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Guardian Guide & Build – Everquest 2

Welcome to our Guardian Guide and Build for Everquest 2, updated for Visions of Vetrovia!

The Guardian is the tankiest of the EQ2 tank classes and also has the lowest DPS. They are great at tanking both group and raid content.

This guide is meant as a general guideline to building your Guardian, and you might want to make changes for certain content or roles. Due to the fact that updated information is limited in Everquest 2, some parts of the guide might be outdated but this build will still help you in building and playing your Guardian. Remember that you can always swap out certain things to suit your playstyle.

EQ2 Guardian

For the latest Everquest 2 news, go to the MMORPG.GG EQ2 Hub.

Guardian Guide Index

Best Guardian Race

What race you choose has very little impact on anything in Everquest 2, but there are some races that will give slight advantages. The below are all good choices for a Guardian.

  • Sarnak
  • Ogre
  • Troll
  • Barbarian
  • Iksar
  • Froglok
  • Dwarves
  • Human
  • Kerra
  • Half Elf

For a full list of racial traits, go here.

Best Guardian Deity

What deity you follow doesn’t make a huge difference in EQ2. The following are good choices for Guardians:

  • Mithaniel Marr (Good)
  • The Tribunal (Neutral)
  • Rallos Zek (Evil)

Gear

In this guide, we won’t go into the specifics of gearing.

When you first zone into Svarni Expanse at the beginning of Visions of Vetrovia, open Tishan’s Lockbox that is on the ground in front of you to get your full set of 120 gear. Then complete the timeline to gear upgrades, and then you can move into heroic dungeons and raids to further upgrade your gear.

Everquest 2 Leveling Visions of Vetrovia
Get your starter gear from Tishan’s Lockbox

Use our EQ2 Platinum Guide if you need more plat to upgrade your gear.

Stat Priorities & Reforging

  1. Fervor
  2. Reuse Speed (200% Cap)
  3. Casting Speed (200% Cap)
  4. Potency (No cap)
  5. Crit Bonus
  6. DPS / Weapon Bonus Damage
  7. Ability Doublecast (125% Cap)
  8. Strikethrough (100% Cap)
  9. Haste (200% Cap)
  10. Multi Attack (2995 Cap)
  11. Flurry (196% Cap)
  12. Accuracy (100%)
  13. Ability Mod (No cap)
  14. AE Auto (100% Cap)
  15. Recovery Speed (100% Cap)

For tanking, you will also want to get Hate Mod to at least 50% as well.

Adornments

When starting out you will want to get Adornments to get Casting and Reuse Speed to 100%.

After that, you should focus on getting Potency and Crit Bonus as high as possible.

As a tank, you can also get some with Hate Mod.

A good guide for Adornments in Visions of Vetrovia can be found here.

Consumables

Consumables provide quite big stat bonuses but some can be expensive. Use the best that you can afford, depending on what you are doing. For example, for raids, you want to get the best consumables possible, but if you are soloing, using the cheaper ones is fine.

  • Food: Karuupa Candied Kumquat
  • Drink: Vetrovia Midnight Vintage
  • Potion: Dreadfell Powerlink

Mercenary

At level 100+, you should always go with a Healer mercenary as the other options don’t really scale well after that. The mercenaries from the latest expansion are the best.

  1. Dakshesh, the Displaced – Comes with the Premium and Family & Friends versions of Visions of Vetrovia
  2. Kelvend Bledso
  3. Lilac Laviara

Remember to train and gear your mercenary.

Unlocking your mercenary to be hired from anywhere will unlock the Mercenary Battalion buff. The strength of the buff will depend on the Mercenary’s rank, what expansion it is from, its rarity, and the number of unlocked mercenaries. Learn more about the Mercenary Battalion buff here.

Familiar

For your familiar, you can either spend DBC to try to get a good one or you can do the daily Familiars Wild quest. Familiars provide a huge buff to Potency and Crit Bonus Overcap.

Level up your familiars by feeding them other familiars.

Mount

For your mount, the most important thing is to train it to increase its rank and unlock all the barding slots. Unlock all the extra barding slots by doing Overseer and from achievements (more info found here)

  • Barding: Potency
  • Saddle: Ability Doublecast
  • Hackamore: Ability Doublecast
  • Reins: Mount Speed
  • Breeching: Ability Mod
  • Strirrup: Crit Bonus
  • Shoes: Fervor Mod

Abilities, Spells, Combat Arts & Rotation

There are a lot of skills, spells, and abilities in Everquest 2 so having a set rotation isn’t always ideal. You should always adapt to the situation. The following is a general guideline for a Guardian.

Buffs (Keep up)

  • Forward Charge or Armored – Depends on the situation. Use Forward Charge unless you have trouble when tanking.
  • Iron Will
  • Call to Arms
  • Battle Tactics
  • Call of Shielding
  • Hold the Line

Short Duration Buffs (Use before combat and keep up during combat)

  • Battle Cry

Single-Target Rotation

The exact order of the rotation is not important but try to keep debuffs and DOTs up.

  1. Sever
  2. Ruin
  3. Decimate
  4. Taunting Blow
  5. Concussion
  6. Retaliate
  7. Bash
  8. Precise Strike
  9. Slam
  10. Gut Kick
  11. Overpower
  12. Taunting Assault
  13. Assault

Your AoE rotation is the same but start off with Taunting Assault and Assault, and use when available.

Taunts (Use when tanking)

  • Reinforcement – Threat
  • Plant – Threat
  • Goading Gesture – Threat
  • Shout – Threat
  • Provoke – Threat & Interupt
  • Rescue – Emergency Threat
  • Recapture – Emergency Threat

Survival

  • Hunker Down
  • Unyielding Will – Postpones death by 36 seconds
  • Tower of Stone
  • Intercept – Protects a party member
  • Never Surrender – Increase avoidance of a party member
  • Moderate – Same as Never Surrender but decreases hate gain of target as well.
  • Sentinel – Protects a party member
  • Sentry Watch – Protects a party member from death

Ascension Class

What Ascension class you pick as a Guardian will come down a lot to play style.

  1. Elementalist – Good choice for DPS
  2. Etherealist – Also a good choice for DPS
  3. Geomancer – Provides you with some utility. Good choice for tanking.
  4. Thaumaturgist – Decent DPS but not the best choice for a Guardian

Guardian AA Build

The following AA build is a generic starter build for the Guardian, feel free to change it up depending on your playstyle or the situation.

If you need to level up quickly or max your AAs, check out our EQ2 Leveling Guide.

Warrior Tree

EQ2 Guardian AA Warrior
  • Executioner’s Strength 10/10
  • Weapon Expertise 10/10
  • Executioner’s Anger 10/10
  • Dragoon Spin 10/10
  • Dragoon’s Cyclone 10/10
  • Dragoon’s Avoidance 2/10
  • Dragoon’s Reflexes 1/1
  • Extended Reflexes 8/8
  • Reversal 1/10
  • Unashakeable 10/10
  • Acceleration Strike 10/10
  • Slayer’s Furor 8/10
  • Experienced Insight 2/2

Guardian Tree

EQ2 Guardian AA Guardian
  • Enhance: Hatred 5/5
  • Lay Waste 5/5
  • Enhance: Taunts 5/5
  • Enhance: Battle Cry 5/5
  • Enhance: Hunker Down 5/5
  • Enhance: Moderate 5/5
  • Enhance: Call of Shielding 5/5
  • Enhance: Precise Strike 3/5
  • Enhance: Plant 5/5
  • Enhance: Sentry Watch 5/5
  • Enhance: Slam 5/5
  • Enhance: Unyielding Will 5/5
  • Enhance: Tower of Stone 5/5
  • Enhance: Guardian Sphere 5/5
  • Shoulder the Burden: 1/1
  • Block 1/1
  • Rally to Combat 5/5
  • Fight Through Death 5/5
  • Improved Moderation 5/5
  • Last Man Standing 1/1

Shadows Tree

EQ2 Guardian AA Shadows
  • Hearty Constitution 5/5
  • Consummate Defender 5/5
  • Sneering Assault 1/1
  • Veteran’s Shielding 5/5
  • Cry of the Warrior 1/1
  • Guardian’s Will 5/5
  • Reversal 5/5
  • Defensive Minded 1/1
  • Sentinel Strike 1/1

Heroic Tree

EQ2 Guardian AA Heroic
  • Spirit and Body 10/10
  • Expertise 10/10
  • Critical Genius 10/10
  • Enhance: Experienced Insight 10/10
  • Emboldened 10/10
  • Perfect Counter 1/1
  • Partisan Cleave 1/1

Dragon

EQ2 Guardian AA Dragon
  • Dragon Scales 10/10
  • Fierce Roar 10/10
  • Layered Scales 10/10
  • Draconic Shout 1/1
  • Ancient Focus 10/10
  • Ancient Advance 10/10
  • Strength Within 10/10
  • United Strength 10/10
  • Agressor’s Power 1/1

Prestige

EQ2 Guardian AA Prestige
  • Stalwar Aura 3/3
  • Protecting Stance 3/3
  • Unstoppable Wall 1/1
  • Stalwart Wall 1/1
  • Retribution Sphere 1/1
  • Blade Crusher 1/1
  • Stalwart Conviction
  • Champion’s Interception 3/3
  • Will of the Champion 3/3
  • Champion’s Shout 3/3
  • Champion’s Stand 1/1
  • Sphere of Defense

Prestige Guardian

EQ2 Guardian AA Prestige Guardian
  • Stand Firm 1/1
  • Enhanced Vigor 8/8
  • Imbued Sight 5/5
  • Undeniable Power 8/8
  • Accuracy from Strength 1/1
  • Vital Trigger 1/1
  • Diamond Flesh 1/1
  • Martial Vigor 5/5
  • Body and Mind 5/5
  • Power Through the Pain 3/3

If you have any questions or suggestions for our EQ2 Guardian Guide, leave a comment below!