Leveling guardian build?

Can anyone help me out with a leveling build for Guardian? What weapons would be good to use, etc....I plan on going Firebrand later on.

Greatsword is probably one of the most efficient weapons for leveling since it does so much burst damage. If you want to hit things from range, the scepter works pretty well. Any offhand works, but focus is generally best for defense, while torch is best for offense. Shield is mostly for utility.

Your best bet is to experiment around while leveling though since it's a good time to play around with stuff without there being too much at stake.

For traits, Radiance, Zeal and Virtues are solid choices to aim for and will boost your damage a good bit.

farm tomes on WvW and unlock FB trough WVW is also another option >_> that's how a do classes 80lv classes in just a few minutes.

As a weapon, sword is also quite a good choice for leveling, since it's fairly strong offensively and can be paired with an offhand that adds flexibility. And it synergises well with the radiance trait line, which is an excellent pick for starters due to the first two minor traits. Spam F1 and you gain both damage and defense.

Stats you want to aim for are Power, Precision, and Ferocity, but if you find that you're dying or struggling to stay alive, work in some Toughness or Vitality (or get better rated armor). I agree with those above, sword and greatsword are both fun and effective at killing mobs/leveling, specialize into Zeal or Radiance for starters, that'll also boost your damage. As for utilities, I'd go with Sword of Justice (spirit weapon) and Bane Signet (signet).

Remember that most of the tips you get with these kind of posts are for efficiency -- the fastest way to accomplish a task. If you like the idea of playing condi leveling up (since you want to go firebrand, and playing support while leveling is far more inefficient) and don't mind the slower progression, do so! The cool thing about vertical progression in Gw2 is that once you hit max level, your unlocks, base stat points, and available skills are equal to that of your peers, meaning the path you take to level 80 can be different than another's and you both will end up in the same place.

If you want to level up with condi, go with condi damage, precision, power, spec into Radiance then Virtues/Zeal, use Sword/Torch with Scepter/Torch. Most of your damage will come from your Virtue of Justice (F1). For utilities, Judge's Intervention (meditation), Purging Flames (consecration), and Sword of Justice if you get that Zeal Grandmaster trait Eternal Armory.

I'm currently leveling a Guardian using Greatsword / Scepter + Shield. I love the GS in GW2, and it feels meaty and satisfying to scything through 3-4 mobs with it on a Guard. I only switch to Scepter when I'm facing champions, because (apparently) I still suck at dodging and if find I stay up longer and make more of a contribution when attacking from range. The shield is pretty lackluster imo, but I can't force myself to use a Focus - a plate wearing warrior-type character should have a shield as offhand for pity's sake!! I'm only LV 30 so things don't matter yet. Eventually I'll move the offhand to a focus..maybe.

I'd recommend to pick "Meditations" and "Valor" trait line, they got good synergy, and can let you heal yourself, remove conditions, give lots of Fury, and some extra damage (burn and cleansing conditions). It is a good way to get used to Guardian, and you can handle just about any situation.

If you absolutely want a single weaponset for entire leveling: Greatsword + Scepter / (whatever offhand you like). Though I'd recommend taking the time while leveling to test out all weapons for 10 levels each, and see how you like them. However always keep a spare Scepter in your backpack, sometimes you just meet something you don't want to go melee against.

After that pick whatever traits you feel like, no biggie. Valor + Medi handles itself well enough no matter what you take.

I started leveling up Guardian on Tuesday just gone I've been using Great sword and sword/shield I'm loving it! Guardian is definitely the class I'm sticking with!! Can the aoe heal from shield 5 spell become useful or not? I'm only 36 ATM :p

Healing is usually not as impact-full in this game compared to other games. Most healing will be many small heals, that are useful for keeping you longer in combat (think of it similar to Regeneration boon, or HOT from other games), and not a "I'll heal all the damage you taken." kind of heal. That said, the Shield 5 cancel into a heal can be useful, as any amount of small heals you can sneak in here and there will help in tougher fights.

You'll notice the same with the heal skills, for example Shelter (very good btw) the 2 second block is almost better than the actual healing. That gives you 2 seconds where you don't take damage from most mobs. Combine that with the Shield so you can block projectiles, bounce enemies away, and get protection and aegis on short cooldown. And you get lots of small heals that will keep you alive for a long time.

If you want to focus on that aspect (heal/support) try Mace + Shield (And look at consecrations and the trait in Honor that makes them heal people standing in them). I wouldn't start with those though, as it is a pretty slow play-style.

@joneirikb.7506 mace shield and consecrations is pretty bad it only worked in the 1st year.... :\ maybe in pve group they m8 work decently, still they are extreme underwhelmed and not efective compared with what is possible with some elites.

IF it is mace for pve, some mobs he will take all day to killing them if he wants some healing power on the build, while on full soldier stats sometimes i had to call a zerker thief to damage mobs from guild cause mace alone was not able to output enough damage on mobs and they were getting healed and this was full soldier..

I wouldn't start with those though, as it is a pretty slow play-style.

That's why I said that :)

It works if yo just want to try it in PVE open world, I wouldn't bother with it anywhere else. I just think it is better for people to try something and form their own opinion that just flat out say "it sucks" personally.

I'd be using greatsword + scepter / X(off hand of your choice) and retreat. Because screw being that slow. Anything else is up to you.

This is the foundation of what I run most of the time:http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQNAS7enkICVDhNCBGCB8DhD9hqGAJ54iLg2LJup7HcCA-jBh/gAQq/Aq8DQ3QrSQA-e

It's pretty laid back, noob friendly, no heavy emphasis on rotation. I generally camp Hammer but switch to scepter/shield for range or for extra CC.

I will never win a DPS trophy but this has a nice jack of all trades theme to it. AOE damage with symbols, AOE protection, AOE heals large and small (shield 5.2 and symbols), AOE aegis, AOE might, 4 hard CC's, 2 soft CC's, 2 condition cleans (3 if you take Contemplation as your stun break instead of the signet), a little bit of burning action... Litany becomes a quadruple heal and a damage skill- if you're not anticipating a big hit you can use it offensively at the start of a fight to drop a symbol and get your Zeal bonuses instantly.

Sigils and Runes are personal preference, as well as how much you feel like spending.

I've not found toughness to be that useful unless you pile it on, at which point the damage output you lose isn't worth it. Conversely the extra 7000 health has saved my butt many a time.

There's a whole lot of variationsyou can play around with though, and Honor is primarily because of Hammer (which I would drop for Radiance if I went with 1H or 2H sword).

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

I've not found toughness to be that useful unless you pile it on, at which point the damage output you lose isn't worth it. Conversely the extra 7000 health has saved my butt many a time.

Symbolic Avenger? Or does that not give a good ratio of Power from Toughness to be worth stacking Tough vis Vit?

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

I've not found toughness to be that useful unless you pile it on, at which point the damage output you lose isn't worth it. Conversely the extra 7000 health has saved my butt many a time.

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

I've not found toughness to be that useful unless you pile it on, at which point the damage output you lose isn't worth it. Conversely the extra 7000 health has saved my butt many a time.

Its more for the 10% damage boost, since you can usually get 100% symbol uptime with hammer and just a hair under 100% with scepter. The extra 130 Power is just added gravy. =)

I wish we had demolisher stats to play around with in PVE but as it is I haven't found any good place to build for toughness.

I'm a total noob -- lvl 18, first toon I've played in years -- and I'm having a ton of fun with Greatsword/Hammer. I echo everyone else's comments about Greatsword being fun -- leap of faith reminds me a lot of warrior's charge in WOW. I fall back to hammer because it is by far my strongest weapon currently, and I particularly like doing a solo combo of Symbol of Protection (3rd step of #1 chain) followed by mighty blow. I use the spirit sword for ranged. I also find switching back and forth mid fight between Greatsword and Hammer is sufficient to stand up to pretty much anything I've faced so far.

And at lvl 18, with no traits unlocked yet, I DO realize that I've actually faced very little so far and I fully expect to shift my build into more of a support role as I start to do more group based content. But as a solo player leveling by myself, currently I'm having a blast!

Levelling is the one area where you are not beholden to anyone else's idea of how to play your toon. Take advantage and build the way you find most fun. I'm not sure why the majority of players seem to want to turn the game into work for themselves, but enjoyment is meant to be the point of the exercise. For me, greatsword was probably the most fun on guardian - but try them all as you level up. Each time you need to replace a weapon choose a different combo. Find what you like. Soon enough you'll hit 80 and be told by everyone around you what you 'must' use.

@"Biff.5312" said:Levelling is the one area where you are not beholden to anyone else's idea of how to play your toon. Take advantage and build the way you find most fun. I'm not sure why the majority of players seem to want to turn the game into work for themselves, but enjoyment is meant to be the point of the exercise. For me, greatsword was probably the most fun on guardian - but try them all as you level up. Each time you need to replace a weapon choose a different combo. Find what you like. Soon enough you'll hit 80 and be told by everyone around you what you 'must' use.

Its not as broad and free spirited as you'd think. The majority of players lean toward 2 things....... minimum struggle and notable performance. The minimum struggle part is the hardest to pin down, because the level of laziness between player can vary wildly. Some are also incredibly stubborn, or suffer from "learning difficulties". Despite how well the game leans into Exploration aspects (which does include buildcraft), a comparatively low % of the player population actually take full advantage of that. Most just hodgepodge a bunch of "strong looking" traits, and largely coast on the incredibly forgiving/low difficulty of Core Tyria. And a lot of anecdotal evidence suggests a significant % of the population never goes much further then that. Even when transitioning into Xpac maps, which are way less forgiving, players are still more likely to look for "Solutions" to they're increased death rate, then really questioning why they're dying more then they used to. The answer is "evil devs, who only do bad design", because everything is the Dev's fault, because the game is bad, and we're all Pro players being punished for no reason." - The Forums ( :tongue: )

In short..... Everyone likes winning, nobody really likes dying, and it really boils down to how much effort a person is willing to put into maintaining that status quo. And as depressing as it sounds- path of least resistance is normally the one people are looking for. So naturally, this is what most of us assume is being asked, when questions are open ended, vague, broad, or just straight up asking us to tell them to what to run.