Guardian - Core Shout Support

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Support and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on March 29, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A PvP Guardian build with a very versatile support toolkit. Guardian's great at providing strong defensive boons for the team including Stability, Protection and Aegis. The build also has plenty of group cleansing and raw healing, not to mention a ranged rez.

Skill Bar

Staff

Sword/Shield

Utility

Skill Variants

Weapons

• Mace over Sword - more forgiving and beginner-friendly option with increased sustain/support but lower mobility. Take Invigorated Bulwark on Honor. Mace is also the preferred weapon of most Guardians in 2v2 and 3v3 seasons.

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Equipment

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Sword

Shield

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Usage

Settings

• Under General Options / User Interface enable "Thick party health bars" and "Always show health bars". These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support. For more tips check out our settings guide.

General

• Your role is to rotate wherever the teamfight is and keep your team alive. Avoid getting locked into 1v1s.

• "Receive the Light!" has an aftercast duration. If you cancel it (for example, by dodging) shout/healing skill related effects such as Smiter's Boon won't go off!

• This PvP build lacks any powerful passive procs or even Toughness, so it may seem rather squishy at first. Good situational awareness and proper use of CDs is what separates a good Support Guardian from a dead one.

• Line of Warding is a powerful tool when used at the right moment. Against Thieves and Revenants for example you can put the ward beneath you and they get CC'd the moment they teleport to you. The ward may also interrupt evade frames such as regular dodging or Dagger Storm if they bump into it.

• Altruistic Healing turns Empower into a very potent self-sustain skill that scales with the number of nearby allies. Not only does this skill already pulse healing to nearby allies, but applying all those Might stacks to them will heal you for a considerable amount.
  • While this skill is capable of doing a lot of healing, the fact that it makes you stationary while casting makes it rather bad under pressure. Use it either when you're not the main target or try to CC the enemies first with skills like Shield of Absorption.

• Symbol of Blades helps with rotating around the map, assuming you have a target you can lock on to. In combat the Blind can be used to mitigate incoming damage and the teleport is still valuable especially for vertical mobility. SoB is great at navigating hard terrain, reaching allies at upper levels and leaving pursuing enemies behind (assuming you can target an enemy elsewhere).

• Get creative with Symbol of Blades, for example:
  • Teleport to an enemy at the highground and knock them off with Shield of Absorption, setting up a kill for your allies below.
  • Let's say you're at the Clocktower on Battle of Kyhlo, getting focused by multiple enemies. Target the one that's farthest away from you, jump off the building, wait for them to jump after you. Right before the farthest enemy jumps use them to teleport back up, leaving the rest of them below. Chances are even they will jump if you can time it just right.
  • Use destructible objects to your advantage, like the Trebuchet on Kyhlo or doors on Legacy of the Foefire. Even if they are out of range, teleporting in their direction while being focused by the enemy team could put distance between you and those who are chasing you.

• Zealot's Defense is one of the lowest CD anti-projectile skills in the game and even does decent damage in melee range.

• Renewed Focus is your best defensive cooldown. Complete immunity to both direct and condition based damage (except fall damage) and even CC, this is your "time out" button that also refreshes your virtues. If you're forced into using Renewed Focus because you're getting focused hard by the enemy team and some of your virtues are still up, make sure to use them before you finish channeling the skill as there's no reason not to send them on CD.
  • Using this skill only to refresh your virtues is a viable strategy if an ally is on the brink of death and you have nothing else to support them with, but it's a waste of you don't use it as a last resort.
  • If you don't have access to stun breaks or Stability and you feel like you're in danger, consider using Renewed Focus before you drop too low. With stun breaks and stability available you may comfortably sit on this skill until the last moment, but without them you don't want to get caught in a CC chain when you're say, below 25% HP.

Support

• Every shout in the build cleanses a total of 2 conditions on you and your allies per use thanks to Pure of Voice and Relic of the Trooper.
  • "Advance!" could be used to block important skills for allies, heal them, remove conditions, or all of the above depending on the situation. With 2 charges you are allowed to use this skill more freely.
  • "Stand Your Ground!" (SYG) is one of the two sources of AoE Stability in the build. An extremely powerful skill that has to be used preemptively as it doesn't break stun for allies, only prevents it. It does however break stun on the caster. Of course if you're really desperate for cleansing, you could use it for that too.
  • "Receive the Light!" can act both as a personal and group sustain tool. This is a powerful AoE heal with a long cast time that'll often have to be protected by Stability while under pressure, so keep that in mind. After the last pulse Smiter's Boon is going to proc which cleanses additional conditions.

• Virtue of Resolve is further empowered by Absolute Resolve, turning this skill into an instant source of AoE cleansing/healing.

• Virtue of Courage when traited with Indomitable Courage is one of the few skills in the game that are capable of breaking stun for allies! In that regard it's a better version of SYG.

• Try to use Holy Strike in one of your symbols whenever possible. Symbols are light fields, executing a blast finisher in them results in AoE condition cleansing.

• Dodge rolling and Aegis spamming (specifically through the traits Selfless Daring and Pure of Heart) add a lot to your sustained group healing. Try to dodge in the direction of your allies whenever possible to get the most out of Selfless Daring, and stay close to them.

• Shield of Absorption is a very versatile skill:
  • The first part of the skill knocks back enemies which could be used to peel for allies or interrupt important skills/action like a Battle Standard.
  • While channeled, the skill also acts as a Light Field. You could precast Holy Strike on Staff before swapping weapons and combo it with Shield of Absorption for AoE cleansing.
  • The channeled portion also absorbs projectiles and could even shut down a Lich Form.
  • Finally you may choose to detonate the dome for AoE healing. This could be done right away by double tapping SoA if you don't want to channel the skill at all.

Reviving Allies

• Couple of things worth mentioning about Signet of Mercy:
  • This is easily the most gamechanging skill on your bar, so do not waste it. Just because you have an option to revive people from range doesn't mean you have to do it whenever this skill is available. Keep it for emergency situations where manual rez would be impossible or too risky!
  • Try to use it with Stability to increase your odds of success. If possible, break line of sight while channeling the skill (for example run behind a pillar) to make it harder for enemies to interrupt you.
  • If you're absolutely certain that your ally is going to hit the ground, you can start channeling Signet of Mercy in advance on your ally's location. With proper timing the skill should finish its animation a split second after your teammate went down, bringing them back up immediately.
  • The signet basically restores a large chunk of downed health all at once. This counts as healing, and is therefore affected by healing reduction effects such as Poison. If your downed ally barely has any HP left and has Poison it's possible that the signet alone won't be enough to get the rez.

Pre-game Buffing

• Stack Swiftness for your team before leaving the base! Use Symbol of Swiftness on the spawn point's exit gate ~4 seconds before the match starts. Each pulse of the symbol stacks Swiftness.

• Use a charge of "Advance!" too as you're about to leave spawn (or ~10 seconds before you expect to reach the first capture point). The Aegis duration on this skill is quite long which means your team gets to start the first fight with a "free" Aegis while you still have 1 charge of Advance left and chances are the second charge will be back up by the time you'd need it.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Misha