Fresh Level 80 Advice

I recently got my guardian to level 80 (boosted from level 45), and I'm trying to figure out end game pve builds (also going to do lower tier fractals). Right now I'm running with the soldiers gear and traiting for a retaliation build.

I'm looking for advice on where to go now. Should I go condi or power? What armor stats are strong (I thought Valk looked good)? Should I try Firebrand or Dragonhunter?

I will first advice to use GW2 meta website. They have listing of builds and stats with all the details.

Both dragon hunter and firebrand are viable for fractals and raids. DH plays full berserker gear power build. FB uses different armor setups between viper, sinister and griver, but all are condi.

I am certain you do not need soldier or valkrye gear.

@otto.5684 said:I will first advice to use GW2 meta website. They have listing of builds and stats with all the details.

Both dragon hunter and firebrand are viable for fractals and raids. DH plays full berserker gear power build. FB uses different armor setups between viper, sinister and griver, but all are condi.

I am certain you do not need soldier or valkrye gear.

I figured about the soldier. I also figured if I'm traiting for retaliation, I probably don't need berserker's because I can easily hit 70% crit without any precision traited.

I'm curios more about firebrand, as I played around with it a bit today and I really liked it. Does it have to go condition?

Grivers setup falls in the middle between power and condi. Still significant damage comes from burns. You won’t use firebrand and power build, sadly.

I do use FB in open world PvE with power build. Works out as effectively as DH. 100% uptime on retaliation + quickness + gs 2 = dead mobs. I am certain this will work in low fractals. It gives good quickness support as well, if no one else can provide it.

Since you just got the 80, I recommend going for DH and to gear via berserker or marauder stats (marauder is better for wvw as well due to the extra vitality).

I wouldn't think too much about Firebrand condi builds until a little later as they're are a bit more difficult to get.Currently both Dragonhunter (power) and Firebrand (condition) have a meta place in end game pve.

I recommend looking at these 2 websites which can give you an idea how to gear up.

• https://snowcrows.com/
• https://qtfy.eu/

The builds you see on metabattle and qt/ sc etc all aim for maximum dps runs and therefore are quite glassy. It can often times be better to run more utility in traits and weapons such as replacing offhand torch with shield or focus etc.

Good thing about guardian in general is that despite low hp, you have plenty of damage mitigation and sustain built into the class.

A general Idea of a mix n matched stat for power could look like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQRArf8dn0ABFChVdCedC8DhF/hSO8H/43KA+2HI7BrwLE-jhRBQB5T/wV2fU+lQ1fMjSQA8QAewZAAA-e

So I've decided to go with firebrand. My main is a weaver, I like the complexity with a lot of skills available, and Firebrand appeals to me in a similar way. After playing around for awhile with it, I have become convinced condi is the way to go. While I liked all the traits that had to do with retaliation and quickness for a power build, the burning potential is just so strong I can't ignore it.

I want to ask now, I still have the soldier gear so I obviously need to upgrade that for condi, but I'm uncertain what stats I should use. I want at least one defensive stat (preferably vitality), as something that I became frustrated with on my ele is how fragile it was. I want to be able to take a few hits. Any advice? Tips for easy acquisition would be nice too, as my crafting is not so good currently.

@Wentworth.6901 said:So I've decided to go with firebrand. My main is a weaver, I like the complexity with a lot of skills available, and Firebrand appeals to me in a similar way. After playing around for awhile with it, I have become convinced condi is the way to go. While I liked all the traits that had to do with retaliation and quickness for a power build, the burning potential is just so strong I can't ignore it.

I want to ask now, I still have the soldier gear so I obviously need to upgrade that for condi, but I'm uncertain what stats I should use. I want at least one defensive stat (preferably vitality), as something that I became frustrated with on my ele is how fragile it was. I want to be able to take a few hits. Any advice? Tips for easy acquisition would be nice too, as my crafting is not so good currently.

If you have gold to spare, I would recommend just buying an exotic set of Carrion armor and weapons from the trading post, it is actually very strong for guardian as you may want to take Radiance anyway and thus getting your crits from there. You can't buy ascended gear (which you need for fractals) with gold btw, you will have to either craft it yourself, or use another kind of currency which you will have to earn. A lot of those currencies are soft-locked behind already having ascended gear. You will save a lot of frustration by just leveling your crafting now. Discovering recipies is the best way to do that, with boosters on. (craft an inscription, 2 parts of the weapon you want, and go to the discovery menu and select them)

To save on costs, buy the named exotic carrion armor, the prefix is Brutus' for Carrion, not the crafted Draconic gear. (for weapons it is actually mostly the other way around weirdly) Only works sometimes, they may not be available at all times, as this stuff drops randomly as loot. For weapons, you will need atleast a torch and a scepter for max damage output. Scepter has the highest number of hits per second, so you will want that to proc Virtue of Justice with it as often as possible. Axe isn't bad either.

For ascended trinkets I'll recommend Living World season 3 maps like Lake Doric and Bitterfrost Frontier, as their map currencies are relatively easy to get, especially Bitterfrost. PvP and WvW are the second good way to get ascended trinkets, although you will have to do Ranked if you do PvP. As a new guy, I'd prefer WvW as PvP is hard to get into, the skill floor is relatively high.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Wentworth.6901 said:So I've decided to go with firebrand. My main is a weaver, I like the complexity with a lot of skills available, and Firebrand appeals to me in a similar way. After playing around for awhile with it, I have become convinced condi is the way to go. While I liked all the traits that had to do with retaliation and quickness for a power build, the burning potential is just so strong I can't ignore it.

I want to ask now, I still have the soldier gear so I obviously need to upgrade that for condi, but I'm uncertain what stats I should use. I want at least one defensive stat (preferably vitality), as something that I became frustrated with on my ele is how fragile it was. I want to be able to take a few hits. Any advice? Tips for easy acquisition would be nice too, as my crafting is not so good currently.

I followed your advice, got the cheap full carrion gear. Had some gold around so I just bought most accessories/rings too (back and one ring are still soldier, but whatever). I also have a trailblazers ax (from the firebrand unlock) and an exotic carrion torch.

Wow, does this build just melt stuff. Idk if I've ever killed things so fast. Very fun. I do have a question about the torch though. How does the 4 skill work exactly? I'm having some trouble understanding it. Does burning apply every second I have it activated? Or should I just throw it right away? What I've been doing is ax 3 to engage, then torch 4, ax 2, then torch 4 once the boon is about to disappear.

@Wentworth.6901 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Wentworth.6901 said:So I've decided to go with firebrand. My main is a weaver, I like the complexity with a lot of skills available, and Firebrand appeals to me in a similar way. After playing around for awhile with it, I have become convinced condi is the way to go. While I liked all the traits that had to do with retaliation and quickness for a power build, the burning potential is just so strong I can't ignore it.

I want to ask now, I still have the soldier gear so I obviously need to upgrade that for condi, but I'm uncertain what stats I should use. I want at least one defensive stat (preferably vitality), as something that I became frustrated with on my ele is how fragile it was. I want to be able to take a few hits. Any advice? Tips for easy acquisition would be nice too, as my crafting is not so good currently.

This is an optimised carrion build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQRAnf7fnsADdBjNDBWCB8DhF/Bbfi2RHpZJhKUGyKAUBqTA-jFiAQBCSfwnU/BanAAA8EAamyDbqEEG7PASlYkCAmRbA-w

Just something you can plan towards if you ever have the money. Your condition damage will be great and you have 19k health, but your crit chance suffers a bit for it. The food and consumables are quite cheap, too (around 2-3 silver each), so you can afford to use them even in the open world.

For torch 4, the "aura" applies 1 stack of burning when first cast, then 1 stack every second for 3 seconds (so 4 stacks total). Therefore, the best dps is if you throw it right as it's about to expire, so you get the benefit of both parts. Try to count 2 seconds after you click it, then throw it.