Welcome back to my series that takes a look into the Guardian profession as a support/sustain. This will be the last of the articles which covers the trait lines. This one in particular covers the Virtues trait line, in the order it's presented on the Guild Wars 2 wiki. Up next I'll be presenting articles that wrap up the Guardian profession, covering the offensive side of things. If you missed the previous articles, you can catch up with Part 1 – Weapon Skills, Part 2 – Utility Skills, Part 3 – Valor Traits, and Part 4 – Honor Traits.

The Virtues Trait Line

This trait line, in my opinion, is a very powerful set of abilities that enhance the skills unique to the Guardian. It can be used in both an offensive and defensive manner, but doesn't house very much healing ability. The first and arguably the most powerful stat you receive per point in this line is +1% to boon duration. Increasing the duration of your boons means more damage, healing, and protection for longer periods of time. If used in conjunction with abilities that grant you boons regularly, you can technically gain permanent boons when you consider that you are granted +30% extra duration at maximum points invested.. The second stat you gain per point is +1% faster Virtue recharge rate. At 30% increased recharge on your virtues, you will gain significantly more power by almost always having them ready when you need them the most. I cannot stress enough just how powerful these stats are, they aren't gained through any other means besides boon duration on runes and consumables.

Inspired Virtue – Adept Minor Trait

This minor trait is a double whammy. You gain an extra boon effect when activating each of your virtues. Justice will grant might, Resolve grants regeneration, and Courage grants protection. The reason this is so important is that you not only gain a huge advantage on using your virtues but due to the base stats of this trait line you will be able to access these extra effects more often and they will last longer. Of the trait lines I've covered so far, this is one I feel is most worthwhile.

Virtue of Retribution – Master Minor Trait

When you activate a virtue, you also gain retaliation. Yet another boon given to you for free when activating any of the virtues, how can you say no to that? Once again, you'll be able to access this more often and it will last longer due to the base stats of the trait line. Retaliation is a very powerful boon. For example, just recently ArenaNet announced changes to the Guardian's great-sword symbol which grants retaliation, claiming it was too powerful.

Power of the Virtuous – Grandmaster Minor Trait

You will deal an extra 1% of damage per boon you have. This does not work per stack of a boon, but instead you only gain an extra 1% per unique boon you have in effect. Nobody is ever sad to have some extra damage behind their attacks!

Unscathed Contender – Adept Major Trait

This trait will grant you an additional 10% damage when you have an active aegis. Despite what I just said about free damage being amazing, this trait in my opinion isn't worth jack squat. Unless you are staying far behind the action or you are amazing at dodging/kiting, this effect will end almost instantly once you enter combat. Sure there are chances to gain aegis in between the time where you attack and you are attacked, but it's a crap shoot as to whether or not you'll get a chance to do the bonus damage before aegis is removed. Unless you can find a way to 100% utilize this trait, I would suggest avoiding it.

Vengeful – Adept Major Trait

Any retaliation effect will last 20% longer. As I said 3 traits ago, retaliation is a very powerful boon and you should also take into account that at maximum points you gain 30% extra duration from this trait line. All together you'll get an extra 50% duration base, but remember that you can increase this further with runes and consumables.

Consecrated Ground - Adept Major Trait

You are now able to use ground targeting for consecration skills. Only three of the four consecration skills actually benefit from this trait. AoE fire ring, protective healing shelter, and a stability ring can be cast where you want them, instead of the default area around you. The fourth skill is a wall that you can place anywhere already. This trait doesn't have very much benefit to the guardian in general and is likely only used in very specific builds.

Retaliatory Subconscious – Adept Major Trait

When you are crowd controlled by a daze, stun, fear, knock down or knock back you cast a retaliation field around you. It's apparently a light combo field, but this isn't a trait I've used. I'd gander to say that this is more of a PvP trait or used for fights that inflict heavy crowd control on you. It also can only be triggered once every 30 seconds. It would couple well with the Vengeful trait.

Improved Spirit Weapon Duration – Adept Major Trait

This trait allows your spirit weapons to last 50% longer, effectively allowing you to have them summoned at all times. It's not useful if you trigger the activation effect on the spirit weapons often. These weapons can be helpful to bring some extra power to your character and the bow itself is a great tool for keeping conditions off of teammates.

Master of Consecrations – Adept Major Trait

With this trait you can enable your consecration skills to last 20% longer and recharge 50% faster. It's a much better choice than consecrated ground. Although they are both adept traits, you can sacrifice your master or grandmaster slot to use an adept skill. This allows you to utilize both traits at the same time so you can build heavily into one aspect. Combining these two traits grants a very powerful consecration build.

Elite Focus – Master Major Trait

Your elite skills last longer. This works based on the type of skill, of which there are two. Renewed Focus, which gives you invulnerability and refreshes your virtues is extended from 3 seconds to 5. While your tome durations will increase from 20 seconds to 30. According to the wiki, this trait does not effect elite racial skills. I guess that would just be too powerful? Either way, this isn't a bad trait to pick up. An extra 2 seconds of invulnerability is a 66.66% increase in duration and the tomes are boosted by an extra 50%. This can mean a great deal of difference when you consider how powerful these skills are when you are placed into a tight situation.

Supreme Justice – Master Major Trait

Your Virtue of Justice will now burn a target every 4 attacks instead of 5. It will also increase the burn duration of the activated effect on Virtue of Justice. Just make sure you understand that when using an AoE attack, it will only count as one hit no matter how many enemies you deal damage to. This trait is pretty powerful when combined with anything that increases condition damage and duration. It's also got great synergy with Permeating Wrath, which I cover 3 traits down.

Absolute Resolution – Master Major Trait

This trait is very powerful and personally one of my all time favorites. It causes your Virtue of Resolve to cleanse 3 conditions from yourself and nearby allies when activated. It will also increase the power of your passive health regeneration by 25%. Insane. Unfortunately this trait does not affect Battle Presence from the Honor trait line, which grants your allies the passive regeneration effect. I guess that would just be far too over powered. Even still, I highly recommend this trait.

Indomitable Courage – Master Major Trait

When you activate Virtue of Courage you will gain 3 seconds of stability, which protects you from incoming crowd control, but not conditions currently on your character. Your aegis will also refresh every 30 seconds instead of every 40. These 10 seconds might not seem like much, but look at it instead as a 25% faster recharge and it'll be more clear why this trait is worth investing in.

Permeating Wrath – Grandmaster Major Trait

Both the passive and active burning effect on Virtue of Justice will burn anything in the area around you, instead of just a single target. This is a great trait when combined with Supreme Justice and if you are interested in putting out as much AoE as you can, then this trait is for you.

Shielded Mind – Grandmaster Major Trait

This trait will break stuns when you activate Virtue of Courage. While there are other ways to break a stun, this trait will help to really maximize your virtue's power by tacking on yet another effect to it's activation. Which is essentially what this entire trait line is for. Pick this one up if you feel you need the extra safety from being disabled.

Well that covers it for all of the aspects surrounding the Guardian as a support/sustain build. It's unclear at the moment whether or not I'll go into build examples with an online character builder or if I'll just jump strait into the offensive aspect of the Guardian and then do the build examples at the end. At any rate, I appreciate your feedback and hope that these articles have served you well.

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