Celestial or Soldier for WvW zergs ?
The tankiest stat for WvW is Soldiers. Having all that Vitality and Toughness is huge.
I use knight’s (wonder if I should) under the theory that extra precision allows me to crit which allows me to heal (as I take empowering might and altruistic healing).
Wonder if that is worth it.
For wvw zerg farming, use whatever that keeps you alive. Use staff and mace/focus. Staff will tag people. Mace/Focus will get you out of trouble. The key here is to keep your folks around you doing damage and downing people. And you can certainly help them do so. I personally like to help by playing a high crit dmg guardian, with perma group burn, and I use celestial. For that I use GS instead of staff. However, if farming is what you want, use the above and consider 3 in radiance so you can keep spamming virtue of justice (yes, spam as soon as F1 is open) and 4 in virtues, with absolute resolution, so you can clear party conditions. Also 3 in virtues will basically give you perma retal, considering renewed justice. Make sure to use stand your ground for all zerg fights. If you go celestial, consider 4 in honor for empowering might, as you will crit more often. Grab 2 in valor for defender’s flame, as you will block a lot. Last but not least, consider using the meditation heal. Why? Well, once you switch to you staff inside a zerg, you are exposed as you have no blocks. You will need stability and a continuous heal. Pop litany of wrath when switching to staff and have stability available. Once you tag, switch back to mace/focus, with which you basically need no extra heal.
Now, if you were to roam, the above needs to be modified. I use a similar build with GS mace/shield wwhich is great for 1v1, small fights and a bit of support. I get with that one inside of zergs too, but it takes a bit of practice and quick use of meditations.
for zerg fights your primary goal is to stay alive , to aplly as more and often boons you can to your allies and ofc to keep them alive with some spike heals .
vitality , toughness , healing power and boon duration are the most important in supporter role and power ,precision , toughness , ferocity in offensive role .
celestials with + % stats runes are a good choice for a guardian that do not want spend hours in theoretical crafting to find the best combination for his play style but you are on the middle of anything and with this armor you must learn very good the guardian to be good in 1 vs 1 because you must create very unique builds . in zergs with celestial you can switch ( by switching traits , food and weapon types ) in any role without cost and with good results.
(edited by Reborn.2934)
If you’re running with a somewhat competent WvW group, then I would recommend some Celestial with maybe a little Soldier. Maybe some Knight depending on the spec. The rest use Berserker or Zealot.
Celestial gives you more total stats, but it cuts into your maximum power. Power will yield the most damage gains per stat point until it’s really high, so you don’t want to go overboard with Celestial. Soldier increases your defenses quickly, but your damage suffers a bit.
I would recommend about 2900 armor (make sure to count Strength in Numbers if you have that trait, since it’s only active during combat) and 17,000HP. If you’re not very good with avoiding damage, you can go a bit higher on HP.
I would say around 500 healing power if you run with a group because Selfless Daring (heal on dodge) scales very well. Rest goes into power and precision with a little ferocity.
Kirrena Rosenkreutz
Celestial seems more worthwhile to me than Soldier is. Your power is sufficiently high in a WvW zerg if you have 20+ might stacks(and leeching stacks, and food, maybe stacking sigil or something else), which I suppose you should in a zerg. With that you’ll hit almost 3000 power even in Celestial Gear. Around that amount Power from Soldier’s start giving out almost as much as precision and ferocity from Celestial do… Except that Celestial has up to 40% more overall stat points. Making it around 20% better, because you are hitting the DPS equality (1 point of power=1 precision=1 ferocity), and Guardians need all other defensive stats INCLUDING healing power, only Condition Damage goes to waste perhaps and that’s why it’s 20% better and not 40%.
Yes, it is worth it. Go for it. I have a Celestial Guardian and he feels just right on the front lines of a huge zerg. I still prefer roaming alone rather than being in a big group(Because I feel I contribute much more this way), but I’m doing that on a thief anyway for obvious reasons.
Don’t be afraid to mix it up. Aim for overall stats instead of armor stat combos.