Guild Wars 2

Please give comment on this build.. planning to get celestial ascended..
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApaodDxcI8DRR8QlTVBAunYUc9PEE5AA-T1BFABCcRAQS5nc7PkmuB/UCSp6PA8EACAgAszdGAO6RP6RP6Rbn7cn7cn7sUARMMC-w

I would take scepter over sword because two melee weapons are pretty bad (for what I’m assuming to be a wvw roaming build?).

I would replace fire sigil on your focus. Having a sigil with 5 seconds cooldown on both weaponsets is not really optimal. I would take bloodlust since your power is kinda meh or if you don’t want to use a stacking sigil you can use blood sigil. It does arround the same damage as fire, sometimes more, sometimes less since it’s ignoring armor and it doesn’t share the cooldown with fire sigil. Also it’s a small sustain buff and your build seems like that’s kind of what you want.

I would definetly take the point out of virtues and put it into radiance. The instant blind will let you avoid way more damage than the protection from that trait if you can use it right.

Also you should consider taking pure of heart over wrathful spirit. Not really the most relevant thing but it would be some more healing on top of all the other heals.

Keksmuffin.1450:

I would take scepter over sword because two melee weapons are pretty bad (for what I’m assuming to be a wvw roaming build?).

I thought most Meditation-Guards go GS SW/F, though. Since scepter won’t hit a good player that often. And yes, that doesn’t always include me (gosh that scepter AA can hurt over time), but that’s because I lack the practice. Don’t see many Guardians roaming in WvW… well, actually I see less and less people solo-roaming anyway, as most seem to be too scared to run around with less than 3-5 people at once.

Keksmuffin.1450:

I would replace fire sigil on your focus. Having a sigil with 5 seconds cooldown on both weaponsets is not really optimal.

What? Why that?

Keksmuffin.1450:

It does arround the same damage as fire, sometimes more, sometimes less since it’s ignoring armor and it doesn’t share the cooldown with fire sigil.

1. It does less damage than the fire-sigil.
2. It also has a 5 second cooldown, which is a bad thing according to you. Which isn’t the case of course, but you’re kinda contradicting yourself if you suggest to replace a 5 second cooldown sigil with another 5 second cooldown sigil because having a sigil with 5 seconds cooldown on both weaponsets is bad…

On a sidenote, I never was a fan of celestial gear; especially not on anything that isn’t an Elementalist or Engineer.

But yeah. This is my take on a Medi-Guard:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVIQNAR8dlsApaolDxbI8DRh/Qkj1LTB4cdZ7HA-TlSDwATuAARV6d4IAk4BAKBfp+DUlBg09AwE0v9HgcQAIDQ+WA-w

Blood sigil can do more damage on targets with high armor since it ignores armor while fire doesn’t.

The reason why you shouldn’t take fire on both sets is that they share their cooldown. When you proc fire sigil and swap weapon it’s still on cooldown while blood sigil doesn’t share its cooldown with fire. The point is not the 5 seconds cooldown, it’s the SHARED 5 seconds cooldown. (Same with air sigil but it’s not as bad with only 3 seconds cooldown. Also there is no sigil which would compare damage-wise)

And scepter is a ranged weapon. The autohits are easy to avoid by sidestepping on max range, yes. But in a range of ~600smth that isn’t possible anymore. Also smite and the imob have no travel time. The imob makes it possible to actually hit a full whirling wrath which is basicly impossible otherwise if your target has a brain. Smite might not have the best damage on moving targets with a small hitbox but it has no travel time so the first few hits usually hit if you place it well and if your sigils get triggered by that it does pretty good damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApcoVDxbI8DRRDBlZ8vvN49hrPQCCAA-TVCEwA23fgwTAYrSQmK/McBAYp+THdOt1EA4gAQKgnWGB-w

This is what I’m using when people force me to run arround in wvw with them. It would lack damage with celestial gear though so I wouldn’t recommend it to OP.

OP –
If you’re going for DMG – Maximize your Dmg Modifiers.
If you’re going for Support – Focus on CC, Condi Removal & Boons.

Most importantly though, make sure your “build” and your utilities sync up. You’re running 3 signets but have no traits that support the utilities.

Amins.3710:

OP –
If you’re going for DMG – Maximize your Dmg Modifiers.
If you’re going for Support – Focus on CC, Condi Removal & Boons.

Most importantly though, make sure your “build” and your utilities sync up. You’re running 3 signets but have no traits that support the utilities.

wat r u talking about he srunning meditations lol

You’re better off going in radiance over honor and trading the zerker pieces in for valk IMO. Radiance provides much more to DPS-oriented builds like a meditation guard, especially one that runs with sword.

Booms.2594:

Amins.3710:

OP –
If you’re going for DMG – Maximize your Dmg Modifiers.
If you’re going for Support – Focus on CC, Condi Removal & Boons.

Most importantly though, make sure your “build” and your utilities sync up. You’re running 3 signets but have no traits that support the utilities.

wat r u talking about he srunning meditations lol

Oh – that’s weird… this was supposed to be a response to a different thread!

Black Box.9312:

You’re better off going in radiance over honor and trading the zerker pieces in for valk IMO. Radiance provides much more to DPS-oriented builds like a meditation guard, especially one that runs with sword.

Most damage come from greatsword.. so i think the 20% reduce in CD is a good choice

Desvio.9026:

Black Box.9312:

You’re better off going in radiance over honor and trading the zerker pieces in for valk IMO. Radiance provides much more to DPS-oriented builds like a meditation guard, especially one that runs with sword.

Most damage come from greatsword.. so i think the 20% reduce in CD is a good choice

Greatsword is really bad damage in solo WvW roaming. It only deals damage if you have someone to keep the enemy in place. Also the blind, vuln, and extra 10% dmg to condition-afflicted enemies all in Radiance far outweighs the cooldown reduction.

Black Box.9312:

Greatsword is really bad damage in solo WvW roaming. It only deals damage if you have someone to keep the enemy in place. Also the blind, vuln, and extra 10% dmg to condition-afflicted enemies all in Radiance far outweighs the cooldown reduction.

That’s right, although I’ve heard people use Judge’s Intervention as soon as they start Whirling Wrath. Also, you can pull people with GS 5 and then use it. Or you can close the distance with the teleport on sword and then weapon swap for chill (if you use a Sigil of Hydromancy on GS) and then use Whirling Wrath. Mind you, I’ve not been able to test all this myself yet, but those are the general strategies I’ve read about. And they seem to work quite well for those players.

Saturn.6591:

Black Box.9312:

Greatsword is really bad damage in solo WvW roaming. It only deals damage if you have someone to keep the enemy in place. Also the blind, vuln, and extra 10% dmg to condition-afflicted enemies all in Radiance far outweighs the cooldown reduction.

That’s right, although I’ve heard people use Judge’s Intervention as soon as they start Whirling Wrath. Also, you can pull people with GS 5 and then use it. Or you can close the distance with the teleport on sword and then weapon swap for chill (if you use a Sigil of Hydromancy on GS) and then use Whirling Wrath. Mind you, I’ve not been able to test all this myself yet, but those are the general strategies I’ve read about. And they seem to work quite well for those players.

You can do those things, but it’s all very situational. Even with Binding Blade, the enemy will still have ample time to open a gap that will avoid most of the damage of GS.

Radiance gives you nothing but damage. Honor gives you sustain, more utility with the cooldown reduction (and maybe resolute healer if you roam with a friend or smth) and still a decent ammount of damage from elusive power.

Going into traitlines to get nothing but damage is something you can do with PvE builds or with gimmicky 1 shot builds but in every decent PvPish build you can’t just stack damage multipliers. The stuff you get in honor is definetly stronger in actual fights, 1v1s and stuff. The only time I would agree on radiance being better would be fighting NPCs.

^ But how comes that most Meditation Guardian guides out there (be it for PvP or WvW) go 6 points into Radiance? There are a few others too, but most chose Radiance for some reason. Are you sure that you’re still able to kill stuff if you go 6 points into both defensive traitlines (since you mention the grandmaster minor trait in Honor)?

I’m just curious.

I’ve been maining meditation guard since forever, been top 50 teamq since last leaderbord reset with it, played it in a bunch of bigger tournaments and won a bunch of 2v2 and 5v5 ESL weeklies with it. I would dare to claim that I have more experience with meditation guard than some random wvw roamer that writes a guide for his random throwtogether of traits.

I still think that the best build goes into virtues for the utiltiy (2/1/6/1/4, 0/1/6/1/6, 0/1/6/3/4), sustain and support but 5 points in honor are definetly better than 5 points in radiance especially since he wants to use celestial armor. 2/1/6/5/0 trades a small part of your damage for a lot of sustain compared to stuff that goes 5 or 6 into radiance.

Radiance is only good for gimicky one handed 1 shot builds. One point in radiance for the instant blind is something every dps build should have but apart from that there isn’t any decent utility in this line.

There’s nothing wrong with Radiance builds, the most common are x/6/6/x/x or x/5/6/x/x. They work extremely well in 1v1 situations, however in other areas they start to become a liability. In 1vX situations, unless you can land your burst on all the players at once you’ll probably lose. In team fights, it fairs better if you have other players running support, if you don’t, you’ll get focused hard and you won’t really have the utility to survive.

Radiance builds really comes down to landing bursts. If you can land them, you’re almost guaranteed to win. However, if you start missing your burst and making mistakes, the odds will start to stack against you because you don’t have the survivability nor the utility for drawn out fights. With Radiances builds you want to end the fight as soon as possible.

In short, they are good in 1v1 and also getting the drop on people. They can also be decent in team fights if your team comp is built for it.

I get the usage of Scepter and it really help, but in WvW Mobility is OP. For solo raoming wouldn’t Sword be better? Sword #2, GS #3 and JI allows you to escape sometimes if there is a target close, it doesn’t happen often but happens.

mPascoal.4258:

I get the usage of Scepter and it really help, but in WvW Mobility is OP. For solo raoming wouldn’t Sword be better? Sword #2, GS #3 and JI allows you to escape sometimes if there is a target close, it doesn’t happen often but happens.

Yes, when it comes to solo roaming I’d highly recommend sword or gs, you can even use both if you choose. If you’re going to use only one, I’d prefer sword over gs. Flashing Blade has a shorter CD than Leap of Faith, however FB does require some type of target. Also sword can be paired with focus, giving you more survivability and or damage.

When it comes to small group stuff it doesn’t generally matter as much. You’ll have close to perm swiftness in those situations, plus your teammates will have superior ways to catch and CC opponents.

Radiance increases your chances vs zerker classes but greatly decreases your chances vs condis.. in the end prboably not worth it since a virtue build can beat a zerker class if you just play better

Keksmuffin.1450:

Radiance gives you nothing but damage. Honor gives you sustain, more utility with the cooldown reduction (and maybe resolute healer if you roam with a friend or smth) and still a decent ammount of damage from elusive power.

Going into traitlines to get nothing but damage is something you can do with PvE builds or with gimmicky 1 shot builds but in every decent PvPish build you can’t just stack damage multipliers. The stuff you get in honor is definetly stronger in actual fights, 1v1s and stuff. The only time I would agree on radiance being better would be fighting NPCs.

But what sort of utility does honor even provide for a meditation build? Your utility comes from meditations and valor; other than the vigor on crit at a whole 1 point there’s nothing valuable enough in honor to make a significant impact on the build, so you’re basically trading out less damage for hardly any sort of gain at all.

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

Radiance gives you nothing but damage. Honor gives you sustain, more utility with the cooldown reduction (and maybe resolute healer if you roam with a friend or smth) and still a decent ammount of damage from elusive power.

Going into traitlines to get nothing but damage is something you can do with PvE builds or with gimmicky 1 shot builds but in every decent PvPish build you can’t just stack damage multipliers. The stuff you get in honor is definetly stronger in actual fights, 1v1s and stuff. The only time I would agree on radiance being better would be fighting NPCs.

But what sort of utility does honor even provide for a meditation build? Your utility comes from meditations and valor; other than the vigor on crit at a whole 1 point there’s nothing valuable enough in honor to make a significant impact on the build, so you’re basically trading out less damage for hardly any sort of gain at all.

heal on aegis and dodges as well as slight might stacking helps in sustained fights. it also gives you an advantage vs other guards

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

Radiance gives you nothing but damage. Honor gives you sustain, more utility with the cooldown reduction (and maybe resolute healer if you roam with a friend or smth) and still a decent ammount of damage from elusive power.

Going into traitlines to get nothing but damage is something you can do with PvE builds or with gimmicky 1 shot builds but in every decent PvPish build you can’t just stack damage multipliers. The stuff you get in honor is definetly stronger in actual fights, 1v1s and stuff. The only time I would agree on radiance being better would be fighting NPCs.

But what sort of utility does honor even provide for a meditation build? Your utility comes from meditations and valor; other than the vigor on crit at a whole 1 point there’s nothing valuable enough in honor to make a significant impact on the build, so you’re basically trading out less damage for hardly any sort of gain at all.

You get the cd reduction on gs which means you can pull and leap more often. You get a decent sustainboost from healing dodges and heal on aegis which actually makes a difference in wvw since the healing dodges are unnerfed and you gain healing power from stuff like traveler runes, wvw boni and stuff (and the 5 points in honor ofc). You still get the 10% more damage thingy which basicly means that 5 points in radiance don’t really boost your damage a lot compared to honor, at least as long as we’re talking about gs scepter/focus. The only real difference is actually your crit chance. Also you can get the knockback on rez trait if you’re playing with a friend which is amazing utility in 2v2s and stuff.

If you’re playing with 1hsword it’s a different story since RHS and powerful blades make the damage difference between honor and radiance pretty big. But then we’re talking about gimmicky 1 shot builds without much sustain or utility again. We’re kind of moving in circles here.

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

Radiance gives you nothing but damage. Honor gives you sustain, more utility with the cooldown reduction (and maybe resolute healer if you roam with a friend or smth) and still a decent ammount of damage from elusive power.

Going into traitlines to get nothing but damage is something you can do with PvE builds or with gimmicky 1 shot builds but in every decent PvPish build you can’t just stack damage multipliers. The stuff you get in honor is definetly stronger in actual fights, 1v1s and stuff. The only time I would agree on radiance being better would be fighting NPCs.

But what sort of utility does honor even provide for a meditation build? Your utility comes from meditations and valor; other than the vigor on crit at a whole 1 point there’s nothing valuable enough in honor to make a significant impact on the build, so you’re basically trading out less damage for hardly any sort of gain at all.

It does have a significant difference if you take the time to plan out your gear. Which is the nice part about WvW compared to PvP, you actually have a lot of choices. It’s much easier to trait for survivability and utility and then stack offensive stats. However, the opposite is not true, if you trait offensively and go for more defense stats, you’re not going to gain much as in survivability and utility. This is due to the way Guardian’s traits are set up.

For example I threw together this build, it’s probably not 100% optimize because I did it in a minute. However as you can see going into Honor is extremely beneficial. Gives you a nice hp pool to work with. 800 dodge roll heals and 900 when Aegis is removed. Yet you still have a very respectable amount of offensive pressure.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApaolDxbI8DRRDRljNYHBHXXe9BkABAA-TlCEAB2t/gTKDEUJImqVwkSPDeAAcqbwTVVA4IA8wFBIAACwNvZ2sNDO6RP6RP6R7m38o38o3sUA6pMC-w

mPascoal.4258:

I get the usage of Scepter and it really help, but in WvW Mobility is OP. For solo raoming wouldn’t Sword be better? Sword #2, GS #3 and JI allows you to escape sometimes if there is a target close, it doesn’t happen often but happens.

in short, no the sword is not better for solo roaming, especially if you’re playing a bursty, high DPS build. You might win against people who are unprepared for you with Sword, but when you meet your match, and or find someone who can kite better than you can gap close, you will die.

The scepter offers you very good damage from 1200 units, and with an Air sigil on the scepter you can do a fair amount of damage. in a solo roaming 1vx fight that you cant finish quickly, you will need to be able to do damage from range, because you do not have an exceptional ability to absorb damage. and recover.

Harbinger.8637:

It does have a significant difference if you take the time to plan out your gear. Which is the nice part about WvW compared to PvP, you actually have a lot of choices. It’s much easier to trait for survivability and utility and then stack offensive stats. However, the opposite is not true, if you trait offensively and go for more defense stats, you’re not going to gain much as in survivability and utility. This is due to the way Guardian’s traits are set up.

For example I threw together this build, it’s probably not 100% optimize because I did it in a minute. However as you can see going into Honor is extremely beneficial. Gives you a nice hp pool to work with. 800 dodge roll heals and 900 when Aegis is removed. Yet you still have a very respectable amount of offensive pressure.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApaolDxbI8DRRDRljNYHBHXXe9BkABAA-TlCEAB2t/gTKDEUJImqVwkSPDeAAcqbwTVVA4IA8wFBIAACwNvZ2sNDO6RP6RP6R7m38o38o3sUA6pMC-w

What I do wonder is though, why in the WvW guide in your signature (written by you), not even one of the “Solo Roamer” builds goes more than one point into Honor. In fact, two out of the three builds go 5 or even 6 points into Radiance. Is your guide outdated?

Edit: It probably is. Last edit 6 (or even 8) months ago. Glacial Heart’s cooldown was halved since then (your opinions about traits state it’s bad due to 30 seconds cooldown). Also, the new grandmaster traits are not included yet. Would be great if you could update it at some point, because as it is, it seems to be misleading people into thinking that going 5 or 6 points into Radiance is a good idea even if you’re not a glassy burst one-trick-pony.

Saturn.6591:

Harbinger.8637:

It does have a significant difference if you take the time to plan out your gear. Which is the nice part about WvW compared to PvP, you actually have a lot of choices. It’s much easier to trait for survivability and utility and then stack offensive stats. However, the opposite is not true, if you trait offensively and go for more defense stats, you’re not going to gain much as in survivability and utility. This is due to the way Guardian’s traits are set up.

For example I threw together this build, it’s probably not 100% optimize because I did it in a minute. However as you can see going into Honor is extremely beneficial. Gives you a nice hp pool to work with. 800 dodge roll heals and 900 when Aegis is removed. Yet you still have a very respectable amount of offensive pressure.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApaolDxbI8DRRDRljNYHBHXXe9BkABAA-TlCEAB2t/gTKDEUJImqVwkSPDeAAcqbwTVVA4IA8wFBIAACwNvZ2sNDO6RP6RP6R7m38o38o3sUA6pMC-w

What I do wonder is though, why in the WvW guide in your signature (written by you), not even one of the “Solo Roamer” builds goes more than one point into Honor. In fact, two out of the three builds go 5 or even 6 points into Radiance. Is your guide outdated?

Edit: It probably is. Last edit 6 (or even months ago. Glacial Heart’s cooldown was halved since then (your opinions about traits state it’s bad due to 30 seconds cooldown). Also, the new grandmaster traits are not included yet. Would be great if you could update it at some point, because as it is, it seems to be misleading people into thinking that going 5 or 6 points into Radiance is a good idea even if you’re not a glassy burst one-trick-pony.

The guide isn’t outdated, that meta really hasn’t changed much since I started it. All of those builds are more then viable. I even explained why in the introduction:

Like I mentioned in the introduction not every build can and will not be mentioned, this is due to the infinite combinations and play styles. So I’ll just start off mentioning three popular for each category. I plan to update these in the future with more builds.

So yes I should probably add more builds to it. It does take a lot of dedication and time to constantly update the guide. I admit, I have been lacking updating it, however this is due to my lack of desire to play the game. The game has become very stale for me, and I’ve been waiting for some type of meaningful WvW/PvP update to get back into it.

Also as a side note Glacial Heart is still terrible, the CD is still far too long for what you get from it. Also it only applies to hammer, hammer already has enough CCs, so it’s redundant. However, this a discussion for a different topic.

So I guess there’s a big difference in opinions here. Some people in this thread say 5 or 6 points into Radiance is viable. Others say you will die against anything that you can’t kill very quickly if you don’t trait into Honor and/or Virtues. Some say Sword is what you should bring, and some say you would be far better off bringing Scepter instead. And the best thing is, all of them seem to be experienced Guardians.

Whew! I dunno what to believe anymore.

Keksmuffin.1450:

I’ve been maining meditation guard since forever, been top 50 teamq since last leaderbord reset with it, played it in a bunch of bigger tournaments and won a bunch of 2v2 and 5v5 ESL weeklies with it. I would dare to claim that I have more experience with meditation guard than some random wvw roamer that writes a guide for his random throwtogether of traits.

Your ego astonishes me.

Why even go there?

Insulting the Guardian Community while “Requiring” their respect because of your proclaimed accomplishments is short sighted at best.

Keksmuffin.1450:

If you’re playing with 1hsword it’s a different story since RHS and powerful blades make the damage difference between honor and radiance pretty big. But then we’re talking about gimmicky 1 shot builds without much sustain or utility again. We’re kind of moving in circles here.

Wait what? Sword provides the highest sustained DPS of any of the guardian’s weapons (barring scepter if every hit of smite lands, but that’s pretty much a no-go). It’s much less of a 1 trick pony gimmick than GS is, which is why I don’t recommend GS for small scale WvW roaming.

Saturn.6591:

So I guess there’s a big difference in opinions here. Some people in this thread say 5 or 6 points into Radiance is viable. Others say you will die against anything that you can’t kill very quickly if you don’t trait into Honor and/or Virtues. Some say Sword is what you should bring, and some say you would be far better off bringing Scepter instead. And the best thing is, all of them seem to be experienced Guardians.

Whew! I dunno what to believe anymore.

People will always have differences of opinions, which is fine. There are a lot of different variations of med builds, which isn’t a bad thing, the more choices the better.

So the simplest way of explaining this:

Builds that trait heavily into Zeal or Radiance have the highest dps possible, however they have the lowest amount of survivability.

Builds that trait heavily into Honor have the highest amount of survivability, however they will not reach the dps output of Zeal/Radiance builds.

Builds that trait heavily into Virtues have the most amount of utility.

So there are a lot of different variables to take into consideration. A player’s play style, weapons, team comp, experience, and skill. Plus more importantly you have to mindful of what your opponent is running. All the builds that have been mentioned in this thread are all viable and popular builds. So it just comes down to finding the right build for you.

Hopefully that explains this thread a bit better.

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

If you’re playing with 1hsword it’s a different story since RHS and powerful blades make the damage difference between honor and radiance pretty big. But then we’re talking about gimmicky 1 shot builds without much sustain or utility again. We’re kind of moving in circles here.

Wait what? Sword provides the highest sustained DPS of any of the guardian’s weapons (barring scepter if every hit of smite lands, but that’s pretty much a no-go). It’s much less of a 1 trick pony gimmick than GS is, which is why I don’t recommend GS for small scale WvW roaming.

I personally almost never go anywhere without my scepter these days, especially because of all the rangers and other ranged classes. Not to mention that the immob from the scepter can help you land your burst with GS or sword/X, whatever your secondary set may be. Usually for me, it’s sc/f GS, and rarely sc/t sw/f, traited only one point into Radiance these days.

I used to be a big proponent of sw/f GS 25601, or sw/f sc/t 266, but for my status as a solo roamer they just don’t seem to hold up well in longer fights. Sure, with 25601 I can one-shot someone (as I use rage sigil on that GS), but if they dodge, I’m out of my burst and might have issues staying in melee range the whole time. In addition, I’ve been fighting many more opposing medi guards to get better and… let’s just say that using one of those two doesn’t usually end well against an opponent who knows what he or she is doing.

And the reason I use GS is because I usually solo-roam and that means 1v2 and 1v3 situations are plentiful. I love my sw/f sc/t set on occasion, but that’s almost all single-target burst. In addition, pull for thieves in SR is a big help.

Speaking of that, I do want to fight other medi guards, if anyone’s on BG or TC, shoot me a PM and I’ll be more than down to duel. c:

Overall, I think everyone is going to be a fan of different weapon sets, sigils, builds, and hey, if it gets the job done, I don’t see any reason for them to change. I did recently learn how garbage Strength sigils are, though >.<

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

If you’re playing with 1hsword it’s a different story since RHS and powerful blades make the damage difference between honor and radiance pretty big. But then we’re talking about gimmicky 1 shot builds without much sustain or utility again. We’re kind of moving in circles here.

Wait what? Sword provides the highest sustained DPS of any of the guardian’s weapons (barring scepter if every hit of smite lands, but that’s pretty much a no-go). It’s much less of a 1 trick pony gimmick than GS is, which is why I don’t recommend GS for small scale WvW roaming.

I’m not talking about sword being a gimmicky 1 shot weapon, I’m talking about 2/6/6/0/0 or 2/5/6/x/x with sword traits.

GS has something you could call an actual burst (scepter imob → WW, binding blade + JI → WW) while sword is basicly just gapclose auto auto auto, gapclose auto auto auto. Zealots defense isn’t really a big difference to autoattack. Also sword cleave is really awkward and it has no aoe at all which makes it worse in pretty much everything that isn’t 1v1. If you’re not going super yolo 6 radiance I really don’t see a point in running sword.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

If you’re playing with 1hsword it’s a different story since RHS and powerful blades make the damage difference between honor and radiance pretty big. But then we’re talking about gimmicky 1 shot builds without much sustain or utility again. We’re kind of moving in circles here.

Wait what? Sword provides the highest sustained DPS of any of the guardian’s weapons (barring scepter if every hit of smite lands, but that’s pretty much a no-go). It’s much less of a 1 trick pony gimmick than GS is, which is why I don’t recommend GS for small scale WvW roaming.

I’m not talking about sword being a gimmicky 1 shot weapon, I’m talking about 2/6/6/0/0 or 2/5/6/x/x with sword traits.

GS has something you could call an actual burst (scepter imob -> WW, binding blade + JI -> WW) while sword is basicly just gapclose auto auto auto, gapclose auto auto auto. Zealots defense isn’t really a big difference to autoattack. Also sword cleave is really awkward and it has no aoe at all which makes it worse in pretty much everything that isn’t 1v1. If you’re not going super yolo 6 radiance I really don’t see a point in running sword.

us sword mains know how to cleave using sword with correct targetting and placement but yeah GS is still better due to the symbol and WW being faster than autos

Booms.2594:

Keksmuffin.1450:

Black Box.9312:

Keksmuffin.1450:

If you’re playing with 1hsword it’s a different story since RHS and powerful blades make the damage difference between honor and radiance pretty big. But then we’re talking about gimmicky 1 shot builds without much sustain or utility again. We’re kind of moving in circles here.

Wait what? Sword provides the highest sustained DPS of any of the guardian’s weapons (barring scepter if every hit of smite lands, but that’s pretty much a no-go). It’s much less of a 1 trick pony gimmick than GS is, which is why I don’t recommend GS for small scale WvW roaming.

I’m not talking about sword being a gimmicky 1 shot weapon, I’m talking about 2/6/6/0/0 or 2/5/6/x/x with sword traits.

GS has something you could call an actual burst (scepter imob -> WW, binding blade + JI -> WW) while sword is basicly just gapclose auto auto auto, gapclose auto auto auto. Zealots defense isn’t really a big difference to autoattack. Also sword cleave is really awkward and it has no aoe at all which makes it worse in pretty much everything that isn’t 1v1. If you’re not going super yolo 6 radiance I really don’t see a point in running sword.

us sword mains know how to cleave using sword with correct targetting and placement but yeah GS is still better due to the symbol and WW being faster than autos

GS is just too easy to avoid IMO. It’s good for point control but in WvW people will just dodge away from the burst.

thanks for all the comment.. i have been playing with the skill simulator lately.. how about something like that??
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApaodDxcI8DRR8AlTVBA3p8/r/xRyBA-TFSGABA8EAAZ/hhU+QlSQFV/JJlQJcRAIT3QAAEgbezsZbGM0hO0hO0h2N35O35O3ZpAGVYE-w

I usually run with 22604 or 21614. I do switch between Sw/F and Sc/F but a lot of the time i do prefer the scepter for a snare rather than a teleport but that’s purely personal preference, sw/f is prolly the stronger set for most situations.

The Zeal and Radiance minor trait get changed around a lot and if needs be i drop one and stick a point into Honor for Vigorous Precision.

25601 with is also used with sw/f if i don’t want as much condi cleanse but i run that less often

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNAR7dlsApcoVDxbI8DRB+Ql5GGiWFBVFAXHDzwKA-TVSBABbcQACc/BzUCelyvIeAA3o+zCHBg80NAwFAIAACwNvZAwNv5Qv5QvZZAy3CA-w

Amins.3710:

OP –
If you’re going for DMG – Maximize your Dmg Modifiers.
If you’re going for Support – Focus on CC, Condi Removal & Boons.

I’m just getting back into this game after a 3 month hiatus, but I have to agree with the above statement. Meditation builds are selfish builds that allow players to have high damage with great self-healing. I would personally maximize damage by going 20 or 25 into Radiance. Otherwise I think you’ll find yourself in the position of not having enough DPS to beat tankier classes.

I don’t want to go indepth on the calculations but you can up your damage by ~20% from the Radiance tree alone (more if you use a 1-hand sword).

Honor will give you more survivability of course, but I’d recommend managing survivability with armor; food buffs; and just getting better about timing blocks, blinds, and dodges.

My only problem in general with a meditation build is that once you start fighting in larger conflicts your utilities need to change to things other than meditations and your survivability drops dramatically.

I think it’s a decent build and it’s actually quite similar to my personal build except for our choice of gear (you run celestial + berserker where I run a combination of knights, valkyrie and berserker).

I changed your build a tiny bit though. I think with these changes you’ll be a lot more sturdy while your DPS will stay pretty much the same: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApaodDxcI8DNR8QVVAgdSEFV61/QQkDA-T1BBABScRAwS5HAPBAB3fIPdDOqEkU1fCAgAszdmNbzgje0je0je025O35O35OLFQELjA-w