Guild Wars 2: The Manly Guide to Spirit Weapons

There used to be a time where the Guardian's spirit weapons could not be targeted and were very difficult to destroy. Then came a balance patch and now our little ethereal friends act like timed pets, meaning they can be buffed, damaged and destroyed. And all the sheep started moaning about the latter, claiming that spirit weapons have now become completely useless. And yes - in a level 80 zone, it only takes 3 to 4 hits to destroy a spirit weapon. Does that make them as useless as a bunch of random strangers on the internet say? Au contraire! In the right hands they're powerful and fun to use. Provided, you know what you're doing. And to make sure you know what you're doing, I am about to share my wisdom.

The whole thing looks and plays like this:

At about 48% crit chance and 90% extra crit damage, this build dishes out almost as much weapon damage as any purely melee-focused spec, while the pets and summons allow for extra CC and burst damage. Altruistic Healing allows for added survivability. 

The idea behind this build is to swarm and crush your enemies with as many pets as you can, spamming them to death with extra attacks and CCs from every single direction. Ideally, you will always have at least 1-2 pets active while the others are on cooldown. Or spam all of them at once against tougher baddies of groups of enemies for a huge DPS spike and added survivability - many enemies go after your pets before they attack you.

Burping, growling and grunting - Manly Skills

For this spec I'm using the Spirit Sword, Hammer and Shield, as well as the Mistfire Wolf. If you don't want to shell out the extra gems on a CE upgrade, you can replace the wolf with Renewed Focus for some extra survivability, which works especially well with 'Altruistic Healing'. If you do have the wolf and possibly a rock dog from Ogre Runes, you'll get to roflstomp monsters with a total of five pets!

Pick your favourite healing ability. I like 'Signet of Resolve', because it's very powerful and cures conditions every ten seconds. 'Shelter' is a valid alternative.

Chest hair and facial stubbles - Speccing like a man!

When a manly guardian focuses on spirit weapons, his trait lines will look something like this:

Sadly, we need to put 20 points into the otherwise useless Zeal line of traits. "Why is extra power useless?" you might ask. That's because from a pure DPS point of view it's so much more useful to max out Radiance and Valor for maximum critical hit chance and crit damage. DPS scientists around the globe agree that a beefy crit rate incrases your damage much more than raw power!
So why are we putting all those points in there? Because of 'Eternal Spirit', which requires 20 points to unlock and allows us to use Spirit Weapon commands (aka using their special attacks) without destroying them. You can command your spirit shield to do some nice AoE damage whilst spreading vulnerability, a spirit hammer knocks baddies flat on their ass and the sword will poke for so much extra damage when told to do so. Alas, without 'Eternal Spirit' triggering any of these cool abilities will instantly destroy your floaty little companions.
While we're already there, we're grabbing 'Spirit Weapon Mastery' in the 10 points section of Zeal, because it reduces our spirit weapon cooldowns by 20%. And if I need to explain why that's a good thing, I pity you.

Next stop: Radiance. Only 15 points go into this trait line, meaning we're gonna lose a bit of critical hit chance - but fear not! With full berserker gear, you'll still reach about 48% crit chance, which is juuuuust enough. Also, we're unlocking a cool passive, 'Renewed Justice' at 15 points. This handy little thing instantly removes the cooldown on Virtue of Justice whenever we kill something. Incredibly handy in battles with multiple enemies - kill a guy, pop the virtue, kill another guy, pop the virtue again, rinse, repeat. That way, you and all your pets will deal massive fire damage and you get some quick, cheap heals while you're at it. But more about that later. You don't need the 20 points spirit weapon upgrade that allows spirit weapons to burn enemies, as Virtue of Justice takes care of that, anyway. Save those points for somewhere else.
For our 10 points Radiance trait, 'Searing Flames' is a good option, as it removes boons from enemies as we burn them. And we burn them all the time. One may argue that, at least in pve, enemies don't really use boons much, so Traits like 'Blind Exposure' (3 stacks of vulnerability when you blind a foe) or 'Healer's Retribution' (3 seconds of retribution when using a healing skill) are valid alternatives. None of them make a huge difference, so don't fret over this too much.

Now we're putting 30 points into Valor. And that's for two reasons: One, we want the full 30% extra crit damage from maxing out this trait line. Two, 'Altruistic Healing' requires 30 points to unlock and heals us whenever we buff an ally - and our pets are allies! With this Trait unlocked, using Virtue of Justice after every kill will always grant us a heal, for as long as we have at least one pet around. Incredibly useful in battles against swarms of pesky spiders or just about any group of foes. The healing effect isn't very powerful, but if Tesco teaches us one thing, it's that every little helps.
For added survivability, 'Purity' makes a good 10 points trait, as it automatically removes a condition every ten seconds without us having to keep an eye on it. As the 20 points trait, 'Retributive Armor' grants us a little extra precision to boost our crit rate. Some suggest replacing either one of these traits for 'Strength in numbers' to raise the toughness of all your pets, but as far as I'm aware, they are not affected by this trait at all.

Our final five trait points go into Virtues, thus unlocking 'Inspired Virtue'. Doing so will cause 'Virtue of Justice' to provide 3 stacks of Might whenever we pop it - and we spam it all the time, allowing for a quick 10+ extra might stacks when fighting groups of enemies.
Alternatively, you can put these final 5 points into Radiance to boost your crit chance some more or put them into Zeal for added symbol damage.

Alternative spec - 20/15/25/10

If you don't want Altruistic Healing, you can put 25 points into valor instead of 30. Beware - putting fewer points into valor directly results in lower crit damage!
You can add the 5 points into Virtues, instead, unlocking 'Improved Spirit Weapon Duration'. This will cause your spirit weapons to stay 50% longer before they despawn, allowing for greater sustained damage. This spec doesn't come without its weaknesses, though: You only benefit from the 50% increased duration if the spirit weapons don't get destroyed by enemies, you will lose 5% crit damage and you will lose some survivability from lack of 'Altruistic Healing.'
Taking the extra 5 points out of Radiance or Zeal, instead, would either prevent 'Virtue of Justice' from being spammable or cause Spirit Weapons to shatter on command, making this entire spec invalid. It's always 20/15/30/0/5 or 20/15/25/10 with this particular build.

Stained undershirt - Picking your manly gear

Armor

In the above video, I'm going full berserker. If you're a wuss or just a fan of high toughness and survivability, adding the odd piece of soldier, knight or valkyrie gear might suit you better. The basic idea, however, is that your pets will take some of the hits for you and 'Altruistic Healing' will do its part to keep you alive. In dungeons, snacking on an Omnomberry Pie will help survivability as well. For the really tough dungeons and high level fractals, vitality and toughness become virtually useless, as bosses start to onehit you anyway, so berserker is the way to go. If you play more casually and you don't like the all or nothing approach, going tanky is somewhat viable. Bear in mind, though, that with reduced DPS, battles are going to take longer and your summons might despawn or be destroyed before you get the job done. Quick kills mean rapid spam of virtues, faster self-heals and a huge boost in damage.

Runes

Ogre runes complement many a manly DPS spec and this one makes no exception. In fact, with the 5% chance to summon a rock dog when we get hit, these runes are perfect for a pet-orientated spec. Sure, the doggie doesn't deal a huge amount of damage, but add him to our spirit weapons and the mistfire wolf and there's a whole lot of damage going out. Besides, Mr. Rockdawg can take quite a few hits for you and he can be buffed by our 'Virtue of Justice', which raises his damage and heals us. Handy!
Alternatively, the usual suspects (divinity, scholar) will do, but why would you reduce the amount of pets in a pet build?

Weapons & Sigils

In the video I'm going with a greatsword, sceptre and shield, my sigils are Generosity, Fire and Bloodlust respectively. The Bloodlust on our shield helps generate 25 stacks of extra power and condition damage, the flame helps with our somewhat limited ranged AoE capabilities. On the greatsword you may want to pick Strength ( = Might) or Blood ( = lifesteal) over Generosity if you so desire, but personally, I prefer the Xmas rune for the simple fact that it removes conditions and puts them on my enemies. With only two passives, which remove conditions every ten second, the Sigil makes it easier to get rid of crap like poison, burning and bleeding and it's just so satisfying to return the favour when a boss blesses you with 40 seconds of yucky poison.
If you prefer hammers to greatswords, they're a valid alternative, though you won't get to upgrade it with traits the way you would on a pure hammer spec.

Maces and shortswords are 2nd choice at best, simply due to their lack of decent AoE damage. Fighting single targets, these one-handers will kill more or less at the same speed as any bigger weapon whilst providing added survivability. However, getting surrounded will quickly leave you helpess. Not only will you be unable to hit all the baddies surrounding you like you would with a greatsword, but your pets will have to keep the adds away from you, causing them to die a lot faster.

Rez pls! - About Dungeons

Like all pet-based classes, the Spirit Weapon Guardian will get his minions eradicated by just about any boss with powerful AoE attacks. Without adds for quick kills you won't get to benefit from 'Altruistic Healing' a lot and your spirit weapons will rarely stay alive for their maximum duration. You will have to time your summons more carefully in these moments and make sure they stay alive long enough for you to use their command attacks. Obviously, you won't get the same sustained damage that way, but you should still get a fair bit of extra DPS out of them. Ideally, your summons will occasionally take the aggro and survive just one or two boss hits, leaving you more time to dish out heavy melee attacks. In case of doubt, keep your distance and shoot that sucker - one healing skill and three virtues to buff party members with are all the self heals you get!

- Cat