Guardian - Core Shout Support

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

Focused on: Support

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on July 25, 2022 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

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


Skill Bar

Staff
Sword/Shield
Utility


Weapon Variants

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


Template Code

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Specializations


Equipment

Staff
Sigil
Sigil
Sword
Shield
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet


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.


General

  • Your role is to rotate wherever the teamfight is and keep your team alive. Avoid getting locked into 1v1s.
  • has an aftercast duration. If you cancel it (for example, by dodging) shout/healing skill related effects such as 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.
  • 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 if they bump into it.
  • turns 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 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 .
  • 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).
  • is one of the lowest CD anti-projectile skills in the game and even does decent damage in melee range.
  • 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 Stability and you feel like you're in danger, consider using 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 and .
    • 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.
    • (SYG) is one of the two sources of AoE Stability 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.
    • 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 Stability while under pressure, so keep that in mind. After the last pulse is going to proc which cleanses additional conditions.
  • is further empowered by , turning this skill into an instant source of AoE cleansing/healing.
  • when traited with 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 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 Aegis spamming (specifically through the traits and ) 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.
  • 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 .
    • While channeled, the skill also acts as a Light Field. You could precast on Staff before swapping weapons and combo it with for AoE cleansing.
    • The channeled portion also absorbs projectiles and could even shut down a .
    • 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 :
    • 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 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 die, you can start channeling 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 Poison. If your downed ally barely has any HP left and has Poison 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 on the spawn point's exit gate ~4 seconds before the match starts. Each pulse of the symbol stacks Swiftness Swiftness.


Top Streamers


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 10 votes.
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5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • January 2024
This has everything you could ask for in a support build: excellent sustain, boon sharing (including multiple sources of stability), damage mitigation, damage prevention (aegis), mass cleansing, AoE healing, anti-projectile, ranged rez and even some CC to peel for allies. Very diverse and powerful toolkit. 2024 update: still the best support in PvP.
5 stars
Ethan gave this build 5 stars • May 2023
This build is really fun for me who was pretty much exclusively playing staff tempest or d/f suports in their respective metas. I enjoy the tanky nature of guardian with stability aegis and protection. I can definitely feel it isn’t as good at surviving conditions as tempest is right now, but it is less susceptible to cc so I think it balances out. Tempest is inherently better right now with the unique aura access but I feel this is a more fun build.
5 stars
Ghostkie gave this build 5 stars • August 2022
simple and easy to use even for beginners, used this build for the 1st time after years of not playing and got called slurs from enemy team for using this build :( 5/5
5 stars
Sootser gave this build 5 stars • June 2022
This build is absolutely amazing. I'm going the maze route on most matches. I swapped the sigil for Sanctuary. The plays that can be done using this skill in combination with staff 5 and shield 5 are astonishing. If I find myself alone I can stall the decap for a long time with cooldowns and those skills. Signet is too easy to interrupt, so going sanctuary has been a game changer. Can be used to deny the enemy team reviving while I stomp, or to safely resurrect an ally. Deny entry to a capture point and lock off an entire passage for the enemy.
5 stars
Elizeugba gave this build 5 stars • June 2022
Love this build, this build is not only very enjoyable to play but also very effective.
5 stars
Antivirus gave this build 5 stars • January 2022
This is my favorite build, one of the best support builds
5 stars
Guirssane gave this build 5 stars • January 2022
best support by far. Nothing hard, just stability, follow your dps, rez and gg autowin
4 stars
Acedia1092 gave this build 4 stars • April 2021
With another nerf on Healbreaker, this build is THE meta support build. It offers insane amounts of healing, condition cure, and general support value, while being incredibly hard to kill. It can almost single handedly shutdown a lot of the common DPS in the current meta by denying their burst for all teammates. Crazy good right now, if you want to win as support there is no better choice. Edit: Will probably drop in viability after april 6th update
5 stars
Staub gave this build 5 stars • January 2021
Having played support FB before sever nerfs, I was sceptical at first of this build. But oh boy, was I wrong. Probably the best support in the current meta, core shout guardian offers great healing, damage mitigation, boons, CC, emergency res (I missed you, Signet of Mercy!) ...AND impressive survivability. You can easily handle 2v1 or even 3v1 until help arrives. The build does almost no damage though, but that is actually balance.
5 stars
Baescons gave this build 5 stars • December 2020
Shout support guard has absolutely insane personal sustain as well as great team healing, condition cleanse and boon application. Definitely a meta contender, only difference is it has a lower health pool than some supports so you need to time stuff well, but its not hard. Gonna give it 5 stars but i really recommend you include signet of mercy, renewed focus and possibly even retreat as options since they are equally as good and in some cases even better than the ones listed

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