Blue Guardian Tank ‘Defender’ Build
By Araphorn – Updated for Yondershire, U33

Table of Contents
Introduction
Welcome, here you will find a good build for Guardian tanks, which is specifically tuned for high-end Raids/Instances. Blue Guardians got a little revamp to some of their skills and they are now pretty good tanks for all content.
Guardian tanks can mitigate sustainable damage better than any other tank, they have the best aggro control (AoE and ST), have one of the best B/P/E and have some of the best self-heals compared to other tanks.
Stat Goals
These goals are kept with Essence & Gear planning in mind, as to which Essences are to be prioritized over others. These goals can also be used when picking Virtues.
Tactical Mitigation > Physical Mitigation > Vitality
After Mits are capped or near capped, then Vitality essences can be used. Generally, only Tactical Mitigation essences will be needed, as Physical Mitigation gets capped with just cap-level Gear and Virtues. At the beginning of expansion, Essence slots are really limited, this gets easier as better items become available later down the line.
* Before planning Essences, slot the right Virtues (more on that down below). This way you can plan your setup better, and utilize Essences perfectly, and you can dump the remaining Essence slots in Vitality, Finesse, or other Stat of your choice after meeting Stat goals mentioned above.
Gear
With the new raid released, new gear for Tanking Blue Guard is published in the tables down below. They will use 4-pieces of the Blue set and 3-pieces of the Yellow set for additional stats. There are 2 published Builds, one for Endgame and one for Starters.
End-game Build
Armour Pieces
Gear Slot | Set Piece | Location |
---|---|---|
Helm | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Chest | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Shoulders | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Gloves | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Legs | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Boots | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Cloak | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Off-hand | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Class Item | Hiddenhoard Raid |
Jewelry Pieces
Gear Slot | Set Piece | Location |
---|---|---|
Earring 1 | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Earring 2 | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Necklace | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Hiddenhoard Raid | ||
Bracelet 1 | Storvagun Winter Festival | |
Bracelet 2 | Storvagun Winter Festival | |
Ring 1 | Hiddenhoard Raid | |
Ring 2 | Hiddenhoard Raid |
Starter Build
The 140 Level Gear from this Build can be acquired by playing the 3 and 6 man instances, higher difficulty will award better loot. Having this gear will allow to progress level capped Raids. As for Essences, you can use the ones you get from Questing or Crafting (whichever Tier is fine), and try to follow the Stat Goals above and Slot the ones which are needed by your Class.
Armour Pieces
Gear Slot | Set Piece | Location |
---|---|---|
Helm | Gundabad 6-Man Instance | |
Chest | Gundabad 6-Man Instance | |
Shoulders | Gundabad 3-Man Instance | |
Gloves | Gundabad 3-Man Instance | |
Legs | Gundabad 3-Man Instance | |
Boots | Gundabad 3-Man Instance | |
Cloak | Gundabad 6-Man Instance | |
Off-hand | Embers Box Barter |
|
Class Item | Embers Box Barter |
Jewelry Pieces
Gear Slot | Set Piece | Location |
---|---|---|
Earring 1 | Gundabad 6-Man Instance | |
Earring 2 | Gundabad 6-Man Instance | |
Necklace | Gundabad 6-Man Instance | |
Gundabad 6-Man Instance | ||
Bracelet 1 | Storvagun Winter Festival | |
Bracelet 2 | Storvagun Winter Festival | |
Ring 1 | Gundabad 6-Man Instance | |
Ring 2 | Gundabad 6-Man Instance |
Essences
Essence Name | Essence | Note |
---|---|---|
Tactical Mitigation |
Use these to reach Tactical Mitgation cap, or near cap. |
|
Vitality | Use these to fill Slots safter Mits are capped. |
|
Finesse | Use some of these if there’s room. |
|
Tank Mitigation Trigger 1 |
Use 1 of these if there’s room. |
|
Tank Mitigation Trigger 2 |
Use 1 of these if there’s room. |
*Note: Finesse and Trigger Essences for Tanks are optional/situational. Use only if you have room for them, although the Tank Trigger essences can be quite nice for harder group content.
Trait Trees
Trait trees for Guardian are pretty straight-forward and just needs 1 Blue Tree for tanking all content.

This tree gives all of the important stuff which is required for all content. Majority of the points are spent in yellow due to War-chant targets, Thrill of Danger morale absorb and Redirect potency.
35 Trait Points Build for Legendary Servers

60 Trait Points Build for Beginners

Virtues
These are the virtues I use to reach the Stat Goals. I use these 5 virtues on all my tanks as I find these exact ones to be the best for tanks.

Here are the Virtues which go along with the Stat Goals:
- Loyalty (Great for Vitality)
- Fidelity (Great for Vitality + Tactical Mit)
- Charity (Gives great amount of Resistance, decent Vitality and Physical Mit)
- Tolerance (Gives great amount of Tactical Mit, decent Physical Mit and Resistance)
- Innocence (Gives great amount of Physical Mit, decent Tactical Mit Mit and Resistance)
- If you are over Physical Mitigation cap, swap Innocence with Honour
If you don’t have these virtues, here are some alternatives:
- Honour (Gives decent Tactical Mit, Morale and Critical Defence)
- Fortitude (Gives decent Morale, Resistance and Critical Defence)
- Compassion (Gives great Physical Mit, decent Tactical Mit and Armour Value)
Legendary Items
Guardian tanks require 2 dedicated LIs for tanking, and with the new LI revamp, not much has changed.
*Note: Please use Word of Craft Traceries as per Stat Goals.
1-Hander Weapon
Type | Sockets |
---|---|
Heraldic Tracery | Heraldry of the Ox |
Word of Power | Base Morale Multiplier |
Word of Power | Incoming Heal Bonus |
Word of Mastery | Guardian’s Ward Damage & Parry Chance |
Word of Mastery | Guardian’s Ward Duration & Block Chance |
Word of Mastery | Shield Damage |
Word of Mastery | Stamp Cooldown & Damage |
Word of Mastery | Turn the Tables Cooldown |
Word of Mastery | Warrior’s Heart Stoic Bubble Strength |
Word of Craft | Grand Willpower |
Word of Craft | Grand Willpower |
Guardian’s Belt (Class Item)
Type | Sockets |
---|---|
Heraldic Tracery | Heraldry of the Ox |
Word of Power | Area Effect Target Count |
Word of Power | Incoming Damage Reduction (Physical) |
Word of Power | Incoming Damage Reduction (Tactical) |
Word of Mastery | Adaptability Block & Parry Rating |
Word of Mastery | Catch a Breath Cooldown & Heal |
Word of Mastery | Force Taunt Duration |
Word of Mastery | Guardian’s Pledge Cooldown & Magnitude |
Word of Mastery | Warrior’s Heart Duration |
Word of Mastery | Warrior’s Heart Morale Heal & Maximum |
Word of Craft | Grand Armour / Grand Willpower |
Word of Craft | Grand Armour / Grand Willpower |
Rotation
Here is what I do on Guardian Tank.
For AoE aggro control:
- I will try to bunch up as many mobs as I can take, usually around 7 to 10. While I’m running to collect them up, I use Shield-swipe and Shield-taunt (along with Guardian’s Ward for the buff), and some Retaliations if I receive Parry responses. I don’t use War-chant unless I know it will hit all my targets, or I use it only if mobs run after someone else.
- When I have all the mobs lined up in one place, I quickly use Redirect (use a Whirling Retaliation if you don’t have it open). This allows me to absorb lots of damage and saves me from using a cooldown. I follow the Redirect with a War-chant after.
- After Redirect, I do a shield rotation, which is pretty simple, Shield-swipe – Shield-taunt – Shield-smash. If you don’t have a initial block response, use a Shield-blow first to start the shield rotation.
- After Shield rotation is done, I use another War-chant. This pretty much keeps all the mobs on you, but if your group DPS is too high and they steal some mobs, you are safe to use a Challenge now.
- Use Catch a Breath on cooldown pretty much if your morale is going down.
- Keep War-chant on cooldown also so your cooldown of Redirect and Catch a Breath gets reduced.
- If you are still receiving too much damage after Redirect expires and Catch on Breath on cooldown, you can pop one of your other cooldowns. Start with Thrill of Danger first. Then eventually proceed as needed, Juggernaut/Pledge/Warrior’s Heart. But you generally don’t need all those cooldowns for just 1 trash pack, save other cooldowns for the remaining trash packs.
- You can cut Shield-smash animations with your Stamp skill to speed up rotations a bit, but keep an eye on your power pool if you do that.
For Single-target aggro control:
- This is generally pretty easy and nothing hard. Start the fight with Fray the Edge.
- Wait around 6-7s and use Engage. Wait another few seconds, around 5s to be safe and use Fray the Edge again. You can pretty much go afk after that as far as aggro is concerned.
- Keep Redirect on cooldown for the damage absorption buff. Keep doing Shield rotations also, and War-chant on cooldown.
Fortification Buff explained:
- You get stacks of a buff called Fortification each time you use a Shield Skill.
- You can gain up to a maximum of 5 stacks of this buff, with each stack giving +2% mits (physical and tactical), and up to +10% mits maximum.
- Shield skills have a 25% chance to apply a stack of this buff.
- It is very important that you build this buff up really fast by just focusing on a Shield rotation (Shield-blow – Shield-swipe – Bash – Shield-smash) for boss fights. Faster you have a maxed Fortification buff, better your chances are to survive boss hits.
- Don’t worry too much about the Fortification buff for trash fights, you will eventually build the buff, focus on holding aggro first on all mobs, then do a Shield rotation on trash packs for the buff.
Break Ranks Buff explained:
- This is a buff you apply to your fellowship/raid if they are within a 20 meter circle with you, it applies a 40% Mastery/Damage buff for 15s, and has a cooldown of 1 minute.
- In order to proc this buff, you need to have the Fortification buff at 5 stacks, and then use a Shield-taunt.
- This Break Ranks buff can be helpful to the group if and only if you can manage to stay alive without Fortification max stacks.
- If you do end up using Break Ranks buff, then make sure to quickly build up the Fortification stacks again.
- If you want to skip Break Ranks buff and want to maintain permanent uptimes of Fortification buff, then either un-trait Break Ranks or skip using Shield-taunt in rotation and use Bash instead to open Shield-smash.
Smashing Stab CJ (Guardian’s Fellowship Maneuver) Explained:
- Guardians have a neat utility to CJ targets from Smashing Stab skill, which comes in very handy. It just requires Guards to use 2 certain skills before being able to make Smashing Stab do a CJ.
- In order to do so, you have to hit the target with a Shield-swipe (which requires a Block response).
- Next, you have to hit the target with a Retaliation (which requires a Parry response).
- It doesn’t matter which order you hit the target with those 2 skills, you can do whichever one first.
- Now that you have hit the target with both, Shield-swipe and Retaliation, you can open a CJ.
- Use Smashing Stab whenever you want now to do a CJ, there is no time limit.
Consumables
There are the consumables I use on Guardian:

- This an important consumable for Guard, it helps with Aggro control.
And this is the food to use:


Updated as of U33.
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