Guardian - Core Condition
The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Condition damage
Designed for: Open World, Open World General and Open World Core
This build was last updated on August 23, 2022 and is up to date for the June 30, 2022 game patch.
Overview
A basic and accessible core guardian build that possesses high DPS and excellent survivability. The 
Dire variant of this build is easily accessible to all core players and costs very little gold to gear.
Skill Bar
Scepter/Torch
Sword
Utility
Weapon Variants
- Greatsword - very high burst if using power-heavy variants
- Staff - long-ranged option that is good for meta farming.
Skill Variants
- - cc
- - projectile hate
- - teleport and damage
- - long-duration stability
- - high CC against champions and projectile hate
- - strong defensive tool
Template Code
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Specializations
Equipment
Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats.
Head
Dire
Dire
Shoulders
Dire
Dire
Chest
Dire
Dire
Hands
Dire
Dire
Legs
Dire
Dire
Feet
Dire
Dire
Backpiece
Dire
Dire
Accessory
Dire
Dire
Accessory
Dire
Dire
Amulet
Dire
Dire
Ring
Dire
Dire
Ring
Dire
Dire
Scepter
Dire
Dire
Torch
Dire
Dire
Sigil
Sigil
Sword
Dire
Dire
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
x6
The same gear as Raid Firebrand can also be used here.
Variant Equipment
- 24px Traiblazer - extremely strong defensive gearset; this set is very expensive and niche, and is not recommended for someone new to the build
Sinister, Dire, 
Carrion - F2P / Budget Gear options. If using these, change and to .- - defensive option
Consumables
Event Farming
- Food
- Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions. Budget versions of these foods exist and are acceptable.
- - farming
- - DPS
- - defense
- Utility
- (and variants) - farming
- , - dps
- - dps if using gear with high toughness
Usage
Damage
Scepter Priority:
- (or other spirit weapon)
Greatsword Priority:
- Fill with auto-attacks
Sword Priority:
Your passive will also make up a significant amount of your damage through 
Burning. Use off cooldown for Fury and Quickness uptime.
If you are about to kill a mob, activate for a large DPS increase, so long as you have Radiance traited.
Defense
- is a massive heal.
- / provide an on-demand block
- (focus) is a series of blocks
- is an area blind but will reduce your DPS drastically if you don't quickly reset it.
- removes conditions and provides a small amount of healing.
Video Examples
Ratings
When it comes to Core builds this is unquestionably the strongest option. It's cheap to gear and outputs very high DPS for a core build. It's also quite versatile.
Loving this build--finally my Guardian is what I always wanted it to be but it never quite was. Guardian was the first profession I tried, and I've really wanted to like it, but it always ended up being too squishy for me--sure, it has a lot of defensive tricks, but if you don't play it perfectly, you're dead. No more.
Though a Condi build, this one plays just like the Power builds, even using the same weapons. I often like to switch to the Zealous Blade trait and run Greatsword / Sword / Torch. Even in full Dire gear (which I can recommend), the initial burst is surprisingly close to that of the glass cannon Power builds, but now there's a strong follow-up burst of burning damage, and with 23k health 3k armor, it ain't no glass cannon.
It's super cool that it's also a core build with cheap gear, runes, and sigils in the Trading Post.
You can swap the Virtues trait line for Dragonhunter 3-1-1 (or whatever traits you prefer) for a decent Condi DH. You lose the damage boost and cleave of the Permeating Wrath trait, but gain some of it back with fixed traits Defender's Dogma and Pure of Sight, in addition to modified Virtues and access to traps and a trait that boosts run speed. Because of the speed boost, I often do this for farming, some dailies, etc.
Switching Virtues to Firebrand 2-2-3 gives you essentially the Solo Firebrand build, though with different gear and utility skills. Seems like it could be fun to play around with variat
Comments
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