Guardian - Radiant Hammer

• Twitch: NotoriousNaru

• Radiant Greatsword

Skill Variants

Utility

• "前进！" over 症状惩戒 - with this you gain reliable 迅捷 access and even a new source of 圣盾 which could be used either defensively as an instant block or offensively to fuel 无伤斗魂. The price is the loss of some cleansing, healing and 激怒 access. Another benefit of "Advance!" is that you get to drop 猞猁符文 for something better, like 渗透符文 or 学者符文.

General

• Valkyrie amulet doesn't provide any critical hit chance, that's where the boons and traits come in: 光耀力量 adds 10% against burning foes, 激怒 adds the usual 20% and 决心 will further increase it by 40% thanks to 正义本能. Always try to maintain Retaliation, but don't spam all the sources at once otherwise boon removal can be too punishing.

• Try to aid allies with 勇气美德 as traited with 不屈勇气 it can break stun and apply stability among other things.

• 正义美德 is refreshed after each kill so make sure you always have it on cooldown right before a kill. Using it also applies AoE 目盲 which can be useful for stomping or making high priority skills miss.

• Try to burn through all of your virtues before resorting to 专注复苏. RF is a great skill to use if you're being focues by the enemy team and you don't have any CDs left. Just keep in mind that this skill makes you lose capture point contribution for its duration.

  • Your virtues that aren't on CD can be (and should be) activated while channeling this elite.
  • Don't blow 决心美德 until the last moment of the channel. Let it heal you as much as possible.

• Every utility skill is a meditation, therefore can be used both defensively and offensively thanks to the 激怒 and healing from 僧侣专注.

• 救赎 turns 勇气美德 into a second healing skill.

• Use 症状惩戒, 愤怒祷词, 决心美德 and Light field combos to manage your condition levels. Only resort to 纯净沉思 and 专注复苏 if these no longer suffice.

Hammer

• Hammer provides various different CCs namely immobilize, launch and a ward, making it possible to decap enemy points.

• The auto attack chain is rather slow but ends with a powerful symbol which applies .

• Spam pretty much on CD. Combo it with symbols as often as possible for AoE condition removal. This should be the first skill you use after swapping to this weapon in order to get the proc, unless you really need to CC someone.

• is rather self-explanatory, use it to root people into important skills (most notably and ) or to keep them off the capture point a bit longer.

  • Keep in mind that this is a projectile and can be reflected or negated accordingly.

• works on downed bodies which can be useful for disrupting rez attempts or just knocking enemies off-point to bleed them out (thus delaying their respawn) while you capture the objective.

  • Banishing resets the CD of , allowing you to do back-to-back bursts and even causes your next Glacial Blow to teleport after your target when used.

• is a powerful area denial skill which can also be used to trap people inside it, even from range (with , but you have to cast it early or else the ring will stay behind). Enemies knocked back with Banish won't leave the field so you could also use it to control the distance of the knockback.

Sword/Focus

• This is the defensive set of the build, but still has some hard hitting skills.

• The main source of burst damage here comes from . Note that the projectiles can be very unreliable in anything but melee range. If you have Sigil of Agility on this set, always try to use it after swapping weapons to get the most out of it (except if you need to cleave a downed body, then use the quickness to auto attack).

• has many uses: vertical mobility via teleportation, symbol for cleaving, to make an important skill miss, or a combo field which can be used for AoE cleansing by executing a blast finisher in it.

• is a ranged skill with great damage over time.

• is both an excellent defensive and offensive skill (more about that below). As far as defense goes, this can be used to block important attacks even while stunned. Always try to use it in a symbol (a Light field) for AoE condition cleansing.

Main burst combo (preferably executed from a safe distance):

1. If possible, have an active to gain the damage bonus from.
2. should be activated before the combo. Try not to get hit because you'll need it to explode for damage. Wait until only ~1 second remains of its duration then quickly proceed with the rest of the combo.
3. Weapon Swap (in combat this also triggers your sigils).
4. - start casting it from range.
5. to teleport to the target right before MB finishes its animation.
6. (to gain Resolution from ) should be used just before Glacial Blow lands.

Combo tools

• Contribute to the and stacking attempts of your team by using and in their combo fields if they're offering any before a fight.

A core PvP hammer Guardian build which takes advantage of various crit chance boosts to run and focuses mainly on landing s. Also available for F2P players looking to try GW2's PvP.

Equipment Variants

Relics

• - a different kind of mobility boost that allows you to replace your current rune with . With this setup your burst damage is going to be a bit weaker but your consistency outside of windows will go up thanks to the improved crit chance. You trade 10% bonus damage with a ~50% uptime for ~11% higher crit chance baseline. This is less popular than the current version though as the build's main goal is to hit the biggest possible s.

• - massive boost to your sustain, makes the build easier to play. However it's going to cost you the damage boost of Brawler, and this is a burst build first and foremost. It's fine to start with this if you're new, but aim to make the transition to Brawler later.