Guild Wars 2

The new episode has added a new inscription and insignia to the game: Seraph (Condition damage + Precision as primary and Concentration + Healing Power as secondary stats).

For those of us like me who might be a bit thick … under what circumstances would these stats be useful or best-in-slot (or not far off)? I am honestly struggling to see the value. I certainly do not wish to question the addition of this stat combo, I am simply trying to understand.

Sounds good for druids and eles who want a middle ground of support and damage

That was my thought: support condition classes. Druid is an obvious choice, with boons granted to party members boosting DPS, plenty of healing, and especially splash healing, and then wanting to contribute some DPS back.

Mesmer might also benefit, depending how well it fills the gaps in their needs; I’m pretty sure that at least some illusions benefit from precision and bring their own fury, condi is pretty common in mesmer, and spreading boons … is their thing.

Really, though, it’s unlikely to be “meta” at all, because enough players are absolutely convinced that only maximum DPS is ever the right answer, and this isn’t going to be maximum DPS, no utility or survivability, for anyone.

To me, it jumps out as being intended for a Burning Guardian. Not the most viable class right now, but we’ll see what happens with the next balance patch, I guess.

Yeah, I’m having issues thinking of build’s as well. It’s like they wanted to give us the Deadshot (Precision, Condition Damage, Vitality, Expertise) from PvP and stopped way short. It’s a very odd stat set, that I’m not sure could ever really be mainstream without some sort of specialized rune set. I almost want to say, this seems like an internal error of some sort, but no indication of it.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

To me, it jumps out as being intended for a Burning Guardian. Not the most viable class right now, but we’ll see what happens with the next balance patch, I guess.

As a Burn Guard myself, I feel that they’d benefit more from Expertise rather than Concentration. Seems odd for Healing Power to be in this set as well, since Guardians usually support with Aegis and Protection rather than heals. That’s all under the assumption that Seraph stats are “for” Guardians, mind you.

Right now I’m using Carrion stats with Scavenger runes (6th: 10% Vitality as Condition Damage). I’ll admit I’m lacking in burning duration, but my Condition Damage is as high as I can get it.

It’s for druids. Concentration gives you longer boon duration for regen and protection. Which is further elongated with Heal as One. The precision is for precision based procs to land: so obviously sigil of earth was intended. The healing power is obviously only useful to a druid. Adding 500 to classes with one heal skill usually means nothing in a wider context. But for druids, even a small bump of 500 to each heal can mean a significant difference, considering that at pure healer druid build could have up to 10 heal skills, excluding celestial form.

It could also be quite useful for condi engi’s, but I don’t have much expertise in statting an engi. I just recognize many similarities between their roles.

I was thinkin about hybrid builds with this stat comb, and since the new stat isn’t in the build editor yet, tried to make similar values from existing ones (focusing on condi and healing stats, so just add some boon dur. and much more crit chance), and made 2 theory builds. One for guardian and one for (hang on now) NECRO
Guardian:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApfWl8Ah2hY5QwTIQTEH+DFeEKvgwGAVQdmfwKMDB-TBiAQB97UAUTlgjUpHM2f4aKD6k6PRTfAAeCAkCwv1WA-e
Necromancer:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWjk0QzNWUD+0AHOWCGs4i4SMKGlACANgpo2OIHA-TRSAQB2UJo/OBAYTZg00H4J1f6x+DA4JAMgDBAJV6RKA/WbB-e
Know that these are far from “optimal” or meta builds, but for hybrid build, i think they arent so bad. Both are on their cap on their primary condi )burn and bleed), have decent dmg and notable healing, both has some boon to share to get usage on concentration, and uses crit procced traits (might/bleed). I’m gonna definitely try these builds.