Returning Guardian player starting over...

[Meliorist]

Greetings,

I am a returning player. I stopped not long after Moria dropped, and I came back briefly after the new Elf zone after Moria dropped. Real life intervened once again and I had to stop playing.
I'm retired now and plan to play regularly. I plan to play solo quest and work on deeds/virtues for awhile. My old Guardian is in his late 60's but so much has changed. I've decided to start a new Guardian. I plan to solo until I cap, then work on getting raid ready. It seems the Red line will be the preferential trait build to go with. Sword and Board until the level 30's or so and a Two-Hander after that. What is a recommended trait build to shoot for with my current plan? Any help is extremely appreciated.

*edit*
I have read over Arathaert's and Zon's guides but aren't they out-dated? Seems to be many are unhappy with Guards at the moment. Nerf to self-heal and a bleed-bug? From what I have read it seems to be more of a PvMP issue, does it apply to PvE as well?

Thanks for your time. Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-Menu!

[Zonflux]

The nerfs affected PvE as well, along with other bugs. At lower level Yellow may keep you alive better while dealing decent damage if you cannot stay alive well in Red. 2H is great but if standing your ground and fighting, rather than kiting, means equipping a shield then so be it.

My guide is for sure outdated as I created it for Update 17. Until a stable version of Guardian is released by the devs I refuse to update my Guide as it is a lot of work to update it, and lately every Update, Patch and Hotfix seems to break something on the Guardian.

Red Guardian becomes most effective once you acquire Prey on the Weak bleeds, which is I think 39 points invested into Red. Otherwise yeah, maybe Yellow.

[siipperi]

Just play and learn that way. All guides, especially gearing ones, will be most likely out of date by time you reach the cap. General info is still usable but always preferred to read skill tooltips and traits. Understanding the class by learning is more valuable than reading what you should do in theory.

[Marcho_Brandybuck]

If we put aside certain bugs, guardian still has a much, much higher dps than he had ever before release of Helms Deep expansion and the new trait trees. Survivability and self heals is also much better than ever before. (actually, until HD there were no any self-heals except CAB.) So guardian is certainly in a better position than it was when you left, if we ignore totally simplified tanking the blue line ...
I recommend for leveling the red line with sword and board until lv 50 ( to make sure that you completed all shield related deeds). After that 2h in red line to the cap. Enjoy.