Guild Wars 2

If you didn’t know who we were, you can watch this video and pretty much know who we were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNYpjy1Evz8
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6 x Guardians:

• No AH
  Or
• Standard Hoelbrak Meta
  
  Notes: One guard in each party should run SIN. Our default setup had 1 Guard as Hammer/Staff, and 1 Guard as Hammer/Greatsword in each party. If we faced more range heavy enemies, we would add mobility and more pulls so we could move faster and take out enemy backlines by running 1 Guard as Greatsword/Staff, 1 Guard as Greatsword/Hammer. If we ran heavier ranged, we would run all guards Hammer/Greatsword because it is VERY fast and can constantly put damage on the frontline. All guards are req’d to have full sets of Celestial, Knights, Soldiers, and Zerker Trinkets so that if our melee feels too squishy, we can add more armor by adding toughness trinkets, and viceversa with zerker trinkets if we needed more damage.
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4 x Warriors:

• Standard Hoelbrak Meta
  
  Notes: Sigils of Malice and Condition Duration allows for immobilize duration to penetrate through enemy Hoelbrak/Lemongrass/Purging Flames to get them stuck in our Ele/Necro AoE’s. If they are facing too much damage, Warriors are required to have full sets of Knights, Soldiers, and Zerker Trinkets so that they can add more armor or damage depending on the situation. Leg specialist is a necessity in 15v15’s. Flurries should be emphasized MUCH more than Earthshakers.
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  4 x Necromancers:

• Triple Wells w/ Chill
• Pure Damage
• Sustainable High Damage
  
  Notes: Pure Damage build is useless if the necro is dies. Don’t run it unless the melee train can support the necros. Necro running pure damage must know what he’s doing and be a master of placement. This build works best when 3+ necros are in the composition. If only running 1 necro, don’t run this. Sustainable High Damage gives similar damage output without the liability of the necro dying right away. Gives necro ability to survive gank burst, and gives them a chance at getting away from enemy melee train. Triple Well Chills should be used to slow down enemy melee train and keep them stuck in AoEs. Depends on the situation what the necro should run as his non-staff weapon set.
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  3 x Staff Elemenalist:

• Standard Ele Meta
  
  Notes: All Elementalists are required to have full sets of Knights, Soldiers, Celestial, and Zerker trinkets. Ele’s should be constantly adding damage, or adding armor depending on the situation. If they are not facing any enemy pressure, they should look to get as much damage as possible by adding zerker trinkets. Elementalist’s need to have FAST rotations with well placed AoE’s to maximize damage. Their focus should be constantly keeping red circles under the enemy melee to force them to keep moving and force them to blow skills.
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  Last 3 Slots in a 20v20:
• Mesmer
• Thief
• Thief

Possible substitutions if your guild has no mesmers or thieves:

• Additional Necromancer OR Additional Warrior (preferred DPS)
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  15vs15 Compositions:
• 6 Guardians
• 3 Warriors
• 3 Staff Ele’s

Last 3 Slots, pick 3 according to situation:

• 1 Necro, 1 Necro, 1 DPS War, 1 Mes, 1 Thief, 1 Thief

Notes: If enemy guild has heavy ranged/AoE, your players MUST focus on single targeting, starting with Necromancers/Elementalists. If enemy guild has more gank players (mesmers/thieves), match their number of gank players. Your Gank MUST communicate with your driver, and your Driver MUST actively assist them. Warriors should look to assist friendly gank as well by getting flurries. Once enemy gank is dead, you have a heavy advantage, and your gank can pick off their casters.

Thanks for posting!

Evis http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAneUjMdUGajHehwJagfgC1tbOAGgGQ9bk7lBA-T1CBABmqixe6Dw4EAUz+D5oOCWK/kQJIOqEAwTAIBTQBcIAIFATKjA-w

Ham/GS

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQJASUjMdUGajHehwJagfgC5tvDGDgBQ9bk7lBA-TVDBABmqixeaC44BAgxFAom9HyRdEsU+JhSQAOCA4oSQe6ASwEUAHCASBwkyI-w

Interesting Guardian builds, definitely something out of the norm for me. Thanks for posting.

The guardian build looks like an evolved version of the old healway build, which I ran a few times with SIC.

Both the warrior build and ele build are metas.

Brutal Augus.5917:

Both the warrior build and ele build are metas.

Yupp pretty much. The Warrior Build just has by far the most utility to a group as far as damage/sustain/cleansing/boons go, definitely why pretty much anyone serious about GvG used it or a variant of it. Same with the Ele build, but there would be times we played around with Healbot elementalists or chill bot ele’s. In the end the meta set up just gave it the most all around utility and reliability, but there were some things that could change.

Occasionally we’d setup one ele as high damage, so close to zerker, and running more traits in fire.

gvg war here. its a really poor choice to sacrifice dote over some extra power and toughness you get from another point in defense. there is a very noticeable difference in damage when you don’t have dote. in any organized gvg setting, the enemy melee consistently has 6-7 boons which is around 20% more damage output from yourself on average.

Drigan.7382:

Brutal Augus.5917:

Both the warrior build and ele build are metas.

Yupp pretty much. The Warrior Build just has by far the most utility to a group as far as damage/sustain/cleansing/boons go, definitely why pretty much anyone serious about GvG used it or a variant of it. Same with the Ele build, but there would be times we played around with Healbot elementalists or chill bot ele’s. In the end the meta set up just gave it the most all around utility and reliability, but there were some things that could change.

Occasionally we’d setup one ele as high damage, so close to zerker, and running more traits in fire.

Yeah, we use the same ones for our warriors and eles in [Nors]. Thats why I recognized them. We throw a D/D in there sometimes for fun though, just for general WvW though, not really in GvG.

what ? no mesmer ? dem !

SkylightMoon.2098:

gvg war here. its a really poor choice to sacrifice dote over some extra power and toughness you get from another point in defense. there is a very noticeable difference in damage when you don’t have dote. in any organized gvg setting, the enemy melee consistently has 6-7 boons which is around 20% more damage output from yourself on average.

Protip: While builds are great and all for GvGs, they don’t really mean anything if you have bad players. HOPE has always had pretty kitten good players behind their squad. They found their builds worked for them. If you like DOTE for your warrs, then go for that.

However, the increase in damage is very situational in my opinion and could be next to useless if they don’t have boons up, which should be happening with boon strips and the like. A base power increase will always deliver more damage constantly, without any potential loss in damage as a longer fight takes place

Think of these as general guidelines, rather than must have builds.

SkylightMoon.2098:

gvg war here. its a really poor choice to sacrifice dote over some extra power and toughness you get from another point in defense. there is a very noticeable difference in damage when you don’t have dote. in any organized gvg setting, the enemy melee consistently has 6-7 boons which is around 20% more damage output from yourself on average.

Exactly what Tibstrike said 100%.

Like I said in the OP, it depended on the situation, what trinket set, and what we were trying to accomplish whether we were running armored attack or destruction of the empowered. I personally heavily favor destruction of the empowered because I’m probably #1 fan of damage multipliers as you can see in our guardian build. Doesn’t mean it always makes sense for what we needed to do. When you’re isolating players in a 15v15, DOTE isn’t as strong as the power increase + extra zerk trinkets that Armored Attack would let us run. I’m completely agree that DOTE is incredibly strong, and what I leaned towards but situationally not always what we wanted to use.

azizul.8469:

what ? no mesmer ? dem !

Mesmer build depended on how many gank we would run (either 1 mesmer, 1 mes+1thief, or 1 mes+2 thieves) and what the enemy guild was running for counter-periphery. Mostly your typical stuff though, standard shatter or a PU setup if our mesmer had less help. Also depended on whether it was a 15v15 or a 20v20.

Tibstrike.2974:

SkylightMoon.2098:

gvg war here. its a really poor choice to sacrifice dote over some extra power and toughness you get from another point in defense. there is a very noticeable difference in damage when you don’t have dote. in any organized gvg setting, the enemy melee consistently has 6-7 boons which is around 20% more damage output from yourself on average.

Protip: While builds are great and all for GvGs, they don’t really mean anything if you have bad players. HOPE has always had pretty kitten good players behind their squad. They found their builds worked for them. If you like DOTE for your warrs, then go for that.

However, the increase in damage is very situational in my opinion and could be next to useless if they don’t have boons up, which should be happening with boon strips and the like. A base power increase will always deliver more damage constantly, without any potential loss in damage as a longer fight takes place

Think of these as general guidelines, rather than must have builds.

This is actually a very good tip, and it’s tangential to what I bring up to people who praise Sigil of Cruelty over Sigil of Bloodlust (protip: unless you’re rocking an insane amount of power already with a near-100% crit rate, you will always see less returns on Cruelty over Bloodlust — I’ll show the math below). People like to see those +dmg percentages, but if the base power behind those percentage increases isn’t high already, you will see less damage than going with just raw power.

As for Cruelty vs. Bloodlust sigils, here’s how it works, and why you should almost never choose Cruelty over Bloodlust (there are cases where you could, high-power glass thieves would likely see the most, if only benefit):

Let’s say you have 2500 base power, and 200% critical damage. Without factoring in weapon damage or power coefficients, you are looking at 5000 outgoing per crit, raw damage.

We’ll apply full stacks of bloodlust to these base stats now:
2750 power, 200% critical damage. The resulting raw damage per crit is 5500. Not bad.

We’ll instead apply full stacks of Cruelty to the same base stats:
2500 power, 217% critical damage. The resulting raw damage per crit is 5425.

Now, think about that for a minute. Let’s say you even have a 100% crit chance, all the time. You’re still looking at a loss of 75 raw damage per hit. This also does not take into account Weakness, which will cancel most of your crits, making your damage output even worse.

Essentially, to make Cruelty a better sigil than Bloodlust, you would need a minimum of 2540 base power to see even a single point gain over full stacks of BL. And you would also have to crit 100% of the time.

So, let’s look at armored attack vs. destruction of the empowered. While I like DOTE (I use it regularly when roaming or in small groups, but then again I also use armored attack at the same time — 0/2/6/0/6), I would not choose it over armored attack for my build, which has 2100 toughness (+210 power). At a base 2400 power (rounding down a bit), that gives me 2610 power. To achieve another 210 points of raw damage with DOTE, which is +3% dmg per boon on my target, the target would need to have a minimum of 5 boons active.

It’s the trait I like to call Destruction of the Elementalist, because of the sheer number of boons they tend to pop on themselves (Guardians as well, but much of that damage can be negated with protection).

Bottom line, if you see someone bragging about their 250% crit dmg while only running a 2k power build, just quietly laugh to yourself. Those crit percentages look great in the hero panel, but all it takes is a little math to find out just how high your power has to be before having +crit dmg% over +power actually delivers better returns.

Bloodlust has been bad ever since you couldn’t get the stacks and switch to a weapon without bloodlust. Air/Fire offer more spike DPS and energy is essential in avoiding damage. Keeping bloodlust means you’re missing out on either this spike dps or damage mitigation.

Also, stacking sigils became quite BM for gvgs… you just don’t do it.

The entire point of that wasn’t really to bring up sigils in regards to GvG. It was to denote that in almost all situations, power wins over damage percent increase. Note the bottom of my post where I talk about DOTE.

Bloodlust and any other stacking sigils are perfectly fine outside of GvGs. And you only need one stacking sigil per 2 sets, and it’s extremely easy to nail 25 stacks in seconds if you’re zerging. But again, the point was damage percentage increases over power increases generally being worse choices. A sigil of air or fire or even a sigil of strength is better in almost all cases than, say, a sigil of force.

I really just wanted somewhere to talk about the general crappiness of the Cruelty sigil so I just used this thread.

del 15 characters 123

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Tibstrike.2974:

SkylightMoon.2098:

gvg war here. its a really poor choice to sacrifice dote over some extra power and toughness you get from another point in defense. there is a very noticeable difference in damage when you don’t have dote. in any organized gvg setting, the enemy melee consistently has 6-7 boons which is around 20% more damage output from yourself on average.

Protip: While builds are great and all for GvGs, they don’t really mean anything if you have bad players. HOPE has always had pretty kitten good players behind their squad. They found their builds worked for them. If you like DOTE for your warrs, then go for that.

However, the increase in damage is very situational in my opinion and could be next to useless if they don’t have boons up, which should be happening with boon strips and the like. A base power increase will always deliver more damage constantly, without any potential loss in damage as a longer fight takes place

Think of these as general guidelines, rather than must have builds.

This is actually a very good tip, and it’s tangential to what I bring up to people who praise Sigil of Cruelty over Sigil of Bloodlust (protip: unless you’re rocking an insane amount of power already with a near-100% crit rate, you will always see less returns on Cruelty over Bloodlust — I’ll show the math below). People like to see those +dmg percentages, but if the base power behind those percentage increases isn’t high already, you will see less damage than going with just raw power.

As for Cruelty vs. Bloodlust sigils, here’s how it works, and why you should almost never choose Cruelty over Bloodlust (there are cases where you could, high-power glass thieves would likely see the most, if only benefit):

Let’s say you have 2500 base power, and 200% critical damage. Without factoring in weapon damage or power coefficients, you are looking at 5000 outgoing per crit, raw damage.

We’ll apply full stacks of bloodlust to these base stats now:
2750 power, 200% critical damage. The resulting raw damage per crit is 5500. Not bad.

We’ll instead apply full stacks of Cruelty to the same base stats:
2500 power, 217% critical damage. The resulting raw damage per crit is 5425.

Now, think about that for a minute. Let’s say you even have a 100% crit chance, all the time. You’re still looking at a loss of 75 raw damage per hit. This also does not take into account Weakness, which will cancel most of your crits, making your damage output even worse.

Essentially, to make Cruelty a better sigil than Bloodlust, you would need a minimum of 2540 base power to see even a single point gain over full stacks of BL. And you would also have to crit 100% of the time.

So, let’s look at armored attack vs. destruction of the empowered. While I like DOTE (I use it regularly when roaming or in small groups, but then again I also use armored attack at the same time — 0/2/6/0/6), I would not choose it over armored attack for my build, which has 2100 toughness (+210 power). At a base 2400 power (rounding down a bit), that gives me 2610 power. To achieve another 210 points of raw damage with DOTE, which is +3% dmg per boon on my target, the target would need to have a minimum of 5 boons active.

It’s the trait I like to call Destruction of the Elementalist, because of the sheer number of boons they tend to pop on themselves (Guardians as well, but much of that damage can be negated with protection).

Bottom line, if you see someone bragging about their 250% crit dmg while only running a 2k power build, just quietly laugh to yourself. Those crit percentages look great in the hero panel, but all it takes is a little math to find out just how high your power has to be before having +crit dmg% over +power actually delivers better returns.

A question on this calculation. When using the number 2540 base power have you factored in the various percent bonuses from various traits.?

As example someone has pistol mastery (10 percent more damage) Executioner (20 percent more damage under 50 percent enemy health) Exposed weakness (10 percent more damage with enemy having a condition) and first strike (10 percent more damage if over 6 ini) for 50 percent more damage.

How does that change your calculation given you mentioned weakness as a negative factor if at all or is that number of 2540 base the same?

I have been trying to confirm the calculations and they just not coming out as you suggest. The base needed would seem much higher to get more damage from cruelty sigil.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

So, let’s look at armored attack vs. destruction of the empowered. While I like DOTE (I use it regularly when roaming or in small groups, but then again I also use armored attack at the same time — 0/2/6/0/6), I would not choose it over armored attack for my build, which has 2100 toughness (+210 power). At a base 2400 power (rounding down a bit), that gives me 2610 power. To achieve another 210 points of raw damage with DOTE, which is +3% dmg per boon on my target, the target would need to have a minimum of 5 boons active.

Solid math right here. Ok first of all, I have a suspicion you are running Dolyak Signet, in which case your toughness will be slightly inflated, and Armored Attack won’t use the passive toughness it gives to calculate the power. But nevermind that, let’s assume you just got 2400 power and no might. 210 extra power gives us 8.75 % more damage. I don’t know how you came to the conclusion that you the target needs 5 or more boons on it for DOTE to be better, because it’s actually a better trait when it got as few as 3 boons on it. And this is best case scenario for Armored Attack. The more power you got (from might), the better DOTM will be in comparison.

So really, I find it amusing how you attack people stacking critical damage because “those numbers look great in the hero panel”, when you do exactly the same thing with power. DOTM >>>> Armored Attack

Edited OP to be cleaner and include our 20v20 and 15v15 compositions which helped us be among the top in NA

Suns Dusk.7201:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

So, let’s look at armored attack vs. destruction of the empowered. While I like DOTE (I use it regularly when roaming or in small groups, but then again I also use armored attack at the same time — 0/2/6/0/6), I would not choose it over armored attack for my build, which has 2100 toughness (+210 power). At a base 2400 power (rounding down a bit), that gives me 2610 power. To achieve another 210 points of raw damage with DOTE, which is +3% dmg per boon on my target, the target would need to have a minimum of 5 boons active.

Solid math right here. Ok first of all, I have a suspicion you are running Dolyak Signet, in which case your toughness will be slightly inflated, and Armored Attack won’t use the passive toughness it gives to calculate the power. But nevermind that, let’s assume you just got 2400 power and no might. 210 extra power gives us 8.75 % more damage. I don’t know how you came to the conclusion that you the target needs 5 or more boons on it for DOTE to be better, because it’s actually a better trait when it got as few as 3 boons on it. And this is best case scenario for Armored Attack. The more power you got (from might), the better DOTM will be in comparison.

So really, I find it amusing how you attack people stacking critical damage because “those numbers look great in the hero panel”, when you do exactly the same thing with power. DOTM >>>> Armored Attack

I do not run any signets except rage when roaming, outside of that, healing signet.

You’re right on my math being off, though. I’m still trying to figure how I arrived at 5 boons. That part is 100% incorrect.

babazhook.6805:

A question on this calculation. When using the number 2540 base power have you factored in the various percent bonuses from various traits.?

As example someone has pistol mastery (10 percent more damage) Executioner (20 percent more damage under 50 percent enemy health) Exposed weakness (10 percent more damage with enemy having a condition) and first strike (10 percent more damage if over 6 ini) for 50 percent more damage.

How does that change your calculation given you mentioned weakness as a negative factor if at all or is that number of 2540 base the same?

I have been trying to confirm the calculations and they just not coming out as you suggest. The base needed would seem much higher to get more damage from cruelty sigil.

I’m not counting any % bonuses (10% dmg to bleeding enemies, +10% damage while wielding a greatsword or spear, etc). Those actually make cruelty even worse.

I arrived at 2540 on (you are right, incorrect) damage multiplication. Let’s go with a flat 150% crit dmg pct (dmg * 1.5).

2540 * 1.5 = 3810

This is our baseline. Add full stacks of cruelty.

2540 * 1.67 ~= 4242

Instead of cruelty, add full stacks of bloodlust.

2790 * 1.5 ~= 4185

So it is slightly lower than 2540, in fact. I think I should avoid math when I’ve been awake a bit too long

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

babazhook.6805:

A question on this calculation. When using the number 2540 base power have you factored in the various percent bonuses from various traits.?

As example someone has pistol mastery (10 percent more damage) Executioner (20 percent more damage under 50 percent enemy health) Exposed weakness (10 percent more damage with enemy having a condition) and first strike (10 percent more damage if over 6 ini) for 50 percent more damage.

How does that change your calculation given you mentioned weakness as a negative factor if at all or is that number of 2540 base the same?

I have been trying to confirm the calculations and they just not coming out as you suggest. The base needed would seem much higher to get more damage from cruelty sigil.

I’m not counting any % bonuses (10% dmg to bleeding enemies, +10% damage while wielding a greatsword or spear, etc). Those actually make cruelty even worse.

I arrived at 2540 on (you are right, incorrect) damage multiplication. Let’s go with a flat 150% crit dmg pct (dmg * 1.5).

2540 * 1.5 = 3810

This is our baseline. Add full stacks of cruelty.

2540 * 1.67 ~= 4242

Instead of cruelty, add full stacks of bloodlust.

2790 * 1.5 ~= 4185

So it is slightly lower than 2540, in fact. I think I should avoid math when I’ve been awake a bit too long

Ok thanks for that. I tried a number of the ferocity runes and arrived at the conclusion that barring the bonuses that were neither ferocity or power, one was better off with power.

So as example Rune of the Citadel is a better choice then Rune of rage baseline for damage and then you had to figure in whether the bomb was doing more damage then the percent bonus when fury up .

That bomb can hit hard and has a short cool down yet 5 percent is 5 percent.

With things like the new Runes of Evasion, they are just not worth it.

15 power/crit rangers = Instawin.

afaik, dat’s teh truest!

Its still zerging

Did your driver build vary from other guardian builds or was it identical to the AH meta guardian build?

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

babazhook.6805:

A question on this calculation. When using the number 2540 base power have you factored in the various percent bonuses from various traits.?

As example someone has pistol mastery (10 percent more damage) Executioner (20 percent more damage under 50 percent enemy health) Exposed weakness (10 percent more damage with enemy having a condition) and first strike (10 percent more damage if over 6 ini) for 50 percent more damage.

How does that change your calculation given you mentioned weakness as a negative factor if at all or is that number of 2540 base the same?

I have been trying to confirm the calculations and they just not coming out as you suggest. The base needed would seem much higher to get more damage from cruelty sigil.

I’m not counting any % bonuses (10% dmg to bleeding enemies, +10% damage while wielding a greatsword or spear, etc). Those actually make cruelty even worse.

I arrived at 2540 on (you are right, incorrect) damage multiplication. Let’s go with a flat 150% crit dmg pct (dmg * 1.5).

2540 * 1.5 = 3810

This is our baseline. Add full stacks of cruelty.

2540 * 1.67 ~= 4242

Instead of cruelty, add full stacks of bloodlust.

2790 * 1.5 ~= 4185

So it is slightly lower than 2540, in fact. I think I should avoid math when I’ve been awake a bit too long

flat % damage bonuses do not affect bloodlust vs cruelty, the tipping point remains the same.
flat % damage bonuses do dilute dote hyperbolically (worst diminishing occurs between +0-100% flat damage).

Pretty standard necro builds, however two things didnt make sense to me.
Triple wells has hoelbrak with no might stacking
Sustainable high damage has hoelbrak + reapers might but no vital persistence

Anyway thanks for sharing.

Nate.5107:

Did your driver build vary from other guardian builds or was it identical to the AH meta guardian build?

Drigan is a scrub and had to run full nomads or else he would die.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Pretty standard necro builds, however two things didnt make sense to me.
Triple wells has hoelbrak with no might stacking
Sustainable high damage has hoelbrak + reapers might but no vital persistence

Anyway thanks for sharing.

Your team still provides a lot of might. Hoelbrak is popular because it’s a power rune that gives -20% condi duration.

Nate.5107:

Did your driver build vary from other guardian builds or was it identical to the AH meta guardian build?

I didn’t believe in driving on a different (tankier) build than what the rest of our frontline ran, so I ran exactly what everyone else was expected to run. I think there was only one time where I was intentionally tankier than the rest of the melee. I didn’t want it to be hypocritical for me to yell at someone for dying if I had more armor on or something, and almost any time I would die early it was because of a play style issue and being too aggressive, not the build’s fault.

mango.9267:

Your team still provides a lot of might. Hoelbrak is popular because it’s a power rune that gives -20% condi duration.

boon duration only counts for the boons you create, but yeah the -condi is nice. cool thanks ppls.