So you just rolled a new Guardian and have no idea what skills to get or where to put your attribute points. This thread will guide you through two of the basic cookie cutter builds. A Guardian based on the skill "Aura of Renewal" (AoR) and the second based on "Aura of Defence" (AoD). I'll go through the skills and discuss the pros and cons of each skill. Keep in mind, that this thread is just a correlation of information that has already been posted several times and I'm just trying to get it all together in a single post for the newcomers.

AURA OF RENEWAL GUARDIAN

Aura of Renewal is a skill that increases your health generation per minute for each mob inside your Holy Aura (up to 8). This skill scales with the skill level of the talent, as well as, the total amount of life you have. Generally, Guardians going this talent build will want as much life as possible. Attribute points are generally spread 1 strength 3 stamina and 1 willpower to start, and later in levels may change to 4 stamina and 1 willpower.

AURA OF DEFENSE GUARDIAN

Aura of Defense reduces the amount of damage taken by increasing the amount of total armor. This is also known as "damage mitigation." While AoR guradians regenerate life to stay alive, AoD guardians maximize armor to reduce damage taken. Two very different play styles. I may add that AoD is generally known as superior to AoR espeically in NightMare.

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STAPLE SKILLS - Once you decide your play style, you may be asking what other skills are staples to any guardian no matter what aura you decide to chose.

Anchor - This skill increases damage by a certain percentage, however, you remain standing still and the skill deactivates if you move. This is a staple skill because the guardian has a limited damage output. They may seem to do great damage in Normal, but as you press into Nightmare, Guardians damage output really deminishes. Nearly every Guardian should have 1 point in this skill.

Prayer of Healing - Heals your party (key word party) for 25% of their health. This is a huge spell in the Guardian tree. Every Guardian should have at least one point in it, however 4-6 points is recommended as you can cast it more often.

Spiritual Strength - Espeically with AoR builds, this skill is key in being able to equip better items. Unless you dump several attribute points in your first 30 levels into strength, as you approach level 25, you'll probably want to get 3-5 skill points in this to meet the increasing STR needs on armors.

Shield Bash - Most only get the 3 points needed for Shield Turn. This however, is a fairly good spammable skill. You can certainly justify putting 5-6 points in this skill if you use it alot. This skill is very good with splash shields that phase.

Shield Turn - Regarded as probably the best skill in the Guardian Tree, probably 80% of Guardians max this skill out. It is a very good skill, does decent damage and applies stun and phase fairly often. Some people also insist that this skill is a "must have" in NightMare mode. At least 5-8 points should be invested to get a good return.

Shield Charge - Good for the pesky runners and getting right into the fight. I use this skill to the maximum amount I can. We all like running instances as fast as possible, and this really makes it easy. It has a 22 yard range and it can also stun/phase target with the respective type of shield. Most people only get the 2 points needed for shield mastery as this skills increase decreases the time inbetween uses.

Sheild Mastery - This is a great skill if you plan on killing lots of mobs at the same time (as most Guardians do... this will be discussed later.) The synergy with this skill and Shield Turn are paramount for survival in NightMare. Many people also max out this skill. Many people also only put 3-5 points in it as well.

Heavan's Arc - Great skill to put 1 point (just 1) into. This skill helps rid of the pesky flyers that seem to be a problem for Guardians at times.

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SUBPAR SKILLS - These skills have very specific uses. Some of them are decent, however, they tend not to be selected because of their frailty or very specific times when the skills are actually needed. Just have some second thought before putting points into these skills.

Aura of Power - Probably a good idea with an AoR build because you may need the extra mana to cast Prayer of Healing. With an AoD build, the swap to this aura could be costly by losing that extra 15-20% mitigation. This is situational, however, most guardians have enough will power that their mana pools are pretty decent.

Shield of Faith / Shield Wall - In Nightmare, it doesn't matter if you have 100 or 10000 shields, it's pretty useless. Shields receive full damage from all types. You armor does not reduce the damage done to shields. So even people with 2,000 shields experience loss of shields nearly instantly. (This may be good on Guardians who want to do nothing but tank in parties. Maxing Shield wall can give some time to get some life back.)

Taunt Tree (Challenge, Denounce, Heavenly Condemnation and Provoke.) At the moment, this tree is said to be broken. Doesn't really do much good. It looks great in Normal, but mobs in Nightmare often resist unless you devote several points to provoke. This tree works well with Guardians who meet specific needs, however, not a good tree to work in as a beginner.

Aura of Deflection - A decent skill at costing only four points if you don't like dealing with ranged mobs very well. However, realize that when in mixed melee / ranged, this aura isn't going to protect at all against melee mobs. You'll be very vulnerable to death while this is up. Very situational, but justifiable for 2-4 points if you have them to spare.

Prayer of Retribution (PoR) - Many people say that this skill rarely phases mobs. One Guardian suggests that you get some shield penetration on a piece of armor (armor being important because the weapon doesn't cast the spell). Phasing won't affect mobs while under amor. Very mediocure skill.

Grand Aura - This Aura is pretty contriversial. some love it, others don't. It increases the range on your Holy Aura. This aura is said to be great with AoR but very useless with AoD. With and AoR build, it is probably worth getting 2-3 points in it to see how you like it.

Great Defender - With high cast time and only being able to use it once every 180 seconds, many people will just find a weapon with this skill on it and swap to in those times a need. However, some people swear by it. I've never found a use for it, and very situational. Plenty of better places to put points.

Stampede - Also situational. Good to keep things moving along well, also great for escape. If you've biten off more than you can chew, just run away and reset a bit before you attack again.

Now that we've gone through most of the skills. I'll post the two main builds as I would see them. I'll leave some "floater points" to let people put them as they see fit. Everyone plays different, but for the most part, the stuff in these builds is farily standard.

http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/...00002007000000

With this build, some good stuff to keep in mind is Heavan's Arc, Aura of Deflection, and Stampede. These are three skills that the rest of the points could be spent.

http://hellgate.ingame.de/skilltree/...00002005000300

With this build, some talents to consider are Heavan's Arc, Aura of Deflection, 1 point in AoD, and maxing out Grand Aura.

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ATTRIBUTE POINTS

Strength - This skill basically governs how "heavy" armor you can equip. Items with more armor cost more strength. Most guardians should put some points into strenght, however, Spiritual Strength is great for lightning the load.

Stamina - Need lots of it on all Guardians. Most people devote 3-4 points per level into Stam. Also help equip higher level items.

Willpower - When you're out of this you can't heal, sheild turn or shield bash. Most guardians devote 1 -2 points per level.

Accuracy - Only Gun Guardians will worry about this. Most tank and spank Guardians won't need much (if any) accuracy.

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PLAYSTYLES AND TIPS

AoR Guardian - May need some kiting to help regen life, however, the main idea is to get a group of mobs and use Shield Turn to stun or phase them, then melee them to death. AoR Guardians generally need to worry less about debuffs because of the constant flow of life. AoR Guardians will experience "spikey" life. Meaning it goes up and down very fast.

AoD Guardian - Same idea as AoR, however, may not need much kiting. Just run in and start whacking mobs. Use shield turn as much as possible to do damage. More stable life, but sometimes has to worry about debuffs as they can stack and overwhelm Prayer of Healing.

Phasing - This increses damage done to a mob by 50% and reduces the damage they deal to you by 50%. Great for killing a group of mobs really fast.

Ignite - Hits target for 5% of their hit points per seconds while ignited. Especailly good to mobs that are phased as well.

Stun - Targets can become stuned for up to 8 seconds. (More with shield mastery). You can literally stun lock mobs and not take any damage.

Defensive Resistances. Try to equip resist gear in this order:
1) Lightning Resist - When affected, you cannot cast any skills. Very annoying and if you keep gettting it, you'll likely die because injectors won't be able to keep you up fast enough.

2) Stun - You're stuned, can't do anything.

3) Ignite - 5% of your health per second. You can generally out heal it, but still gets annoying.

4) Phasing - You deal less damage and take more. Pretty nasty, but especially with AoD guardians, you don't need to worry about this too much.

5) Toxic - Damage over time. Easy to use Prayer of Healing and over come it.

Keep in mind, when getting armor with resists, most debuffs won't kill unless they start stacking up. For instance, You don't want to have tons of Lightning resist, then keeping getting stacked with Ignite and Stun. My general advice is gang up on 3 of them so you experience only 2 types of debuffs. Stacking debuffs can be hard to deal with.

If anyone has anything else to add or change please let me know. I'm hoping this will end most of the "I need a new Guardian build" posts and we can have a bit more productive forum. Maybe some devs or admin can sticky this once it gets refined to most people's liking. Any input is much love.
Original Aorthor Melosik original thread here