Guardian - Core Power

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World, Open World General, Open World Core and [[|]]

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on August 03, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

This is a very basic guardian build which is F2P/Core accessible and can handle most open world content.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Sword/Focus

Utility

Weapon Variants

Always keep Greatsword due to our reliance on Resolution.

• Staff should be used for zerg farming
• Scepter is our strongest ranged option for solo fights.

Skill Variants

Note that Litany of Wrath is Guardian's strongest heal, by far, and you should spend time learning how to use it and getting used to the skill before switching it out. See the Usage section below for more details. It is never recommended to drop Sword of Justice, as this is our most powerful DPS skill.

• Shelter - can be chained with Renewed Focus to cheese certain mechanics
• Signet of Resolve - an easy-to-use, reliable heal.
• "Stand Your Ground!" - useful if even more Stability is needed, very strong in farm zergs.
• "Advance!" - provides on-demand Aegis and Swiftness. Good in zergs or when fighting enemies with predictable attack patterns.
• "Hold the Line!" - Protection for yourself and allies.
• Smite Condition - condi cleanse
• Wall of Reflection - excellent projectile hate
• Sanctuary - projectile hate and extreme CC, though it has a long cooldown
• "Feel My Wrath!" - Quickness and Fury
• Renewed Focus - can be chained with Shelter to cheese certain mechanics

Template Code

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Specializations

Zeal and Radiance make up the core of this build, providing us with very high Vulnerability and Might uptime, along with additional crit chance thanks to Resolution. Honor pairs best with these, as the extended symbol duration from Writ of Persistence increases uptime on all of the aforementioned buffs. Honor also grants us some endurance regeneration and Protection, which come in handy against stronger enemies.

Virtues

Virtues is lower DPS and defense than Honor when alone, however with allies it becomes our best choice for DPS thanks to higher uptime on Inspired Virtue and 24px Unscathed Contender. It also provides us a very powerful group stunbreak via Indomitable Courage.

Equipment

Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats.

Basic Equipment

This setup uses basic, easily obtained equipment that performs very well in open world and is functional in endgame PVE.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Berserker

Focus
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

• Use Knight trinkets for extra defense if required.

Dragon

This set uses similar gear to Build:Dragonhunter_-_Power_DPS, making it a highly versatile setup for general PVE that performs very well in both open world and endgame PVE.

Head
Dragon

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Dragon

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Dragon

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Berserker

Focus
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Other Equipment

Open World allows players to be incredibly versatile with their build. If the above equipment above isn't to your liking, you can customize your build with some of the options below. Keep in mind that the variants listed below are not generally accepted in raids, fractals, or other instanced PVE which may limit the versatility or usability of your build.

Defense

• Knight trinkets can be used for a boost to Toughness. With a Jade Core, these provide more EHP than something like Marauder but the DPS loss is a bit higher.
• Sigil of Energy can replace Sigil of Superior Sigil of Impact

Budget

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Air is a very good budget replacement for Sigil of Superior Sigil of Force.
• Rune of Superior Rune of Infiltration is a budget replacement for Rune of Scholar

Consumables

DPS

• For builds that do not require precision to crit cap, use . They are identical to but also provide +1% experience, which is nice for profit. Avacado Smoothie is a budget option here, though also works well for this build.
• and are our strongest options in situations where you can reliably proc their bonuses. There are many other on-kill options which often outclass other foods in open world. You can find them on the The Guild Wars 2 Wiki's Food page by filtering on kill.
• All power builds should aim to use Sharpening Stones as their DPS utilities. In particular, and are strong generic options, with being an acceptable budget option.

Defense

For dealing with particularly tough encounters, defensive food can sometimes be a boon.

• is generally the best defensive option, as this provides us additional endurance to dodge more often. is the budget version.
• For more passive options, see and .
• It is generally best to avoid food that regenerates health slowly overtime, as this regeneration is almost always less than 100 HP/s, which isn't enough to make a difference in any scenario. Stick to dodge food or % damage reduction if defense is needed.

Farming

Food / Utilities

• 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.
• (and variants)

Other options, such as Birthday Cake, Campfire Treats, Spicy Pumpkin Cookie, or other similar food is fine to use. The general goal is to prioritize the following:

1. Flat % Experience, like we see on Ascended Food
2. % Karma Gain
3. % Magic Find
4. Experience from kills
5. % Gold find

This assumes you are converting Karma and Spirit Shards to gold correctly. If you are not converting Karma or Spirit Shards, prioritize Magic Find or use food that increases your DPS for faster farm speed.

Boosters

Boosters are Black Lion items that come from leveling up, map completion, the black lion trading company, and a few other sources. If you have these, you'll probably want to use them:

• Candy Corn Gobbler - Can provide you with some of the buffs listed below for a very low price!
• Item Booster
• Birthday Booster / Celebration Booster
• Black Lion Booster
• Magic Find Booster

Other Buffs

• Magic Find Enrichment (Requires an Ascended Amulet)
• New Year's Gift
• Guild Item Research
• Spirit Banner
• Guild Gold & Magic Find Banner

Usage

Damage

• Thanks to the Virtues traitline, you should be spamming Virtue of Justice as often as possible. Since it resets on kill, you can use it often for a significant damage boost.
• Your main damage skills are Symbol of Wrath, Whirling Wrath, Zealot's Defense, Ray of Judgment, Symbol of Blades, and Sword of Justice. Swap between your weapons using these skills whenever possible, and fill with autoattacks.
  • Never interrupt your autoattack chain as all the damage is loaded in the last hit.
• Resolution is a massive damage boost so you should try to have it up as much as possible. Your main Resolution sources are Virtue of Justice, Symbol of Wrath, Healer's Resolution, and "Stand Your Ground!"
  • Virtue of Justice resets off every kill thanks to Renewed Justice.
  • In long fights where you can't reset Virtue of Justice you can consider bringing Hallowed Ground and traiting Master of Consecrations.
• If you want more stacks of might; Consider using Zealous Scepter instead of Fiery Wrath. Choosing Either of them will not cost you any loss of damage.
• Try to fight enemies in your symbols to get the stacking damage buff from Symbolic Avenger.
• If using Unscathed Contender, try not to get hit

Defense

• Shield of Wrath is a powerful defensive skill.
• Virtue of Justice, Leap of Faith, and Symbol of Blades blind enemies.
• Zealot's Defense, Wall of Reflection and Shield of the Avenger can be used against projectiles.
• Activating Virtue of Courage gives aegis, protection, Resolution, stability, and a stun break.
• You can run Shelter for more active defense.
• Renewed Focus is a 3-second invulnerability skill that also refreshes Virtue of Resolve and Virtue of Courage.
• Remember to always dodge and sidestep attacks if possible. Don't get hit by anything you can move out of.

Sustain

• This build doesn't have much sustained healing, so avoiding damage is extremely important in long fights.
• Use Leap of Faith to heal yourself for each enemy you hit.
• When at extremely low health, activate Litany of Wrath, then use Whirling Wrath for an immense amount of self-healing.
• You can activate Virtue of Resolve for an emergency heal and condition cleanse.
• For a big condition cleanse, use Shield of Wrath while in a light field.

Crowd Control

• Binding Blade
• Hammer of Wisdom
• Bane Signet (as a last resort)