Guild Wars 2

Hey all! Sorry for the very individualized topic, but I have been tinkering with my guardian build, have been debating which accessories to use, and was hoping someone more experienced than I am could help.

A bit of background:
Right now I am running a 0,0,30,30,10 AH/shout guardian. I have put the link to the build below. I have primarily been using it in fractals (mid teens now) and WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNAR7dlUgyC33xKEf4ERWhVi9AjZsjXPcIFZIA

Currently, I am using full cleric’s armor. I have also tried P,T,V but realized that I like cleric’s better for the boost to my multiple small heals. Right now I am running boon duration runes (2 s. monk, 2 s. water, 2 m. water) but may eventually switch over to soldiers.

Now, the question comes. With regards to accessories, I have been running full berserker stat earrings, rings and amulet in order to make up for some of the deficits inherent in my build (dealing damage). I didn’t really pay attention to my final stats at first, but after looking at them today, I realize that my 30 points in valor has already given me a decent amount of critical damage but that my critical chance is relatively low (crit damage ~60s, crit chance ~30s with all berserker accessories).

Would it make sense to switch over to knight’s stat accessories using the mindset that my crit chance is low so it would make more sense to add more toughness than to hope for crits to actually benefit from the critical damage? Or, knowing that the weakness of my build is damage, does it make sense to just keep the berserker accessories to get that boost in my crit damage when crits do hit?

Thanks for all the help ahead of time!

Check out this website that comes in very hand http://www.gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/
you can add all the different type of accessories and check out the outcome of each one you can also add food so that you can see your final output

My guardian has 77% Crit Damage and 42% Crit Chance which is pretty nice im wearing full knight’s Armor

I’d say it’s worth it because even if you are playing support, for dungeons and WvW mostly (And maybe PvP but I haven’t played it), if you deal no damage, then you are like a bag of meat being punched around :P

I think damage is very important for those 2 roles of wvw and dungeons.

I think people who are more experience would have a little more to say about PvP or add something to those as I am fairly new and don’t play that much

Swapping to knight’s is slippery in your situation because you’ll also be giving up power as the primary stat for your accessories and since your armor is clerics your power is already a lot lower. I say this is a big deal because power is -the- most important stat for raw damage As a guy linked, try gw2buildcraft and look at your effective power when tinkering around.

My opinion though is that if someone decides to go clerics gear, you should commit to that play style. For example: Not going AH, putting more points in perhaps virtues, getting more healing power to maximize your dodge heals, get a sigil of stamina on one of your weapons in pve to maintain healing, etc.

I run the set up and traits for my Boon Guard. I wouldn’t change it to knights. Once you get skilled enough to dodge everything you wont need the extra toughness.

Weapon wise, I mainly use a staff for a Boon Guard so I have absolutely no problems getting crits things. By constantly maintaining 15-20 stacks of might for the entire team you are sufficiently making up for the damage you may are losing from not doing single high crits by spreading the damage through multiple mobs and critting more often (staff is also using sigil of strength to give more might to the team)

Even with 30% crit chance you will crit A LOT with the staff. By going Boon guard you aren’t really focused on self damage anyway. It is far superior to give the entire team extra damage as the entire groups overall DPS goes sky high. 30% is more than enough for what you need to do.

I have another set of knights armour with soldier runes with using all berserkers accessories and the damage is comparable.

I disagree with Thz about not taking AH though as no one is going to Buff the team if they are dead. Removing AH from the build reduces your own survival very dramatically. In higher lvl fractals without any AR it means life and death as it will save you if your main heal is on cooldown.

Healing in higher lvl fractals is a good buffer, but it wont save the team.

Over all and most important go with the stats that make you more comfortable in your play style we can only give curtain examples of our build but everyone has there own likes in stats and play style just have fun with and check the link i posted it will come in handy it did for me

KensaiZen.3740:

I run the set up and traits for my Boon Guard. I wouldn’t change it to knights. Once you get skilled enough to dodge everything you wont need the extra toughness.

Weapon wise, I mainly use a staff for a Boon Guard so I have absolutely no problems getting crits things. By constantly maintaining 15-20 stacks of might for the entire team you are sufficiently making up for the damage you may are losing from not doing single high crits by spreading the damage through multiple mobs and critting more often (staff is also using sigil of strength to give more might to the team)

Even with 30% crit chance you will crit A LOT with the staff. By going Boon guard you aren’t really focused on self damage anyway. It is far superior to give the entire team extra damage as the entire groups overall DPS goes sky high. 30% is more than enough for what you need to do.

I have another set of knights armour with soldier runes with using all berserkers accessories and the damage is comparable.

I disagree with Thz about not taking AH though as no one is going to Buff the team if they are dead. Removing AH from the build reduces your own survival very dramatically. In higher lvl fractals without any AR it means life and death as it will save you if your main heal is on cooldown.

Healing in higher lvl fractals is a good buffer, but it wont save the team.

Re-read what I said in its entirety instead of looking only at the notion of dropping AH. He said he’s wearing clerics. AH basically doesn’t scale with healing power. Having added healing power will = high heal dodges on top of regens, etc. This gives yourself an auto replacement of AH and room to put points into more group utility. YOU need AH because you’re a boon duration guardian. Healing power guardians do not.

Thz.7569:

KensaiZen.3740:

I run the set up and traits for my Boon Guard. I wouldn’t change it to knights. Once you get skilled enough to dodge everything you wont need the extra toughness.

Weapon wise, I mainly use a staff for a Boon Guard so I have absolutely no problems getting crits things. By constantly maintaining 15-20 stacks of might for the entire team you are sufficiently making up for the damage you may are losing from not doing single high crits by spreading the damage through multiple mobs and critting more often (staff is also using sigil of strength to give more might to the team)

Even with 30% crit chance you will crit A LOT with the staff. By going Boon guard you aren’t really focused on self damage anyway. It is far superior to give the entire team extra damage as the entire groups overall DPS goes sky high. 30% is more than enough for what you need to do.

I have another set of knights armour with soldier runes with using all berserkers accessories and the damage is comparable.

I disagree with Thz about not taking AH though as no one is going to Buff the team if they are dead. Removing AH from the build reduces your own survival very dramatically. In higher lvl fractals without any AR it means life and death as it will save you if your main heal is on cooldown.

Healing in higher lvl fractals is a good buffer, but it wont save the team.

Re-read what I said in its entirety instead of looking only at the notion of dropping AH. He said he’s wearing clerics. AH basically doesn’t scale with healing power. Having added healing power will = high heal dodges on top of regens, etc. This gives yourself an auto replacement of AH and room to put points into more group utility. YOU need AH because you’re a boon duration guardian. Healing power guardians do not.

How can you heal if your dead? a healer Guardian needs to stay alive long enough to get out all his heals.

You cannot dodge roll if your dead. You cannot use healing breeze or shelter if your dead. Cant do anything if your dead. Self survival is also integral to contributing to the team. If people are constantly picking your kitten off the floor, your not doing your job. If hit by agony, your dodges alone will not give you enough healing to withstand it AND be hit by a mob since you’ve already wasted the dodges to heal yourself. Relying on dodges to heal means you wont have them when you need them the most.

Dropping AH means a reduction to your own survival. Reread my post again and replace the word buff with heal as its pretty much the same thing in a AH healing build.

Healing.

A stat that most guardian players shun. I’ll put aside boon durations and all that hippy stuff aside first.

Here’s the thing. If you stack healing fully, you will see some nice numbers. Compared to without. But first, you’d have to realise a few things with GW2 PVE. (since you’ve left to mention the context)

If it can kill you, it will. Healing will not come soon enough or in amounts that will matter. With or without healing stats. It should have been avoided, or the healing which comes with every profession is able to cover any loss of hp.

With a lack of precision, you are forgoing in my opinion one of the best defensive qualities of a guardian. Pretty much permanent vigor. Vigor gives endurance. And dodging is the most powerful damage avoidance in this game. If you avoid the damage there’s nothing to heal. It’s more of learning the fights. When you get more experienced with the content, you’ll soon realise, you’re lugging around deadweight on your back. You want more dps, less healing, less toughness and push the limits of your survivability.

(Some will say oh hayyy with 20% precision, i can crit enough. Assuming every fight in GW2 is a brain dead tank and spank. That works. But it isn’t. You want the vigor up in the most possible situations)

Higher DPS means, shorter fights.
Leads to lesser damage taken. Big picture. (not advocating glass cannon here btw)

(Unless of course you’re a charitable spirit who wants to carry people not as experienced in a particular dungeon. But here’s the catch again, they’ll die anyway if they aren’t experienced enough to dodge/avoid what’s needed, with or without your stacked heals)

I used to go for the boon duration runes. I was thinking, soldier runes, ah removes conditions. Big deal. Then bloody hell, the benefit is party wide! You can’t give up the power of being able to remove devastating debuffs on yourself or party members at critical moments. In certain dungeons/fractals, the last thing you want to find yourself is walking around with 25 stacks of vulnerability or poison only to have your heals doing pittance.

I currently am using a full set of knight’s armor with soldier runes. Trinkets are all berserker/ascended. Accessories will also be ascended once I meet the required laurels. Even though exotic earrings aren’t stat efficient per %crit dmg received, I am using it to experience a guardian with merely 2800 toughness. And it’s fine thus far.

Last thing. On paper certain things like, oh I can buff so and so. It justifies my dps loss yada yada. Consider how often you run dungeons or with guildies. Do they actually stay within 600 range of you? How often are fights messy where everyone is spread out. Very often your shouts/staff empower etc etc does not reach the entire party. Never console yourself by saying “the benefits I bring to the party”. Ideal situations are rare where that’s applicable, and that doesn’t justify going full out on ‘support’.

Changing your gear doesn’t mean you can’t do any of the above. Important thing is, it does enough. In whichever mixture of PTV/Zerk/Knight’s you so desire. Never be persuaded by arguments which ‘only’ works in ‘specific’ situations.

KensaiZen.3740:

Thz.7569:

KensaiZen.3740:

I run the set up and traits for my Boon Guard. I wouldn’t change it to knights. Once you get skilled enough to dodge everything you wont need the extra toughness.

Weapon wise, I mainly use a staff for a Boon Guard so I have absolutely no problems getting crits things. By constantly maintaining 15-20 stacks of might for the entire team you are sufficiently making up for the damage you may are losing from not doing single high crits by spreading the damage through multiple mobs and critting more often (staff is also using sigil of strength to give more might to the team)

Even with 30% crit chance you will crit A LOT with the staff. By going Boon guard you aren’t really focused on self damage anyway. It is far superior to give the entire team extra damage as the entire groups overall DPS goes sky high. 30% is more than enough for what you need to do.

I have another set of knights armour with soldier runes with using all berserkers accessories and the damage is comparable.

I disagree with Thz about not taking AH though as no one is going to Buff the team if they are dead. Removing AH from the build reduces your own survival very dramatically. In higher lvl fractals without any AR it means life and death as it will save you if your main heal is on cooldown.

Healing in higher lvl fractals is a good buffer, but it wont save the team.

Re-read what I said in its entirety instead of looking only at the notion of dropping AH. He said he’s wearing clerics. AH basically doesn’t scale with healing power. Having added healing power will = high heal dodges on top of regens, etc. This gives yourself an auto replacement of AH and room to put points into more group utility. YOU need AH because you’re a boon duration guardian. Healing power guardians do not.

How can you heal if your dead? a healer Guardian needs to stay alive long enough to get out all his heals.

You cannot dodge roll if your dead. You cannot use healing breeze or shelter if your dead. Cant do anything if your dead. Self survival is also integral to contributing to the team. If people are constantly picking your kitten off the floor, your not doing your job. If hit by agony, your dodges alone will not give you enough healing to withstand it AND be hit by a mob since you’ve already wasted the dodges to heal yourself. Relying on dodges to heal means you wont have them when you need them the most.

Dropping AH means a reduction to your own survival. Reread my post again and replace the word buff with heal as its pretty much the same thing in a AH healing build.

You must not be aware of the coefficients in place. And please stop mentioning agony like it means something. You either have AR or you don’t; You either know how to avoid agony or you don’t. AH or not has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I play an AH guardian myself, but I know kitten well how effective HP can be when setup properly and I also know AH is unnecessary. AH on a healing power guardian is just a crutch for poor play, like running a ton of pvt in pve.

Also, the only reason I mentioned any of this in the first place is because he already went ahead and got clerics armor.

lets say 15 stacks of might gives 200 extra dmg per person. 200×5 = 1000 extra dmg non crit. Those who go for full Glass or even high crit builds will multiply this number based on their builds.

Even if you only manage to buff 2 people on your team that’s an extra 400dmg per hit unmodified by build crits and and crit dmg multiplier.

Even if you go full glass cannon, the likeliness of you doing the damage output of your team buffed is still lower. Not to mention every dmg skill multiplier will also work off those numbers.

Factor in that you also give retaliation group wide. That is more dmg to factor in. Also popping VoJ will also give your entire team burning (or whoever is in range) for more dmg. If a mob does an aoe and hits all 5 of your team with retaliation up and lets say retaliation does 300 dmg 300×5 another 1500 dmg.

Going support does not mean it is purely defensive support as the way the class works is it gives both types of boons to play with.

But then no one should go full support either as then you are just gimping yourself far below the level where buffing the team outweighs the benefit of your own dmg output. If you are looking to dodge heal to win. Use a staff. Its cone AOE is wide enough for you to hit anything in range and give you 5 seconds (that’s a few swings to get a crit so even with 30% crit chance you WILL crit within 5 seconds) to maintain perma vigor.

Some people can only play DPS, Some can only play support, others can do both. Just tailor it to your own play style. You are only limited by your own skill. The class itself allows for much more

Thanks for all the input everyone. A couple points about what I am probably going to do:

1. Keep all berserker accessories, getting ascended when I can
2. Make a set of knights gear and try it out for a week to see how it plays
3. Keep AH. I know that my build is not a true AH build but I am going to keep it. The main reasons for this are a. I want the toughness that valor gives me and b. since I am using all shouts anyway for condition removal (especially with the soldiers runes I will eventually get), I might as well get a little healing out of them

As far as my play style is concerned, I run around and dodge constantly which is where the clerics gear really shined with selfless daring. But, I still kind of suck and do like to have some toughness as I can’t mitigate as much damage with rolls as I would like