#tank guide

It's a common complaint amongst us Guardians that we have a crap HP pool. And it is totally true. We do. We have the same base HP as thieves, I believe, which also happens to be the lowest base HP pool in the entire game.

So why is it, then, that Guardians have been profusely accused of being OP, and are often incredibly tough to kill? Well there's actually several reasons for this - ranging from people not knowing how to play to people fighting against the Guardians who build themselves to be the ultimate tanks. And trust me, just trust me, Guardians are absolutely the ultimate tanks in this game.

Let me tell you the three stats you can use as a Guardian to make yourself the tankiest of the tanks in GW2, and also prove that the holy trinity isn't entirely gone. Or at least... not when it comes to having a character that could take a nuclear explosion to the face five times over and laugh it off.

VITALITY - stacking vitality will let you get an actually decent health pool. With several Crests of the Shaman in my accessories and two of my weapons (staff/sceptre) I can exceed 21k health in WvW with no orbs of power. If the server I'm in has all three, we're looking at 24k+. People will weep at how many hits to the face you can take with this much HP.

TOUGHNESS - stacking toughness also lets you take more hits, but in my experience, it isn't as useful for being tanky as vitality is. Now then, this said, if you could stack this alongside vitality, you're going to see real returns in your survivability. You probably won't kill anybody, but it would also take at least two, three players to leave you with dents in your armour.

HEALING POWER - this keeps you alive, and stacking it as a Guardian is actually incredibly useful if you want to be a support tank because you have several skills that let you heal. (Including traits that let you heal on dodge roll, Empower on the staff, and your virtues. Theoretically, if you also trait for aegis to heal on removal, healing power may also increase the amount of health that it gives you.)

I'm not entirely sure it's possible, but if you could stack all three of those in equally large amounts, I really think you could stand up to 3+ players on your own with no support for at least a couple of minutes. Would you kill them? Hell no you wouldn't.

Would they kill you? They'd have a goddamn hard time trying.

Here's the other things you get as Guardians that let you "tank" in a more off-handed sort of sense.

AEGIS - you run with a base of two aegis at any one time, from your Virtues. You should also be using Retreat in your utility slots because it gives you speed, but it also gives aegis to both yourself and nearby allies. Therefore, any good Guardian has a base aegis of three, which means that's three attacks you can basically ignore because it won't do anything to you. (Except heal you if you traited for that.)

STAFF + SANCTUARY - pop sanctuary and you're generally safe. Ground-targeted AoEs can still hit you, but there isn't anything that should be able to interrupt you unless somebody teleports into your bubble while you cast it. If you're dying, you can then go staff and pop Empower. Sanctuary lasts just long enough, in general, for you to get Empower out. If you've stacked healing power in any kind of moderation, you're looking at an easy 2k health from that. So are your allies.

SHIELD + SHOUTS - the shield also gives you a very decent knockback, leaving you to then break the bubble and flee or keep the bubble up and protect from ranger projectiles. (Which always makes them very mad.) You also have a huge number of shouts at your disposal that, last I checked, can actually be popped while you still have your shield's bubble up. If you're in need of aegis, pop retreat. Otherwise you have shouts that can give you enough stability to turn and GTFO of a bad situation, or give retaliation/might/whatever if you and allies are charging in.

in addition to the above: MACE - I haven't run with mace in a very long time, but if you've stacked healing power, vitality and toughness then it might be a good idea for you to. Why? Because it's an incredible support weapon. The AoE symbol will heal your allies, so having healing power stacked makes it infinitely useful. (Especially if you smash the symbol on the ground first and then bubble with your shield, which locks you in place anyway giving you health regeneration from the symbol and projectile protection from the bubble.) You can then skill 3 to give yourself a fourth aegis (it isn't displayed as such, but that's exactly how it works for any incoming attacks) and by that time, cooldowns in other areas should be close to done, meaning those skills will be soon available again.

Support Guardians are great. My Guardian is not particularly supportive - I went with carrion armour for vit/condi/power and Crests of the Shaman in my accessories and staff/sceptre for some added vit and healing power (though nowhere near enough to be worth my time, really.)

My Guardian is actually going to be given a second set of exotic level 80 armour which is going to probably be Cleric's amour for healing power and toughness, and then Crests of the Shaman in the accessories and runes in the armour that increase vit.