The Guardian is by far one of the best GW2 professions to play with fr soloing. It has a great balance of strength and defense that make it a real formidable adversary in combat. It can not only be a high DPS character but also a strong tank capable of absorbing tons of damage. This makes it ideal for soloing and also pretty useful in group play as a support class. Every group needs a tank and using this profession is perfect for that.
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What we’re going to focus on for this leveling build for the Guardian is a great blended build of both DPS and tank. This will work well for both PvE and PvP but, for now, we’re focusing on making it a leveling build for PvE play. We’re going to go over what weapons to use, traits you should build up, the best skills to use, utilities and everything else.
On to the actual build…
Guild Wars 2 Guardian Leveling Build
Here is a shot of the traits we’ll be using for the Guardian to get our DPS/tank started off right:
As you can see from the trait image we will be focusing on assigning the most points to the Zeal, Honor and Virtues skill trees while also throwing a small amount of points into the Radiance tree as well. In order to make this build work from start to finish you HAVE to follow a very strict trait progression, otherwise it’ll get sloppy. Here’s the EXACT progression to follow for this Guardian build:
- Assign 10 Points to Zeal
- Assign 5 Points to Radiance
- Assign 10 Points to Honor
- Assign Another 10 Points to Zeal
- Assign 5 Points to Virtues
- Assign Another 10 Points to Zeal
- Assign Another 10 Points to Honor
- Assign Another 10 Points to Virtues
Why This Build Works for Leveling
In order to fully understand how and why this build works you need to take a further look into the reasoning behind each of the trait trees that we assigned points to. Below we have taken the time to explain this and also reveal which skills you need to unlock to make the best of the Guardian.
Weapons to Use
For this particular Guardian build you’re going to want to equip the Greatsword to your primary weapon slot and the Staff as your secondary weapon. These weapons compliment the traits and skills we mention to use below.
Zeal Trait Tree
Within this tree we’re going to go after 3 different skills: Fiery Wrath, Focused Mastery and Greatsword Power. The points you throw into this trait tree give your Guardian boosts in overall attack damage. Here’s why we chose these skills… Fiery Wrath gives you an additional 10% damage against any enemies that are burning (from Virtue of Justice). Greatsword Power increases the damage you deal with a greatsword by 5%. Focus Mastery helps to recharge your focus-based skills by 20% quicker.
Radiance Trait Tree
Here we place just a measly 5 points. Why? Just to grab the extra blind. There isn’t any reason to assign more points to this tree after you get that. At least not for this build, anyway.
Honor Trait Tree
This is a rather important tree to assign points to. It gives you skills that will come in handy when you progress further into the game such as self heals and skills the improve your overall performance with weapons. One of the main skills you’ll want is Two-Handed Mastery which allows your Guardian to charge up 2H weapons faster by 20%.
Virtues Trait Tree
Virtues are also of vital importance to your Guardian build. Two of the best abilities you’ll want to grab from this line are Virtue of Justice and Resolute Healer. Virtue of Justice gives you both an active and passive burning effect on attacks. The active one even puts burning on your teammates’ attacks as well. Resolute Healer provides you with a health absorbing shield as you heal other teammates.
Signets & Utilities for Guardian
Last thing you need to finish off this leveling build for the Guardian is to get your signets and utilities in order. These are of vital importance as well. Here are the ones we recommend for best results:
Heal Slot (Signet of Resolve) – This one works wonders for allowing you to survive longer. It provides you with self healing and also cures 1 condition on your player every 10 seconds.
1st Utility (Signet of Wrath) – This signet gives you an active immobilize ability against enemies and a passive that increases your overall condition damage.
2nd Utility (Save Yourselves!) – This one is awesome for group play and is a perfect ability for a tank. With it you’ll take all conditions away from your friends and place them on yourself. You’ll also stack up a ton of boons on yourself including boosts in fury, vigor, might, protection, regeneration, swiftness and retaliation.
3rd Utility (Retreat!) – Another great group play asset. This one gives 5 allies within range aegis and swiftness for 20 seconds.
Elite Slot (Renewed Focus) – Great ability that makes your invulnerable and charges up your virtues, lasts for 3 seconds. You must be channeling the skill in order to be invulnerable. Unfortunately, you also can’t move around when you are channeling.
