapplication of Blind means that when you are in a large mob of creatures with lots of deaths, you can pretty much shut them down entirely as long as you're in their faces.

So one way to look at it is that you're essentially getting another Courage virtue - the ability to stop a hit from landing - except it stops the next hit from every enemy that's around you. And it has a base 30s recharge instead of 90s. And it automatically renews whenever something you've tagged dies*. The extra damage output from the burn and Might stacks is basically an added bonus. And, lest we forget, the extra Precision does mean that you're critting more often and thus proccing Empowering Might more often for bigger Might stacks.

Comparing your proposal: Altruistic Healing is something that distinctly drops off in usefulness when you're alone and thus only have yourself for AH to proc off. Fiery Wrath requires the enemy to be burning, which on your own is going to be harder to maintain if untraited Justice is all you've got to apply it with. Now, if you're primarily building for dungeons, where you've always got a team to apply buffs to and to keep up Burning on your target, and where foes are tougher and die less often, that is going to change the context somewhat.

*Note: I've noticed this doesn't always work in some personal story steps. Probably a bug.

Edited by draxynnic, 14 December 2012 - 11:50 PM.

[KaptainO]

At 60 I like 10/25/0/10/5

10% more damage vs burning things
10% more damage vs things that have a condition on them
20% less cd on signet (your heal)
20% less cd on shouts
Virtue of Justice AoE blinds and AoE Mights
Virtue of Justice refreshes when you kill a mob.

If you can tear yourself away from GS, move 5pts from either Valor or Virtues to Radiance so you can get Right Handed Strength for another 15% crit chance with 1 handed weapons then run sword/torch to keep burning on stuff and sceptre/focus (or sword/focus and sceptre/torch).  For utilities run Judge's Intervention (stun break, teleport and aoe burning) then you can run 2 shouts or 1 shout and the Consecration that puts a fire field on the ground and causes burning to enemies and removes conditions from allies.  For Elite run the one that makes you invulnerable for 3sec and refreshes all your virtues.

[indure]

draxynnic, on 13 December 2012 - 11:08 PM, said:

Indeed, blinding every foe around you can stop a lot of hits landing, and that can mean a lot of damage (and possibly more importantly, control) prevention, especially if you time it for when a couple of them are winding up something big.

I've also been in situations where foes were dying so quickly that Justice was being recharged every couple of seconds... and thus could be reapplied just as rapidly. Admittedly, this doesn't happen every combat, but such constant reapplication of Might plus regular reapplication of Blind means that when you are in a large mob of creatures with lots of deaths, you can pretty much shut them down entirely as long as you're in their faces.

So one way to look at it is that you're essentially getting another Courage virtue - the ability to stop a hit from landing - except it stops the next hit from every enemy that's around you. And it has a base 30s recharge instead of 90s. And it automatically renews whenever something you've tagged dies*. The extra damage output from the burn and Might stacks is basically an added bonus. And, lest we forget, the extra Precision does mean that you're critting more often and thus proccing Empowering Might more often for bigger Might stacks.

Comparing your proposal: Altruistic Healing is something that distinctly drops off in usefulness when you're alone and thus only have yourself for AH to proc off. Fiery Wrath requires the enemy to be burning, which on your own is going to be harder to maintain if untraited Justice is all you've got to apply it with. Now, if you're primarily building for dungeons, where you've always got a team to apply buffs to and to keep up Burning on your target, and where foes are tougher and die less often, that is going to change the context somewhat.

^ Great post. As for AH I completely agree. At 80 AH is not all that helpful when soloing, and at 60 without Exotics to support the build, it is even worst. By going 30 into Valor for AH, you get terrible Minor traits, terrible Major traits, and some decent attributes. Don't get me wrong, I personally use a 30 Valor build at 80, but that is because I do a lot of group content; WvW and dungeons.

Edited by indure, 14 December 2012 - 07:12 PM.