Vale Guardian 
Gorseval the Multifarious 
Sabetha the Saboteur 
Slothasor 
Bandit Trio 
Matthias Gabrel 
Siege the Stronghold 
Keep Construct 
Xera 
Cairn the Indomitable 
Mursaat Overseer 
Samarog 
Deimos 
Soulless Horror 
River of Souls 
Statues of Grenth 
Dhuum 
Conjured Amalgamate 
Nikare and Kenut 
Qadim 
Cardinal Adina 
Cardinal Sabir 
Qadim the Peerless 
The is currently one of the most popular specializations in the raid scene of Guild Wars 2.
Because of the versatility of this specialization, the can be played by almost any boss. It also has an immense repertoire of support options.
So it can not only do good damage but also help the group with: , , , and strong CC! It can do all this while losing relatively little damage.
The general gameplay and rotation of this specialization is quite simple and ideal for beginners.
Your special class mechanic as Guard are your virtues. Though, the -Tratiline changes them up a bit.
There are still three different virtues:
All three -virtues have their special place and will all be used frequently during boss fights.
This spear is an essential part of your rotation as it provides a 1,200 unit targeted pull through &Br90AAA= as well as a strong DPS increase.
If an opponent has been hit by your spear they have the debuff &B6MHAAA= on them for 10 seconds. The main reason why you always want &Br90AAA= to be active on your opponent is the trait &B6MHAAA=. Enemies that are hit by your spear suffer 15% more damage from your attacks!
For this reason, this virtue is the most important virtue and is an integral part of your rotation!
The &B2gHAAA= trait reduces the cooldown of &Br90AAA= by 3 seconds (3 second cooldown) per successful block.
The &BzsCAAA= trait recharges your &Br90AAA= directly(!) after you have successfully killed an enemy!
In raids, however, there are only a few opponents that cause this. These are mainly only found in Wing 1 and 2:
It can be useful to enable your &Br90AAA= outside of your burst for these bosses, if you know that your &Br90AAA= will reset immediately.
Your &Bj94AAA= (Core-) skill turns into an AoE attack. You can jump up to 800 ranged units through this. This skill heals after landing.
So this skill is not only good healing for your party but also a great way to get mechanics out faster or to be on the boss again quicker.
In addition to for your entire subgroup, &Bk11AAA= also creates a shield that blocks all incoming attacks for 3 seconds! But this does not apply to attacks from behind!
This powerful skill can be used to grant to your subgroup so that they do not become ed for example at . Or to be able to simply tank attacks like the flame breath of without losing any health points!
A good always saves this skill for emergencies and thus it serves as a panic button!
Another special class mechanic besides the new virtues are the traps of the . You place these traps on the ground and as soon as an enemy triggers these traps they will be activated.
There are one healing, one elite and four utility traps. In this guide we will only deal with the important traps.
All traps can be placed before a fight starts and can be triggered! However, the following applies here: As soon as you try to activate the same trap again and your previously placed trap has not been triggered yet, it will disappear. Therefore it is important to wait for the traps to be triggered and only cast your new traps after they have been triggered.
All traps cause some slow CC, through the trait &B2oHAAA=! All your traps cause 1 1/2 seconds on your enemies.
For the there are two options for the main weapon in the second weapon set, the scepter and the sword. While the sword has a much better burst damage and continuous damage, the scepter is much more powerful. beginner friendly and has a slightly easier rotation. So if you’re a bit more experienced, you can play directly with sword, as this is simply the stronger build!
But the Sword-Build has two disadvantages!
There are three ways to avoid this:
Bosses you can play scepters on: (Logically the sword set is still better! But the difference is smaller!)
: In addition to range attacks on the stack mechanics or during the start of the last phase, you can also Rigom with “&BosjAAA=!
: Here it can sometimes happen that you cannot attack the boss because he is standing in a black field!
: If you need to place one of the 5 pillars, you can continue attacking from afar.
Basically you always exchange &BtAjAAA= as first skill, if you need another utility skill!
&BqBUAAA= is by far your best heal skill, which you can use as ! You heal yourself based on a percentage of the damage you deal. As this is very high this skill is comparable to an insta full health! It can also be used to bypass ticking damage (like the circle of ) for a short time!
&Bo4jAAA= can be a very useful heal skill if you need extra blocks, as it blocks all attacks for 2 seconds!
&BsEjAAA= should be used when your uptime is very low! It gives you and , which can be very useful in many cases!
&BnwjAAA= should only be used if your -Uptime is low (Virtues build), and good positioning and &Bk11AAA= is not sufficient! However, you can also take &BnwjAAA= with you, if you don’t feel safe enough and thus gain a Back-Up !
&Bg11AAA= serves as additional and source for your subgroup! Since you don’t have an elite that will give you more damage, this is the best alternative!
&Bv12AAA= is an alternative to &Bg11AAA= or &BkF2AAA=. If your group has enough and , you can play with this signet to heal your group and increase the &AgEEYQAA uptime! However, you will lose some damage by removing &BkF2AAA=.
&BoUjAAA= is the strongest CC skill you have as ! It should only be used in emergency situations or when you play with &B0MCAAA=.
&BiMkAAA= can be taken along for additional reflection.
What do I have to look for as to get the best possible damage out of my class?
A good rotation is always a very important factor for good damage, but there are other factors to consider when playing the .
:
gives you a massive DMG boost of 10%! You can get this gain by using the trait &BzUCAAA=, if you only have active on you.
There are many ways to get a good to very good uptime.
Starting with the &BrojAAA= icon which gives you as long as it is active.
Virtues (only when playing Virtues build): You will also receive through the &B1wCAAA= trait whenever you activate one of your virtues. Since this is a permanent feature of your rotation, you have another reliable source of .
In addition, the &Bz4CAAA= trait will give you whenever you activate a healing skill. However, this trait should only be used in an absolute emergency if your uptime is very bad, as you will lose 80 power, 80 precision, and cool down reduction on your sword.
Other classes will also give you or extend it. For example, a will extend your with &BvwnAAA= very often during a fight. A will also distribute to its subgroup when it switches to the &BoKjAAA=.
Since this happens very quickly at the beginning of each fight, the combination alone : &BrojAAA= + + &BvwnAAA= gives you a very good uptime!
Of course, the -Uptime also increases by several or (&BvwnAAA= in your subgroup.
&B+EHAAA=:
A simple yet important trait is &B+EHAAA=. For each active symbol you have, you get one stack of that trait for each tick of the symbol. Each stack gives you 2% more damage and it is stackable up to 5 stacks.
Therefore you should always start your bursts under the effect of 5 stacks. Once you have 5 stacks, with a good rotation, you will be able to keep them up for the rest of the match (if there is no inbetween phase).
If you are unable to attack the boss, or if you are not attacking and waiting, try casting your symbols on the ground to maintain 5 stacks. Because as soon as the boss is attackable again, you want to start with 5 stacks!
&Br90AAA=:
As a good you must always make sure that you use your &Br90AAA= in combination with your burst rotation. Using your &Br90AAA= irregularly or in the wrong places can result in a massive DPS loss, as you deal 15% more damage to an enemy connected to your spear. Therefore, it is always a good idea to activate your &Br90AAA= shortly after you activate your &Bpx2AAA=.
“Weapon Stow” is a way to draw or stow your weapons at the touch of a button.
However, this is not the only effect of this button: once you press “Weapon Stow”, 95% of all skills in the game will be interrupted immediately, regardless of whether you have already activated them.
Experienced players can take advantage of this by using the key to interrupt the aftercast on various skills.
The “aftercast” is the time that an animation of the skill lasts (usually a few milliseconds). At this point, the skill is already finished, so it does no more damage.
This way you can bypass the short waiting time of the aftercast and activate the next skill directly.
The most important skills with a longer aftercast are &BrojAAA= and &BrsjAAA=.
Both are interrupted with “Weapon Stow” immediately after they have been activated. This means, you press e.g. &BrojAAA= and directly after that “Weapon Stow” to interrupt the aftercast.
This takes some practice until you get the hang of it, but you will be rewarded with a significant increase in DPS because you can rotate faster than other .
On the golem, this difference is usually around 1,000-1,500 DPS.
Using the &B0MCAAA= trait, you can distribute the passive effect of a signet to your allies for 10 seconds after actively using that signet!
What is it for?
The active effect of &BoUjAAA= when you activate the signet causes 300 damage, which is quite a lot. Therefore, if your group needs help for the CC or if you are fighting a CC heavy boss in general, such as : , , or , you should take this trait with you!
If you play with &B0MCAAA=, you will lose the &B5MGAAA=, which gives you a lot of precision. It is therefore recommended that you play a different gear set, otherwise you will lose a lot of damage.
See Overview, Signet Share Build.
Try to cast your signet towards the end of a CC Bar, so that your party can benefit from the active effect of the signet for as long as possible.
Note: Due to a bug this signet share does not work as it should. As soon as you activate your signet, you will lose all (!) signets (of the same type) that are currently in effect. This means that if you have received a stack of &BoUjAAA= from another , you will lose it immediately if you press your signet.
An example: 4 who activate their signet. After every has pressed the signet, not every has 4 stacks as normally assumed, but: 1 – 1 stack , 2 – 2 stacks , 3 – 3 stacks and 4 – 4 stacks.
So the person who activates his signet the earliest will have the most stacks in the end!
The “Virtues” traitline can lead to a massive DPS increase if you have enough boons and a good to very good uptime.
You replace the “Radiance” traitline for the “virtues” traitline. By this change you lose 80 Precision through the &BzYCAAA= trait and 25% Critical Hit chance through the &B5MGAAA= trait. Therefore a change of the equipment is inevitable. To do this, you can go to the build page and select the Virtues tab!
The damage increase through the “Virtues” traitline results from 3 important traits in total:
Therefore it is especially important to maintain a good uptime and if possible many boons. This is most often the case for bosses that have a Boon- or –, as it can permanently grant you every boon except . Examples of this are: , and .
As already mentioned in the section “Weapon Stow” it is a big DPS increase and you should use this trick on the skills &BrojAAA= and &BrsjAAA=!
Make sure that you do not cancel your &BpgjAAA= with &BoIjAAA=!
Use &BnkjAAA= always in the of the boss so that all projectiles hit the opponent!
Tried to activate &BtAjAAA= always under the effect of &Br90AAA= or shortly before activation of &Br90AAA=. Be especially careful not to activate &BtAjAAA= without an active symbol beneath you. It has a fixed part in the rotation!
A very important and also quite useful skill is &BtAjAAA=. Besides great damage when it explodes (shouldn’t all 3 stacks have disappeared), it can also block up to three attacks, which an experienced can use for one or two situations! But you should be careful not to waste all 3 stacks, otherwise this skill will not explode and do its damage!
A big mistake of many -players is to use &BnojAAA= as first skill when they start a boss fight (like on the golem). This is a big DPS loss because in most cases, &BnojAAA= will explode if you don’t have full 25 ! Accordingly it is recommended to delay &BnojAAA= a little bit, so that it explodes with 25 !
One of the most important and strongest DPS skills is &BrsjAAA=. Many don’t use it properly in certain situations, which leads to a big DPS loss.
The skill works as follows: You turn once in a circle and one (or more) projectiles (swords) will fly towards the boss. The moment you activate this skill, a sword will be created per enemy (max 5) in a 600 radius around you, which will fly towards those enemies (which you can theoretically when you hit them). However, there is a little trick that leads to a massive DPS increase. If you stand in the of your opponent, around it are several opponents (max 5) and you use &BrsjAAA= now, there will be created a maximum of 5 swords, which try to reach the targets. Since you are inside the boss all your 5 projectiles hit the boss, which is a very strong DPS boost. Therefore it is sometimes useful to delay &BrsjAAA= and only use it when enemies are nearby, like (Seeker) or (Slublings).
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22021440
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687
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2000
Place:
Spirit Vale
Hitbox:
140
Difficulty:
Easy 
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21628200
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1374
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4500
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Spirit Vale
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Easy
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1374
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Spirit Vale
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48
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Easy
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18973828
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Salvation Pass
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360
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Easy
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Salvation Pass
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Salvation Pass
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Place:
Stronghold of the Faithful
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Easy
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3500
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Stronghold of the Faithful
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Easy
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1374
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2000
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Stronghold of the Faithful
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Easy
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Bastion of the Penitent
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Easy
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Bastion of the Penitent
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Easy
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Bastion of the Penitent
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420
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Easy
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Bastion of the Penitent
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Easy
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Hall of Chains
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Easy
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Hall of Chains
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Hall of Chains
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Hall of Chains
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Place:
Mythwright Gambit
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1670
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Easy
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Mythwright Gambit
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Mythwright Gambit
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The Key of Ahdashim
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Easy
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29493000
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1374
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The Key of Ahdashim
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Easy
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The Key of Ahdashim
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Easy 