Guild Wars 2 Guardian Builds

In my time playing Guild Wars 2, I have learned that there is never one ultimate build that will allow you to become the best at tanking, healing, or dpsing. There are always more possibilities, and I have tried to make every build specialized to leave little room for hybrids. However as it turns out all of my builds were hybrids. So what I have started is to see how many different viable builds I can make for the Guardian.

Videos after the jump!


I have made 3 video guides on these builds I have created. I am always looking for input on them, so please leave a comment here, or on the videos over at YouTube.

Support Build:
This Guardian support build is very focused on ranged defense and it offers a ton of healing for you and your group mates in the process. This also offers a decent amount of ranged attack damage using Wall of Reflection, which causes all of your enemies ranged attacks to be reflected back at them. So this is a great skill to use to help protect your ranged allies, while still allowing you to do damage at the same time. The  skill Sanctuary is really the pride and joy of this build. If used to its full potential Sanctuary grants you 6 second invincibility that will also heal you and whoever else is in the bubble.

Dps Build:
This Guardian build is focused on dps (damage per second), using the power of your spirit weapons to burn and inflict a lot of damage. These pets (we refer to your spirit weapons as pets here) are going to be your main source of damage, they can easily do 2k+ damage on their commands and additional burn damage is applied. A lot of people attempt to use this type of build as a conditions build, but it falls short using only the condition damage. The amount of burning damage is not enough to do rely on, and you'd be losing as much as 66% of the total damage you could be doing. So for the build I made its primary consideration the three most important stats for a dps: Precision, Power, Vitality. Vitality is better than Toughness giving you more hp will give you better survive-ability from more sources of damage then just having toughness.

Tank Build:
This Guardian tank build will give you a nice alternative from the classic shout and altruistic healing that so many people use. It was my goal to not use shouts, creating something different from what has become the cookie-cutter tank build. It gives you a lot of tanking ability, and I continue to stress Vitality over Toughness in PVP because toughness does not protect you against condition damage. Every class has some sort of condition damage that they can inflict upon you. The skill I've chosen in this build will cut all the damage you take by 10%, essential for a tank. The second skill will enable you to remove a bunch of conditions and damages your enemy for each one removed. The last one can be used as a self-heal or ally heal. This item may not seem like it is worth it because of the long cool down, but it can be a real life saver if your ally is low you can teleport to them and the heal is very nice.

I am always interested in feedback on how my videos look and what I can do to improve them. Constructive criticism only please. Thank you for reading.  


Scott Hartley is a gamer, geek, and totally fascinated with science. He's also a contributing author to our site. You can read more stuff he has written on his personal blog: Physics Is Epic.