NOTE: This is all taken from
The Guardian sPvP Guide on gwguru2! You should def. read it!
Defensive guardian:
As a defensive guardian, your job is to sit on a point and hold it against foes until backup arrives. Sounds boring, eh? It’s actually extremely fun! As a point defender, you will want to build for superior area control and sustainability. The hammer is a no brainer in most point defense builds with its superior area control, but the secondary weapon set can change depending on how you want to customize your build. As a point defender, you can generally build yourself in two different directions; physical-counter and condition-counter. The physical damage counter is mostly based around stacking a lot of retaliation and various boons and buffs while the condition damage counter is based on heavy condition removal to mitigate the majority of the incoming damage. As a general rule of thumb, a point defense guardian should always use the terrain to his advantage. Let’s use the clocktower as an example: Remember the stairs? If you knock a foe down the stairs, it will take him around 10s to get back up if he doesn’t have any mobility skills. This is very good for you, since you are basically wasting his time walking the stairs. This is what makes defensive guardians so much fun to play; no matter how aggressively they come at you, you can easily brush them off with the stroke of a button. You are a brick wall, a rock among water, an impenetrable fortress. Let’s break down the builds…
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Meditations Point DefenderThis is a well-rounded build for when you are fighting balanced team setups and don’t want to specialize yourself too much towards countering physical damage or condition damage. The build relies on meditations to provide condition removal and healing which is useful to relieve pressure. Sustained condition removal is gained through the heal Signet of Resolve and the trait Purity and you have an on-demand condition removal in Virtue of Resolve with the trait Absolute Resolve and Contemplation of Purity. With the hammer you will be able to maintain permanent protection through the 3rd auto-attack Symbol of Protection with your +70 % duration on protection. With “Stand Your Ground!”, Virtue of Retribution, Vengeful and Might Blow combo on top of your light fields (Symbol of Protection, Ring of Warding & Shield of Absorption) you should be able to maintain a very consistent retaliation that will punish all physical damage dealers while you mitigate a lot of the damage through protection. The mace can be used as a variant of the sword for more sustainability.
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Physical-Counter Point DefenderThis is a build specialized in countering heavy physical damage compositions. The build utilizes the greatsword to provide strong close-range combat and Symbol of Wrath to provide very consistent retaliation upkeep. With the traits Writ of the Merciful and Writ of Persistence you have very strong sustainability when fighting on your Symbol of Wrath and Symbol of Protection. As with the meditation point defense build, this build is capable of maintaining permanent protection through Symbol of Protection which synergizes very well with retaliation. With the traits Shielded Mind you can use your Virtue of Courage to bursts, effectively preventing any foe from spiking you down. Hammer of Wisdom works wonders against any melee opponent as well and can prevent them from chaining attacks on you with its knockback. The build only includes controllable condition removal through combos with your greatsword skills Whirling Wrath and Binding Blade, so be careful to not get yourself too stacked up. The mace can be used as a variant of the greatsword for more sustainability, but you lose out on the condition removal.
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Condition-Counter Point DefenderThis is a build specialized in countering heavy condition compositions. The build utilizes the Bow of Truth, Signets through Inscribed Removal, Purity and greatsword combo finishers Whirling Wrath and Binding Blade for heavy sustained condition removal while Virtue of Resolve with Absolute Resolve and Contemplation of Purity gives heavy on-demand condition removal. Since stacking boons isn’t that effective against condition based classes, the build uses Superior Runes of Melandru (6) to reduce incoming conditions’ duration by 25%. By utilizing your condition removal, you can mitigate most of the damage from condition-based classes.
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Supportive Point DefenseThis is a more supportive variant of a point defender. The build utilizes the staff’s Symbol of Swiftness to give the guardian more mobility which allows him to more quickly move between points. This makes him more flexible, as he is not limited to staying near one point, but can instead move between points and effectively fill a ‘defensive back capper’ role. By utilizing his staff and shouts he is also a very good support player for larger encounters. With 60% increase in boon duration and 525 compassion, he can maintain various useful boons while also throwing out some decent heals with Orb of Light, Empower and his elite Tome of Courage.
Offensive guardian:
Tired of being a team player? You should try playing as an offensive guardian! Offensive guardians are very strong duelists and are incredible difficult to deal with for some professions. I will just quote Lowell’s Thief Guide:
- Quote :
- Any glass cannon guardian that runs a triple Mediation build, will be pretty much impossible to defeat 1 on 1
Due to the guardian’s defensive nature, he can afford to build himself extremely offensively while still maintaining good survivability through his meditations. The offensive guardian is a very aggressive build in the sense that you will always want to be up in your targets face, hitting him with your sword. Because the guardian packs so many blinds and blocks, the target will have a hard time effectively chaining attacks on the guardian. Offensive guardians usually use sword/focus with scepter/shield as a secondary set, but some prefer to run a greatsword as an alternative to the scepter set. As an offensive guardian, you are not the best choice for team fights, as you are giving up on a lot of support, but your offensive capabilities more than make up for that. Let’s break down the builds…
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Triple Meditation Offensive GuardianThis is your standard offensive guardian build. This build gives the highest possible damage output while still meeting the required defensive stats. With the trait Monk’s Focus, each of your meditations heal for roughly 2k instant cast, which allows the guardian to play very aggressively. The sword’s auto-attack is one of the hardest hitting in the game and allows the guardian to maintain a very good sustained damage output. By timing your activation on Virtue of Justice (it recharges on kill thanks to Renewed Justice), you should be able to maintain a pretty consistent burning which synergizes very well with the traits Firey Wrath and Radiant Power for some heavy damage increase. If you want a more ‘high-reward, high-risk’ build, you could switch your Knight’s Amulet for a Berserker’s Amulet for higher damage output but less survivability. Other alternatives include bringing Superior Runes of Rage (6) for a much higher critical strike chance. This leaves you more vulnerable to condition removal though, and doesn’t include as much versatility as Superior Rune of Divinity (6). If you choose to bring Superior Rune of Rage (6) you should consider bringing Soldier’s Amulet instead of Knight’s for increased survivability, as the precision from Knight’s is not as mandatory.
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Greatsword Secondary Set VariantThis is a variant that includes a little more versatility and support. Utilizing the greatsword built-in condition removal, you can afford to switch out Contemplation of Purity with “Stand Your Ground!” for more support and chain-CC countering. The traits Inspired Virtue and Vigorous Precision give you more support and survivability at the cost of the increased damage from Firey Wrath.
Versatile guardian:
The versatile guardian is extremely good in almost any setup. He mixes the best of both offense and defense to create a very adaptable fighter. There is a variety of ways that you can build your versatile guardian. Depending on your team’s setup, you can choose to build him either slightly offensively or slightly more to the supportive side. Whatever you end up with, you will always be a solid addition to your team. Simply put; everyone loves versatile guardians. Since there are so many ways you can build a versatile guardian, I’ll just include the basic offensive and supportive versatile guardian builds. Let’s break down the build…
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Offensive Versatile GuardianThis is your standard offensively built versatile guardian. The build utilizes the trait Right Handed Strenght to drastically increase the procs from Vigorous Precision and Empowering Might. The vigor gained from Vigorous Precision allows for some active dodging which is vital because of the build’s low toughness. Empowering Might is a very good offensive support trait duo to your 70% increase in might duration. The build is good at stacking group wide retaliation through Signet of Judgment and “Stand Your Ground!” and the greatsword gives good pressure as well through Symbol of Wrath and its other skills. If you are confident that you can handle the opposing team’s condition pressure with the greatsword alone, you should consider swapping out Absolute Resolve for Supreme Justice for more pressure.
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Supportive Versatile GuardianThis is your standard supportively built versatile guardian. The build uses a Cleric’s Amulet, Superior Runes of Monk/Water and a maxed Honor line for a total of 1200 healing. This increases the healing from Orb of Light, Empower, the regeneration from “Hold the Line!”, the rejuvenation from Virtue of Resolve (which is shared to your allies thanks to Battle Presence and buffed through Absolute Resolve), the regeneration from activating Virtue of Resolve (thanks to Inspired Virtue), the healing from you symbols (thanks to Writ of the Merciful) and the various heals included in the Tome of Courage. The build also throws out some consistent boons with 60% increase to boon duration. With Signet of Judgement, “Stand Your Ground!”, Symbol of Wrath and Virtue of Retribution you should be able to maintain a very consistent retaliation to your entire group. Symbol of Swiftness allows you to maintain an almost permanent swiftness to your entire group as well.