Guardian sPvP | Tournament Staff, Mace/Shield | Bunker Kensuda's Bunker/Support

Staff + Mace/Shield are my weapons of choice for this build. The reason for these weapons is that they perfectly straddle the line between personal defense and healing for yourself while still providing excellent support for your team. These weapons also make the best use of your high Healing Power and Boon Duration, which are great stats for bunkering and support. Between Empower, Orb of Light, Detonate Shield of Absorption, Symbol of Faith, Virtue of Resolve active, and "Hold the Line!" you have a lot of access to AoE healing, which means your Healing Power is constantly benefiting your whole team.

Two alternate weapons that I use depending on the map are: Sword instead of Mace for Kyloh, and Focus instead of Shield for Temple. Sword will allow you to teleport back onto the Clocktower point if you are knocked off, and Focus will allow you to use Shield of Wrath to prevent being interrupted while channeling the buffs.

Shelter is the only viable heal for this build, since the 2-second block raises your survival time against multiple enemies and makes your heal much harder to interrupt. Signet of Resolve is not only much easier for good players to interrupt, but also it requires you to let your HP get too low in a Cleric amulet build (it heals for about 9.5k HP, which means you would have to let yourself get to about 7k HP before you use it, which puts you in range of a spike from a Thief, for example). As for Healing Breeze, I would love the support aspect of the heal, but it is unfortunately too unreliable to use in sPvP since it is put on the full 40s CD when interrupted.

For utilities, "Hold the Line!" and "Stand Your Ground!" are crucial to the build. With Pure of Voice and Soldier runes, each of these shouts remove two conditions AoE. "Stand Your Ground!" is one of the most powerful utilities in the game for team play, giving you access to a low CD stunbreaker, as well as 6.5s of Stability and Retaliation. That Stability is plenty of time for your team to attempt a stomp or res while ensuring that your team won't be affected by CC during this critical moment. "Hold the Line!" might seem a bit lackluster at first glance, but two main points redeem it: it's the lowest CD option among the rest of the shouts for the use of Pure of Voice, and also AoE Protection is incredibly powerful defense for you and your allies in team fights.

The final utility slot will go to a consecration, and the choice of which consecration should depend on the enemy team composition. The reason you shouldn't slot a third shout into this slot is because both of the other shouts are fairly lackluster for a bunker build, and the consecrations are much more impactful options for this remaining utility slot. Also, with Absolute Resolution, Purity, and your other two shouts, you typically have conditions fairly well covered already. So, what consecration should we put in this slot? For general purpose, the overall strongest option is Sanctuary, because it has multiple uses depending on the situation that I will explain later. Aside from Sanctuary, the other consecrations have niche applications. I will run Hallowed Ground when the enemy team has 2 or more members that rely heavily on CC as part of their build (example: 2 Hammer Warriors). Hallowed Ground is already a decent ability (access to extra Boon Duration and Stability is very strong in team fighting), and the additional benefit of negating CC/damage against those team comps puts it over the edge. Purging Flames becomes good enough to run when you are against teams with 3+ members that rely heavily on non-projectile conditions as part of their builds (example: condi Necro + bomb/nade Engi + spirit Ranger). Against less than 3 of those types of builds, you shouldn't need the extra condi removal over Sanctuary. Lastly, Wall of Reflection is incredibly niche in sPvP, and I would recommend only running it against weird team compositions that rely almost exclusively on projectiles to do their damage. Otherwise, Wall of Reflection is very easy for good players to avoid and doesn't provide any other useful effects.

Renewed Focus is, generally speaking, the best elite that Guardian has access to, and it's especially powerful in this build when you consider all of the Virtues traits you are picking up. The 2 seconds of invulnerability also keeps you alive just a little bit longer, making it critical in extending your survival time. Keep in mind, you do not maintain control of a point while invulnerable, so be careful about using it when you are the only teammate on the point and it is close to being neutralized or capped by the enemy.

As a support build, we are going the full 30 points into the Honor tree mainly to pick up Pure of Voice, but the extra 300 Vitality and Healing Power we get here are also critical for our defense and support. Dispelling conditions with shouts is one of our main roles, and it also conveniently helps your own bunkering by allowing you to survive longer against enemy condition classes. Superior Aria combos well with this trait, as well as giving us more frequent access to the shouts' other effects. For the 20 point trait, Resolute Healer and Writ of the Merciful are the two main options. Writ of the Merciful is the slightly more selfish option, as it mainly is for keeping yourself up (you are typically the only teammate that can afford to stand inside your stationary symbols for very long). I'd recommend it for newer Guardians as it will certainly help you stay alive a bit longer. For more advanced players on more coordinated teams, I'd recommend Resolute Healer, as the extra push back and projectile defense will help your team quite a bit in getting tough resses through enemy downed pressure.

The full 30 point investment in Virtues sets this build apart from other bunker builds, giving you more support than you would get with a heavier investment into Valor, but with a bit of sacrifice to your own defense. Higher Boon Duration coupled with shorter Virtue cooldowns and Virtue of Retribution mean that your boon support is as strong as it possibly can be. Absolute Resolution is the strongest option for your 20 point trait and gives you your 3rd AoE cleanse. Indomitable Courage gives you an extra Stability cooldown, though it is on a fairly long cooldown. Still, having access to 1200 range Stability allows you to pull off plays that would otherwise be impossible. For our 10 point trait, the two main options here are Consecrated Ground and Master of Consecrations. Both are reasonable choices, but personally I prefer to have the shorter cooldown, as the ranged casting is not often as relevant in my experience.

The last 10 points go into Valor, picking up some Toughness and the Purity trait, which affords you some extra passive condition removal. It may seem like we're overloading a bit on the cleanses, but in my experience you'll be very glad it's there. Being bombed with conditions is one of the fastest ways for a bunker to die, since they ignore Toughness.

A mistake a lot of beginner bunkers make is that once mid is won, they will just sit on the middle point all game and make sure it isn't taken while the rest of the team is 4v5 on other parts of the map. While defending points is an important role of the Guardian, this build in particular won't stay alive forever in 1v1s. Especially in Team Arena, it's actually more beneficial to your team if you rotate to team fights (fights with 3 or more players on each side), since your support and Stability is key for winning those fights. Try to coordinate with your team and figure out where the enemy is committing most of their resources (call numbers when possible), and then you should rotate to that fight. It's much better if you leave a durable player that is good at 1v1ing (like a Soldier amulet Warrior, for example) to watch a point, while you support your team in the bigger conflicts on the map. Remember, you're a bunker and support hybrid, so the best place for you is contesting the point where all the fighting is happening.

If you are fighting on a point and your team starts losing (2 members or more have either been finished or are impossible to res), there are a few different options as to what you should do. If you think you can run away without dying, you can call a retreat and try to regroup and hold whatever else you currently control on the map until your teammates start respawning. If you already control 2 other points, this is almost always the best option. If you are already low and it doesn't seem that you will be able to get away, it's typically best to try and die on the point, rather than being caught off-point (good players will leave you down to bleed out if you are off-point, prolonging your respawn time and leaving your team outnumbered for longer).

As a bunker, it's very important that you pay careful attention to your own survival. Use Shelter (#6) off cooldown as soon as it would heal you to full (around 11k HP) unless you have something else to do that is of critical importance (like stomping/ressing). It's very important that you make sure Poison is not on you when you heal. A good way to do this is to start casting Shelter, then use one of your instant-cast cleanses to take the Poison off of you before the heal finishes. By having the block part of the heal already started when you cleanse, you make sure that Poison will not be reapplied before your heal ends.

Regarding dodges, you do have quite a lot of them between your Energy sigils and your semi-frequent Vigor procs. My advice here is: dodge well, but dodge often. Your dodges heal allies, as well as just avoiding some incidental cleave damage for 3/4 of a second. Don't spam your dodges, but it's also ok to use them just to avoid some smaller attacks if you're high on Endurance, especially if you're going to weapon swap soon.

For cleansing, use "Hold the Line!", "Stand Your Ground!", and Virtue of Resolve, generally in that order. An exception is if you believe that you will soon need Stability, you may want to use the Virtue instead of SYG. Remember, cleansing your allies is just as important as cleansing yourself, so be aware of your allies' conditions when possible. You can cleanse downed allies while ressing, which is the most important when it comes to Poison. Immediately cleanse Poison off downed bodies as soon as it is applied (you will notice a difference in the amount of HP that you are ressing for). This can make the difference between a successful and a failed res.

Stability should always be on whenever you stomp or res, so be conservative with your Stability. If you are CCed and you don't see any incoming damage, don't waste SYG, try to save it. On the other hand, if you see one of your allies being CC chained, try to give them Stability if you can afford to use it -- it can save them from taking a lot of damage. Generally, you should use "Stand Your Ground!" before Virtue of Courage, but keep in mind that you can give downed bodies Aegis and Protection, so sometimes it is better to use Virtue of Courage instead if you expect the body or the ressers will need that extra defense.

Sanctuary has a lot of different uses. The most typical use for it is as an additional defensive cooldown for yourself. When you're getting low on health and need a break from projectile damage, Sanctuary gives you a nice 8 second reprieve. You can also put it down for an ally that may go down soon and attempt to keep them up by using it along with your other heals. It can also be used as an area denial and push back when you are trying to neutralize or capture a point. Lastly, it can be used as a stomp/res interrupt when the enemy doesn't have Stability up.

Renewed Focus is your most powerful cooldown. An important point to remember is that you can use any of your instant cast skills during the invulnerability of Renewed Focus. For example, you can use any of your remaining Virtues while invulnerable so that none of them are wasted when Renewed Focus ends and refreshes them. One mistake that I see a lot of Guardians make is that they will only use their elite when they think they will die if they don't use it (the last second "panic elite"). I recommend using it much more aggressively than that -- it should not only be used for your own personal defense, and it shouldn't only be saved as a last resort. Here are various situations where I will use my elite:
* When my team will soon need a condi cleanse, but all of my condi cleanse is still on several seconds of cooldown.
* When all of my virtues have already been used, and I am about to take some damage (remember, refreshing your Virtues restores their passive effects, and those passives help keep you alive better, so it's good to have the passives up as long as possible.
* When I will soon need Stability for a stomp or res, but all of my Stability is on cooldown and will not be up in time.
* When I am being focused, I am out of condition cleanses, but BEFORE I have a lot of conditions already put on me (it's much better to be invulnerable during a period where you have few conditions on you than it is to be invulnerable while taking a ton of damage from conditions).

Proper positioning is just as important on Guardian as it is on other classes. Generally, you want to position yourself to take as little damage as possible - avoid grenades, wells, and bombs as best you can without giving up point control. If you find yourself getting low, you can ask a teammate to stay on the point while you kite around a little till you can heal up a bit. If an enemy or ally is getting low on health, you should position yourself so that you're already near to that person for immediate stomping/ressing. If an ally is closer than you to a downed enemy, give them Stability and let them take the stomp.

The orientation on Line of Warding (Staff #5) depends on what direction you're facing at the *end* of the channel, not the beginning. You can use this to turn your facing at the last moment and place lines in directions that would normally be difficult or impossible from where you are standing. Some typical applications include walling off the bottom of stairs on Legacy of the Foefire while standing on Graveyard, and walling off the stairs or walling the rafters on Clocktower in Battle of Kyloh.

There's a trick with Shield of Absorption (Shield #5) that many people don't know about. If you activate the shield and then press a direction while channeling it, it will abort the channel and the shield will seem to disappear. However, the shield is actually still there, it's just invisible. It will still absorb all projectiles for 4 seconds. This is very useful for protecting a res, or just shutting down Warrior longbow, Ranger shortbow, or Engi grenades for a little while.