User:Qiff/Sobarn
Guardian =/= Warrior[edit]
As with my warrior, I went through a certain process, before I ended up where I am now. When I got my guardian to level 80, I bought berserker gear and traited for damage, and boy was I disappointed. Here's why: a Guardian is not a Warrior. The DPS of a Guard is much, much lower. Hitting everything with your Whirling Wrath will get you a last hit of ~10k in normal situations and ~15k in ideal situations. This can only be achieved on targets with a large hitbox that can be critically hit (like the Bloomhunger). Normal enemies will get hit 7 times or even less. Its 'antagonist' Hundred Blades is more likely to hit all 8 times and usually results in a ~30k last hit and hits for over 40k in ideal situations.
Despite being Soldier classes and heavily melee-focused, these two classes play very differently. That is why I changed my build radically, in armor as well as trait setup. The trait setup (0/0/30/30/10) focuses on the best trait available: Pure of Voice. This is by far the best trait the Guardian has to offer. Combine this with Altruistic Healing and you give massive boons to your whole party, while never dying yourself. The amazing thing about this specific trait setup is that it works with almost all weapon and armor combinations. It is just a matter of which role you want to fulfill in your team. It is also a great trait setup to get to know the class and slowly get more Berserker's armor. I now have full Berserker's armor with Knight's trinkets (they are all ascended and I refuse to change them all again, just like I did with my Warrior).
I use a berserker's greatsword of bloodlust for DPS and utility. Binding Blade (#5) is very useful and almost required in certain situations. Whirling Wrath (#2) is your obvious AoE DPS skill, while Leap of Faith (#3) is support with AoE Blind. This is definately the weapon of choice in situations with many foes and parties that focus on stacking to kill those foes. Be careful with the symbol (Skill #4): some people in your party might want to stack might with fire fields. You providing a light combo field (all symbols are light combo fields) in that situation is very ignorant. AoE Retaliation is far less useful than AoE Might. Wait with this skill until the party member (probably an elementalist) is done with his fire field blast combo's.
Your second weapon can be anything. I normally use a staff, because Empower (#4) is amazing and the Symbol of Swiftness (#3) helps with running. Line of Warding (#5) is useful for completely shutting down melee-based enemies: the AI of melee foes will want to be in melee range first, before attacking, so they will keep running into your line, making them useless for 5 seconds (often enough for a warrior to finish them off with a clean 100b). When someone in the party stacks lots of might, your staff usefulness is greatly diminished, and I switch to Sword/Focus. Blind, DPS, block, great.
As for utilities: "Stand Your Ground!" and "Hold the Line!" are amazing shouts. They recharge (relatively) quickly and provide rare boons (protection and stability). Fully DPS-focused warriors (and other classes) often rely heavily on your support to get rid of their conditions and provide them with boons mentioned before. They have no spot on their build for stability, condition removal, endurance, banners AND signets. Also, if foes use projectiles, use Wall of Reflection and trait for it (that's why I have 10 in Virtues). This skill is a life saver. Always change utility skills according to the situation: you might need Shield of the Avenger for long term projectile absorbtion (the Harpies in the Uncatagorized Fractal, Bloomhunger in the Swamp Fractal), or Hallowed Ground if your party decides to stack and the foes have massive crowd control skills (Gravelings in Ascalonian Catacombs, the Nightmare Tree boss that spawns Oakhearts).
UPDATE: Blablabla, I'm full Berserker now.
