Boon Duration build, long time user
what weapons to use with it? anything you want really. its the good thing about it, most weapons have a strong point, and heres what i use and why.
GS. for the fact that on the greatsword itself the symbol you put on the ground turns into a big heal for your allies and even bigger for you. you can even combo field the GS with certain combo fields to throw out healing bolts.
Mace/Torch.
the ability to toss a heal out on the third strike of the mace is big, but what is even bigger is that when playing in a group (in a dungeon or pve, pvp) when you throw down the symbol of healing. you get a long heal for the symbol, you get a regen boon every tick, which heals you as well, and you get a heal for the symbols heal allies, AND you get a heal for every time you put that symbol regen on your allies. you get FOUR heals off of the mace every tick for the symbol, it is just a great way to keep health around all the time. add in that the torch can remove conditions with its flame, a lot of conditions, and it makes a great combo. don’t forget that you can swap the torch for a focus and get a lot more blocks, and the mace 3 also gives protection as well, which is what you want to keep protection up more… swapping for a shield is possible as well because of the protection boon that lasts even longer with the shield.
hammer. another great combo, and the funny thing about the boon duration build is that you can do permanent retaliation off of the hammer alone, for the entire group. simply doing a 3 combo on the first ability will lay the symbol of protection (that lasts MUCH longer with the boon duration build), then using your number 2 smash will set off a combo field and throw out 13 seconds of retaliation for the group, and you can easily get off another combo field aoe jump before the first boon wears off, this is great for wvw pvp, when your whole group is buffed up with retaliation and the enemies are killing themselves more than you. the bonus to this is that anyone in the circle is getting a heal, and you are getting heal ticks for every second each person stands in the circle, so still a big bonus to healing as well.
and the staff.. finally, i love using it as an all around weapon, the damage isn’t amazing, but it doesn’t have to be. the fact that you can throw down a symbol with it, means you now have 3 different healing abilities on it, the swiftness symbol heals your allies, AND you for quite a bit. then the fun bit, we all like that big might buff from the number 4 abilites, well simply running the staff and a boon duration build means you can keep 12 stacks of might up indefinitely. it’s permanent even without a food buff. and thats not the end of its awesomeness.
the fact that its an aoe buffer, and each “boom” that applies might, gives you a heal, i have seen more than 12k health come back from just using empower alone. that is awesome in itself and more than covers the usefulness of the staff in wvw and dungeon runs.
i had run a dungeon with 2 of my build and 3 engineers using grenade specs with berserkers gear, and we melted everything quicker than a 5 man group of warriors because they were constantly buffed with 24 stacks of might all the time and never dies because of all the healing.
this is probably the single best build i’ve ever played for a guardian and i’ve been using it for so long that i can’t find anything better.
little changes can be made to it to suit your playstyle a little better, like if you play solo, or don’t need as much healing, you swap out the symbols heal allies for the 20% timer reduction on 2h weapons, or if you are doing a lot of traveling you can throw on retreat instead (but you dont need to if you use staff, as the staff alone gives permanent swiftness). and you can play pretty much any weapon set because they all have big strengths with this build.
i’d recommend anyone else to try it, and you probably won’t want to go back to another when you get into a pinch and find out how awesome it is. just seeing the amount of health you get back from regen alone is another to make people want to go to it. i remember when other guardians in my guild were trying to use runes for increased regen duration, and i have to laugh at them and tell them they were wasting their time trying to increase regen duration instead of boon, and when i told them that my regen skills heal amounts alone, they were amazed. hold the line is a (5,180) heal. and hold the line turns into a (2,878) heal. and theres more than just that, but those two abilities alone, keep regen up almost permanently, which is worth it in the long run as well
and there you have it. throw any questions out so i can answer them. but i haven’t seen any other builds focused like this, seen some pretty specialized ones, but i never have to swap between traits and abilities when running between pve, pvp, or WvW. it runs all of them extremely well.
Hi Kracin. I’m a level 29 guardian atm, so all I can do is theorycraft and ask questions. Right now, I was considering the AH build or a balanced 0/15/10/15 build. How is this build better than those, and 1: Can it be used/modified to have Hammer and Mace/Shield? 2: Dose it provided enough DPS to actually take down enemies, as hitting like a wet noodle is not something I’d like to trade in for more survivability.
Zeus Thorsson – Guardian
Silver Moon [MOON]
The Toast
Silver Moon [MOON]
The Toast
its an altruistic build with better parts built into it. it uses altruistic to constantly give heals. so you only have 13k health, but a large amount of toughness and maximum healing. essentially 13k health is a huge health pool when you look at the fact that you have more than a couple abilities that will restore you back to full in a second or two, and the toughness combined with the constant 43% damage reduction means you don’t get hit for much at all anyway. its extremely surviveable.
1. you can easily run a hammer on it, at level 80 i constgantly get 3k crits with the hammer #2, and with the 20% reduction on skills for 2h weapons, it comes every 4 seconds, so you have plenty of time to chain 1 then smash 2 if you want, its easily doable with a hammer. and mace shield is still a decent combo, but shield is more for a ranged setup. sceptre shield is a much better combination to use than trying sword shield or mace shield… the shield has a pushback, you don’t want to push your enemy away from your close range attacks, if you want a defensive weapon, use mace/focus the focus has a blind/heal and a 3 block skill (better than the shield bubble).
the dps is fine with it. people assume that your only dps comes from your attacks, but the fact that your retaliation comes on and stays on through the whole fight through simple use of your own abilities, means that almost 30% of your damage in a pvp fight will come from retaliation alone, so you have a high power, (which you can suppliment with maintenance oils as well) and you also have more dps from retalitation, without sacrificing something like regen or anything else because they are all benefited by the boon duration…. there are times in wvw when going 1v1 with a ranger or another ranged class that thinks they can poke you to death, but they end up doing more damage to themselves than they can do to you before your passive healing and toughness give out.
i wish i had taken some videos of running wvw where i have had 2 rangers running from me simply because they didnt have enough burst to get through the retaliation +healing and toughness. and i didnt even have to pull my sword out
Kracin hi,
apologize for the criticism… (but this is what these forums are for…)
as an altruistic build, this build lacks DPS. (medium attack and low crit)
as a group support build, it lacks either battle presence or pure of voice and you over- heal yourself most of the time between AH And dodges with such high healing power.
it is a “safe” build for beginners.
I sincerely think that if you take your build, same armor, same runes, same game play same everything etc
but change the build to 0/0/20/30/20 and take battle presence. you will be more efficient in group content, you will tick for more than 200HP for each of your party members- its like second regeneration. for what you lose in AH self healing you still have your mighty dodges.
p.s. retaliation is not DPS, its extra something to make you feel good when you get smacked by mobs.
It sounds awesome, will def try it out once I hit 80. And Lalangamena, obviously I don’t have much experience at guard since I’m a lower level, but correct me if Im wrong hitting for 3k per mighty blast sounds like pretty good dps.
Right now in WvW I hit for like 300
Zeus Thorsson – Guardian
Silver Moon [MOON]
The Toast
Silver Moon [MOON]
The Toast
It sounds awesome, will def try it out once I hit 80. And Lalangamena, obviously I don’t have much experience at guard since I’m a lower level, but correct me if Im wrong hitting for 3k per mighty blast sounds like pretty good dps.
Right now in WvW I hit for like 300
a) 3K for mighty blast on crit is not that high, if he could reach these numbers on hammer swing, that’s a different story.
also the build he linked has 9% crit, (29 with save yourselves) so you will crit once or twice in ten hits…
b) my suggestion takes his AH over-healing and makes it party wide healing, his attack/crit stays the same, so if he could crit 3K on the original build it will be the same for my suggestion.
for solo running or www the “standard” AH/meditations 0/15/30/20/5 is a better build, in DPS and versatility and it has almost the same minimal group support.
for group content 0/0/20/30/20 or ‘healway’ 0/0/10/30/30 provides better group support, while conserving the same DPS.
that’s it.
I am really tempted to try this, but that 13k health also really scares me. It does not sound like something that would pass in ARAH. Have you tried it in higher level dungeons/bosses such as Lupicus? Maybe I am just coming in at it at the wrong angle, my role wouldn’t be as the ‘tanky’ type, would it? More of the symbol healing/boon focus, and let someone else worry about taking the hits, or? My main concern is getting downed to fast with a health pool that low.
But I am very tempted to try this
Kracin hi,
apologize for the criticism… (but this is what these forums are for…)
as an altruistic build, this build lacks DPS. (medium attack and low crit)
as a group support build, it lacks either battle presence or pure of voice and you over- heal yourself most of the time between AH And dodges with such high healing power.
it is a “safe” build for beginners.I sincerely think that if you take your build, same armor, same runes, same game play same everything etc
but change the build to 0/0/20/30/20 and take battle presence. you will be more efficient in group content, you will tick for more than 200HP for each of your party members- its like second regeneration. for what you lose in AH self healing you still have your mighty dodges.p.s. retaliation is not DPS, its extra something to make you feel good when you get smacked by mobs.
what you lack in bursty dps you make up for in survivability 2x over. i’ve gone up against higher dps builds and had no problems with them from warriors using nearly full berserker, to other guardians on triple meditations with half berserk gear and half tanky. you are also forgetting how much having retaliation up 100% of the time during fights will increase your dps. when people see the build, they think “well there isn’t much dps”, well you may think that until you see how long every boon you have lasts, which means you have prolonged times for crit chance, prolonged times for might, etc. it’s all alot higher in practice than it is on paper, especially because the build editor is only for pvp and not world/pve.
also, with battle presence, i’ve used it before, but it doesn’t do nearly enough when you are all jumping around and scattered, the range isn’t great and being clustered up is never what you want in the long run, using abilies with wider ranges that heal more in a burst will come in mor ehandy, than trying to chase around teammates to get them that extra 200 hp a second, when i could just slap a couple of buttons and put 3k health on them in 2 ticks worth of battle presence.
i wouldn’t call it a beginner build, because the lower health can be a problem for people who don’t know how to manage what healing abilities to use, a smart person won’t “over heal” at any point, they will save their cooldowns for when they are needed. i’m not going to spam every heal i have as soon as i take damage, i know how much they give and when to use them. 90% of the time i never have to touch my signet heal (which does 10k health alone).
i’m always willing to put my build up against another one in a friendly match if someone wants to see how well it fairs, because i wouldn’t say it’s the best, but it is the best that i have found for me, and i know a lot of people i have spoken to about it seem to love it as well because of how versatile it is, you won’t ever find yourself scrambling to change abilites before getting attacked by a class you didn’t fight 2 seconds ago, and you won’t ever find yourself in a pinch that causes you to panic because you are running around with no health and no way to get it back in a fight.
to me, constant steady dps, win’s when played smartly, over higher more bursty dps that relies on taking opponents down before you run out of cooldowns to blow.
I am really tempted to try this, but that 13k health also really scares me. It does not sound like something that would pass in ARAH. Have you tried it in higher level dungeons/bosses such as Lupicus? Maybe I am just coming in at it at the wrong angle, my role wouldn’t be as the ‘tanky’ type, would it? More of the symbol healing/boon focus, and let someone else worry about taking the hits, or? My main concern is getting downed to fast with a health pool that low.
But I am very tempted to try this
i haven’t had a problem in most dungeons, i’ve done arah more than a few times, you just have to watch out as much as the next guy. you will have protection more often than not, putting you at 43% reduction, well at 13k health. you could realistically say you have 18590 health with no reduction in damage. you can get away with the 13k because of the protections, the bonus to running the low health with high healing and high protection is, you have far more EFFECTIVE health, than you do a larger health pool. its much easier to heal for 3000 and get 3000 of 13000 health back than get only 3000 of 30000 health back, and then have each point of damage take down only 43% of that total amount you healed back, as opposed to taking 100% of all the incoming damage on your large health pool. it becomes much easier to stay up and manage everything by using effective health vs large health pools.
It sounds awesome, will def try it out once I hit 80. And Lalangamena, obviously I don’t have much experience at guard since I’m a lower level, but correct me if Im wrong hitting for 3k per mighty blast sounds like pretty good dps.
Right now in WvW I hit for like 300
a) 3K for mighty blast on crit is not that high, if he could reach these numbers on hammer swing, that’s a different story.
also the build he linked has 9% crit, (29 with save yourselves) so you will crit once or twice in ten hits…
b) my suggestion takes his AH over-healing and makes it party wide healing, his attack/crit stays the same, so if he could crit 3K on the original build it will be the same for my suggestion.for solo running or www the “standard” AH/meditations 0/15/30/20/5 is a better build, in DPS and versatility and it has almost the same minimal group support.
for group content 0/0/20/30/20 or ‘healway’ 0/0/10/30/30 provides better group support, while conserving the same DPS.
that’s it.
Hmm, you can always throw in a Superior Sharpening Stone and bring that dps up.
“Be like water” – Bruce Lee
It sounds awesome, will def try it out once I hit 80. And Lalangamena, obviously I don’t have much experience at guard since I’m a lower level, but correct me if Im wrong hitting for 3k per mighty blast sounds like pretty good dps.
Right now in WvW I hit for like 300
a) 3K for mighty blast on crit is not that high, if he could reach these numbers on hammer swing, that’s a different story.
also the build he linked has 9% crit, (29 with save yourselves) so you will crit once or twice in ten hits…
b) my suggestion takes his AH over-healing and makes it party wide healing, his attack/crit stays the same, so if he could crit 3K on the original build it will be the same for my suggestion.for solo running or www the “standard” AH/meditations 0/15/30/20/5 is a better build, in DPS and versatility and it has almost the same minimal group support.
for group content 0/0/20/30/20 or ‘healway’ 0/0/10/30/30 provides better group support, while conserving the same DPS.
that’s it.Hmm, you can always throw in a Superior Sharpening Stone and bring that dps up.
which i mentioned as well.. 6% bonus to precision from toughness brings it up a bit. or 5% bonus to power from toughness and vit
I’ll be trying this build out as soon as I get the Koda tokens for the Sanc runes.
“Be like water” – Bruce Lee
your build link is not working for me, comes up bad link. build sounds very useful to me, please check on your link.
apparently the forums will crap a link out if its long enough to wrap around. that should work
First what does your ingame stats look like? The reason i ask is something does not add up. You say you reliably hit 3k with mighty blow, while also having tons of healing power. My build with 45% crit and 71% Crit damage has issues clearing 3k on a crit, which sacrifices healing power to achieve this. Thats also while having 2915 attack. I took a look at that build but its all PvP gear which honestly can be very misleading when trying to show a PvE build.
Just a suggestion: Try this build calculator. I don’t know if it’s the best out there, but someone linked to it a few days ago and I’ve found it pretty useful. It’s also not limited to PvP.
Dragonbrand – Reforged Vanguard [ReVa]
Kyxha 80 Ranger, Sokar 80 Necro
Niobe 80 Guardian, Symbaoe 45 Ele
Kyxha 80 Ranger, Sokar 80 Necro
Niobe 80 Guardian, Symbaoe 45 Ele
First what does your ingame stats look like? The reason i ask is something does not add up. You say you reliably hit 3k with mighty blow, while also having tons of healing power. My build with 45% crit and 71% Crit damage has issues clearing 3k on a crit, which sacrifices healing power to achieve this. Thats also while having 2915 attack. I took a look at that build but its all PvP gear which honestly can be very misleading when trying to show a PvE build.
let me ask you this. how often are you at 12+ stacks of might, and how quickly do they fall off.
if you run hammer and staff, and are using any kind of combinations to swap between weapons during cooldowns you will make the best of your build to always have a high amount of dps.
couldn’t find a build calc that has PvE style calculations in it, i put a quick blurb about the gear used and why.
just 12 stacks alone (which is bare minimum to keep up) puts me at 3150 attack roughly. add in VoJ, save yourselves, or any other might adder and you are typically above there most of the time. and as long as you are attentive to your buff durations and timing, you can easily swap back, throw more stacks on, get a couple of other heals/symbols off for group effectiveness, and then go back to dpsing again through 3 sets of smash cooldowns.
i have been experimenting with an exclusive might builder variation of this build that i am liking a lot more now. but involves losing 15% boon duration, but it doesn’t seem to affect the build too much for the increased dps that comes from having up to 3500 attack power and 28% crit (48 when save yourselves in up)
(edited by Kracin.6078)
Kracin, quick questions.
I just crafted a bunch of cleric’s gear for this build b/c I wanted to try it out, so what ascended ammy do u recommend for this.
I’d also like to know a bit more about this might generator build u just referred to.
Are u gaining more precision to proc might hits with crits, or reducing the cd on ur staff to keep the 12 might stacks up all the time)
Kracin, quick questions.
I just crafted a bunch of cleric’s gear for this build b/c I wanted to try it out, so what ascended ammy do u recommend for this.
I’d also like to know a bit more about this might generator build u just referred to.
Are u gaining more precision to proc might hits with crits, or reducing the cd on ur staff to keep the 12 might stacks up all the time)
i have zero ascended gear, but have ran 28 with a good group (2 of us werent geared for any ascended, the other 3 had appropriate gear), the 8 fractal runs i’ve done hav ebeen a half and half of 15’s and 28’s. no doubt having agony resist (as much as i hate artificial gear checks) will help a lot, but playing smart can prevent dying in 90% of cases where agony occurs.
for the standard build, might is built using the standard build layout i mentioned.
for the one i was testing out, keeping most of the healing and boon duration gear on while changing around to put a split that is 0/15/30/20/5 where you end up going with might stackers… VoJ renewing upon death of an enemy, VoJ providing might with proc, and allies gaining 5s of might with every crit.
combine those new traits with the high healing and decent critrate gained through master maintenance oil/omnomberry ghosts, and you end up with a very useable build that provides 25 stacks of might to your party easily during large fights, while consistently healing you an uncountable amount of times (you get a heal for boons you provide, every kill you renew VoJ and provide might for everyone, proccing 300+ healing. and every time you crit you give 1 stack of might to your allies, for 300+ healing on every crit, combined with your 45% boon duration regen, virtue of resolve regen, and omnomberry crits proccing for 385 health 66% of the time you crit).
also, i get an attack power with clerics gear and the boon duration rune setup up to 3560 at peak times, and on average it stays around 3000, which is as good as a decent dps setup with survivability, but this has that plus better imho
the last CoE runs i did we flew through with no problems, and i rarely have a need to use my signet heal which is inteded becaus eit provides another passive condition removal
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQBgiIXg9BCipAjw/6hDpIDB
a quick link to the variation that you can use to go with a far more offensive route, whilst keeping 80% of the original survivability of the build.
keeping the boon duration runes over something like a crit/damage rune set is more beneficial omho, as you are still going to be relying on keeping things like protection, fury, and other beneficial boons on you longer than normal.
not to mention the might itself will stay on 50% longer than a build that uses close to no boon duration, which is a big bonus to it and provides more steady dps than builds that dont have any boon duration.
all of the skills play off of each other which is the main idea of it
p.s. dont forget your maintenance oil and omnom ghosts to get the critrate to the right %. they are a small price to pay for a big bonus, you more than make your money back in the long run, food are a necessary part of some builds unfortunately.
First what does your ingame stats look like? The reason i ask is something does not add up. You say you reliably hit 3k with mighty blow, while also having tons of healing power. My build with 45% crit and 71% Crit damage has issues clearing 3k on a crit, which sacrifices healing power to achieve this. Thats also while having 2915 attack. I took a look at that build but its all PvP gear which honestly can be very misleading when trying to show a PvE build.
let me ask you this. how often are you at 12+ stacks of might, and how quickly do they fall off.
if you run hammer and staff, and are using any kind of combinations to swap between weapons during cooldowns you will make the best of your build to always have a high amount of dps.
couldn’t find a build calc that has PvE style calculations in it, i put a quick blurb about the gear used and why.
just 12 stacks alone (which is bare minimum to keep up) puts me at 3150 attack roughly. add in VoJ, save yourselves, or any other might adder and you are typically above there most of the time. and as long as you are attentive to your buff durations and timing, you can easily swap back, throw more stacks on, get a couple of other heals/symbols off for group effectiveness, and then go back to dpsing again through 3 sets of smash cooldowns.
i have been experimenting with an exclusive might builder variation of this build that i am liking a lot more now. but involves losing 15% boon duration, but it doesn’t seem to affect the build too much for the increased dps that comes from having up to 3500 attack power and 28% crit (48 when save yourselves in up)
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/
That’s what i use for pve setup. Its about 170 points low on the attack part but other than that it is spot on.
Sinos, that link goes to a blank calculator.
So I’ve been trying this build for some time now and I really like the utility of it. The 80% duration is just awesome! I think I’ll be sticking with this build for awhile.
I’ve actually got two sets of gearing. One for solo play that has for dps and the other that focuses on tanking so more healing power.
“Be like water” – Bruce Lee
Sinos, that link goes to a blank calculator.
So I’ve been trying this build for some time now and I really like the utility of it. The 80% duration is just awesome! I think I’ll be sticking with this build for awhile.
I’ve actually got two sets of gearing. One for solo play that has for dps and the other that focuses on tanking so more healing power.
Its ment to be blank. That ones just the start page. you click on the class you want to start with like any other calculator. it lets you then go threw and set your pve gear and traits.
thats the link to your builder sinos, but doesn’t show benefits of skills added, like the signet to reduce damage by 10% more.
but it does show effective health which is good, which shows that you have an effective health of nearly 22k, and damage reduction without signet at 40%
thats the link to your builder sinos, but doesn’t show benefits of skills added, like the signet to reduce damage by 10% more.
but it does show effective health which is good, which shows that you have an effective health of nearly 22k, and damage reduction without signet at 40%
Nope its point is to show unbuffed stats. Which is just a handy tool. Once you have that you can add in the effects of your buffs on top of it. I still use other build tools but its nice to see how my traits and gear look if i make changes without having to blow 30-50 gold at a time.
Sinos, that link goes to a blank calculator.
So I’ve been trying this build for some time now and I really like the utility of it. The 80% duration is just awesome! I think I’ll be sticking with this build for awhile.
I’ve actually got two sets of gearing. One for solo play that has for dps and the other that focuses on tanking so more healing power.
Its ment to be blank. That ones just the start page. you click on the class you want to start with like any other calculator. it lets you then go threw and set your pve gear and traits.
My bad, I thought you were meaning to show your exact build that you were using.
“Be like water” – Bruce Lee
I swapped your last two superior runes out for Earth for longer protection duration.
I dig the stats you have though. That’s just in all exotics and rare back piece (orrian truffle and meat stew + sharpening stones).
Attributes
Power 1779
Precision 1013
Toughness 1937
Vitality 1130
Critical Damage + 30%
Condition Damage + 0
Condition Duration 0%
Healing Power 1230
Boon Duration 50%
Critical Chance 8.61%
Damage 0%
Armor 3148
Health 12945
Endurance Regeneration - 40%
1 dodge every 7.14s
Agony Resistance 0
Virtue Recharge Rate 20%
Farming and Leveling
Bonus Experience 20%
Durations
Protection Duration 20%
Damage & Survivability
Effective Power 1902.01
Effective Health (EHP) 22195
Damage Reduction 41.68%
Reference Armor 1836
Guardian / Warrior / Thief / Necromancer
Black Gate – Immortals of the Mist [IoM]
Black Gate – Immortals of the Mist [IoM]
Seems to me to be a nice healing bunker build that uses retaliation as the main source of damage (honestly 9% crit chance is laughable even with high power)
The down side to this build is if you get CC’ed and spiked. It’s game over.
It does look like a good build though but won’t survive being double teamed.
Winters Ascension The White Guardian
Sophia Theos Beast Master
[Fissure of Woe]
Sophia Theos Beast Master
[Fissure of Woe]