Guild Wars 2

So, you’re doing some dungeons with your friends. And poor Bob over there, the boss has taken a liking to his glass cannon thief. And this boss just seems to constantly knock his squishy thief butt to the floor. Your group revives him, but he just keeps taking damage. If he just had a little constant healing, he could get to his button 6 fast enough, but he can’t get there alone.

And in the next dungeon, Bob’s fine. But Jerry, well, his ranger just doesn’t seem to have a health bar! It’s gone once, gone twice, gone again. He keeps getting ressed, but that boss just keeps shooting his laser in the most unlucky direction. All he needs is a friendly nudge, just a little health extra to survive that burst damage.

Or the dungeon after that: there’s this boss that likes to heal, but no one else seems to have brought much CC. You do what you can, but those defiant stacks just aren’t kind.

But wait! There’s more! This dungeon, now, seems to enjoy putting condition after condition on everyone in sight! And Dave on his guardian is fine, but Bob and Jerry are struggling to get rid of them all. If only you had a way to help them…

So, your friends get off and you find a pug to play with. And this is somehow a pug of pro players, who don’t need your help! But it would sure be nice if you could survive close melee, and distract the boss while they do other stuff. You know, just blocks and blinds and stuff.

And you finish that run, and get told by guildies that you’ve got a do-or-die WvWvW mission, and you’re late! The zerg already left, and you better catch up fast.

None of these give you time to change your spec or gear between them. You can change your abilities at least, and the individual traits you use, but nothing else.

What do you do? These different situations demand different specialized builds, right? WRONG! The Universal Support/Defense Build would be able of helping out in any of them. This build is designed at keeping yourself alive, while also helping out others. It can apply itself to just about any situation where a support or bunker build could be handy, without swapping out gear or respeccing.

This build comes in two variants: Full Support, 0/0/30/20/20, and Full Defense, 0/0/20/30/20. I personally like being immune to conditions at 25% health, and don’t really care for healing bombs, so I go Full Defense, but both have their strengths. However, regardless of which of the two you choose, you can easily adapt to any set of abilities.

Note: this build is designed solely for group content. If you do solo content, you will have a bad time.

Notable Variants:
The Healer MEDIC!
Full Support
Full Defense
You’ve got Super Elixir. You can throw medkits. You might even have healing bombs. With this array of abilities, no one is going to die around you. Works best with Cleric or Apothecary gear, but you can use anything defensive.

The Tank You can’t touch this…
Full Support
Full Defense
You’ve got a block. You’ve got another block. You’ve got a reflect. You’ve got an invulnerability. You’ve got a stunbreaker. They just can’t bring your health down! Works best with Cleric gear for the Full Support variant or full Sentinel gear with either, but any defensive gear can make do.

The Runner Y’all are too slow.
Full Support
Full Defense
Perma swiftness, perma vigor, Super Speed, Rocket Boots. Chilled, crippled, or immobilized? No worries, you have reduced durations for all of those. Falling damage? Wuzzat? Gear is pretty irrelevant for this setup, since it’s all about mobility.

The Controller That’s a pretty long way down, I’d hate to get knocked back…
Full Support
Full Defense
Holy cow, batman! You’ve got three knockbacks, all on cooldowns of 20 seconds or less! And if you do get knocked down or back yourself, you are way harder to kill! Gear is of less importance here, since it’s all about CC, but I personally like Sentinel.

So I’m not alone after all! Here is what I run:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqSXHvyuF17ISoHSohJYgUUX5lIFPGlB-jQBBUDg0IAZRFRjtIsIasqZER1A-e

Still doubting between some of the traits, such as Energized Armor.

The main purpose is that I support through healing and a little booning and still pack a decent punch, but also quite beefy at the same time. Elixir Gun is always there, love it, the Elixirs themselves depend on the situation, but I mostly run those two. Elixir U is not only nice DPS wise, but also support wise via the thrown ability. Also I sometimes swap the Bomb Kit in there with the trait if the situation requires for some hugging or AoE.

Whaddya think?

I’m the kind of person that would prefer to tank while others spank, or to heal if that situation doesn’t require a tank, but I see the appeal of your build.

Still doubting between some of the traits, such as Energized Armor.

I personally don’t love it, protection when hit by crit or damage reduction while CC’d are too valuable to me. Dungeons probably warrent the CC protection, but WvW tends to reward both.

Direksone.3867:

Elixir U is not only nice DPS wise, but also support wise via the thrown ability

I agree immensely. My defensive builds don’t take it because it’s essentially an offensive ability, but I love that toolbelt ability. I just wish I could guarantee a reflection wall, it’s the far more useful of the two.

If you’re planning on playing with elixirs and lots of boons, I’d recommend elixir H instead of the healing turret personally. However, that permanent regeneration probably is nice, so it’s really an “to each their own” situation.

Overall, looks nice!

Thanks! The reason I use the Turret is for the blasting with my shield and Elixir Gun for some heals. I’m mostly a PvE guy so that’s why.

I like the concept behind these builds and would certainly consider running them in group PvE. Unfortunately I do a lot of Solo-ing and often find these types of builds lacking in damage output. From what I’m reading you’re saying the Damage output isn’t that bad?

Also side note, glad to finally see a thread about more than just complaining about the Engi.