Guild Wars 2

Bloodgruve.6038:

/sigh

5300 dmg on a 2600 armor target. If I can proc that quickly even every 20 seconds that’s an increase of 265 DPS. If you watch the target you’ll know when to trigger it to damage as the target swings. In this specific scenario Mace only needs an increase of just over 100 DPS to pull ahead of GSword, PS gives it that. I honestly don’t care for spread sheet calculations, I haven’t found one that I feel is accurate enough to use. If people say GSword is the best then why the hell can I kill stuff as fast or faster with other weapons?

In reality its a function of player skill and attention in combat. Most weapons are so dam close you can run whatever weapon loadout you want for DPS and be competitive with the right builds.

I call shenanigans.

You are free to post a screenshot of when you did 5.3k damage with PS. (If you somehow had 25 might stacks and it crit maybe, but not under any normal circumstances)

guanlongwucaii.3162:

Adelz.8429:

I run AH in all the dungeons, It doesn’t effect your DPS in any negative way.

you do get 30% crit damage from taking 30 in valor, but there are some things that your build is missing.

1 – lack of condition cleansing. this isn’t a problem if you’re in a static group as a 2nd guardian with the first one bringing condition cleanses, but otherwise you’re missing out on a lot of utility

2 – lack of consecration traiting. this is pretty unacceptable. consecrations are amazing in almost every dungeon. you can still use your wall of reflection but it’s gonna be less effective and this will hurt your team.

also, radiant fire is terrible compared to powerful blades; don’t take it. even if you plan on taking the trait, it’s going to be pointless since you lack the 10 in zeal for fiery wrath.

tl;dr – while taking AH may give a seemingly significant statistical boost, the massive loss in utility and the loss of 30 trait points cripples your effectiveness.

Taking valor doesn’t exclude you from taking condition cleansing abilities and traits.

A full meditation build that builds valor also has cleanse/convert effects for example.

Taking AH also doesn’t exclude one from taking pure of voice.

I find it ironic that the whole argument against taking AH is dps yet all of a sudden survivability matters when it somehow suits your argument.

akamon.2769:

@Death – okay, i’ve been trying to be polite/civil to you. but all you’ve been doing is keep implying that i’m not paying attention while you’re the one being fixated on “cleansing” being brought up. and nit pick what you want to nit pick on within my and others’ posts. is it not part of gameplay? is a forum discussion not allowed to branch off into other aspects of the game?

Death, i know the point you are making. and this whole time, all i’ve been trying to convey was that by using a build such as, 10/30/0/30/0, the DPS gain is more than marginal as you make it out to be, and the loss of survivability is not as big as you make it out to be (which happened to be tied to cleansing, thus why it was brought up, can you at least see where i’m coming from with this?).

bottom line is – there is no one superior build over any given other build. people can play whatever they want to. if you believe AH is superior to all, that’s fine. again, i love AH. though, i just don’t stand for people telling others off for using other builds.

Wrong. I never stated AH is superior to all. I simply showed that AH or MF variants are overall better than your personal build.

It’s also ironic that you dismiss AH as unneeded survivability that wastes potential dps but try to justify 30 points in Honor just for condition cleanse. (which is also survivability) That’s a hilarious double standard.

The fact is if condition cleanse was a real concern you can easily go 10/30/30/0/0 meditation build(monk’s focus), have condition cleanse via meditations, more crit dmg %(dps), far more toughness, and far more survivability(healing from meditations).

In fact a 10/30/30/0/0 MF build would be better than your build in every way that matters. More dps(crit damage %), far more toughness(valor traits), condition cleanse(meditations), healing(meditations) and as of 10/15 patch you’ll also get fury via meditations which would boost dps further.

Your fundamental problem is that your aversion to AH or MF and your lack of imagination has blinded you from builds that are in fact empirically better.

DeathPanel.8362:

Bloodgruve.6038:

/sigh

5300 dmg on a 2600 armor target. If I can proc that quickly even every 20 seconds that’s an increase of 265 DPS. If you watch the target you’ll know when to trigger it to damage as the target swings. In this specific scenario Mace only needs an increase of just over 100 DPS to pull ahead of GSword, PS gives it that. I honestly don’t care for spread sheet calculations, I haven’t found one that I feel is accurate enough to use. If people say GSword is the best then why the hell can I kill stuff as fast or faster with other weapons?

In reality its a function of player skill and attention in combat. Most weapons are so dam close you can run whatever weapon loadout you want for DPS and be competitive with the right builds.

I call shenanigans.

You are free to post a screenshot of when you did 5.3k damage with PS. (If you somehow had 25 might stacks and it crit maybe, but not under any normal circumstances)

Go to Orr, or the Mists, or any lvl 80 zone, run up to a mob with protectors strike qued up n let them hit you.

5.3k crit with no Might in the mists on Chieftain. I run high crit so it very rarely doesn’t crit. I’ve seen 8K+ PS aoe crits, its a dps ability if used as one.

How can you argue this stuff if you don’t know what it does?

Bloodgruve.6038:

DeathPanel.8362:

Bloodgruve.6038:

/sigh

5300 dmg on a 2600 armor target. If I can proc that quickly even every 20 seconds that’s an increase of 265 DPS. If you watch the target you’ll know when to trigger it to damage as the target swings. In this specific scenario Mace only needs an increase of just over 100 DPS to pull ahead of GSword, PS gives it that. I honestly don’t care for spread sheet calculations, I haven’t found one that I feel is accurate enough to use. If people say GSword is the best then why the hell can I kill stuff as fast or faster with other weapons?

In reality its a function of player skill and attention in combat. Most weapons are so dam close you can run whatever weapon loadout you want for DPS and be competitive with the right builds.

I call shenanigans.

You are free to post a screenshot of when you did 5.3k damage with PS. (If you somehow had 25 might stacks and it crit maybe, but not under any normal circumstances)

Go to Orr, or the Mists, or any lvl 80 zone, run up to a mob with protectors strike qued up n let them hit you.

5.3k crit with no Might in the mists on Chieftain. I run high crit so it very rarely doesn’t crit. I’ve seen 8K+ PS aoe crits, its a dps ability if used as one.

How can you argue this stuff if you don’t know what it does?

How about you take a screenshot for everyone to see since you are the one making this assertion?

Go to Orr, and do exactly what you described. Afterall if it was so easy it would be a trivial task for you right?

Nah, I’m done here. Anyone that views this thread can come to their own conclusion. If you don’t want to be self informed then I’m not gonna give you anymore. Anyone who has tried it knows what it can do so I don’t feel the need to justify myself. If you want to sit there and assume things then be my guest. It shows what kind of a player you are.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Nah, I’m done here. Anyone that views this thread can come to their own conclusion. If you don’t want to be self informed then I’m not gonna give you anymore. Anyone who has tried it knows what it can do so I don’t feel the need to justify myself. If you want to sit there and assume things then be my guest. It shows what kind of a player you are.

I do want to be informed, that’s why I’m asking you to show what you’ve asserted because from my experience with my 2 80 guards I’ve never seen PS proc for 5.3k without any might as you’ve claimed.

This is a simple task for you to demonstrate and takes like 2 minutes if you were right.

You’re just running away instead of having to admit your statements were fabricated, overinflated, and wrong.

PS crits for 5k to 5.5k

Crap, that one stack of might just invalidated my claim I bet.

@bloodgruve
Sometimes you say 10/30/0/30/0 built and sometimes you say 10/30/30/0/0 built and it can be confusing. I just want to clarify which built do you use? I think it’s 10/30/30/0/0 but just want to be sure.

@deathpanel
What Guanlong is referring to is group condition cleansing which the 10/30/30/0/0 lacks apart from purging flames and if you are taking pure of voice then your built will be like 0/0/30/30/10? This 0/0/30/30/10 built will deal fundamentally lower damage than a 10/30/0/5/25 where both have group condition removal and consecrations cd

I switch it up all the time honestly. 10/30/30/0/0 is very fun and challenging and I run it mostly with 1h weapons. 10/30/0/30/0 has more versatility, survivability and utility, run it when I wanna switch between all weapons. 25/25/0/20/0 for Hammer. 20/25/0/25/0 for GSword. 10/30/0/20/10 for reflects. At this point I rarely stay in one build for long as all of them are fun.

The best build in the game is the one you have the most fun with and allows your party to complete the run. AH is just fine too, I run with another guard a lot who uses it, and I enjoy running with him. I’m a DPS kitten so those are my preferred builds.

Bloodgruve.6038:

I switch it up all the time honestly. 10/30/30/0/0 is very fun and challenging and I run it mostly with 1h weapons. 10/30/0/30/0 has more versatility, survivability and utility, run it when I wanna switch between all weapons. 25/25/0/20/0 for Hammer. 20/25/0/25/0 for GSword. 10/30/0/20/10 for reflects. At this point I rarely stay in one build for long as all of them are fun.

The best build in the game is the one you have the most fun with and allows your party to complete the run. AH is just fine too, I run with another guard a lot who uses it, and I enjoy running with him. I’m a DPS kitten so those are my preferred builds.

Thanks for the clarification. I was wandering if there was a typo error in your posts but this post has cleared all doubts. I normally only use one built as i am just lazy to keep switching around.

Dear DeathPanel,

first of all, i’m not trying to see whose build is better. not eveythign revolves around yuo and how you think you’re superior than everyone else in here – your tone really reeks of that, regardless of if that’s what you’re thinking or not.

i was discussing based on the fact these are in group situations. and i believe that 30 in Honor gives me more group utility than full valor does, apart from strength in numbers which i will always take now. if i am running solo, i most definitely run MF and 10/30/30/0/0 and i have run that build for a long time now. and YES. i am extremely excited for the upcoming patch so we get a reliable access of fury. but now tell me, do you run MF when you’re in a dungeon? so you can cleanse for yourself and not for the whole group when you can choose to? probably not. i don’t doubt your understanding of the game at all, Death. [added: again, cause you seem to keep missing it, yes valor gives crit damage, and toughness – but what if the toughness isn’t needed? i’m abig fan of both lines, but depending on the situation, i will take the traits that i see to help us most. and often in a dungeon, i don’t feel i need AH or going full 30 in valor. you can talk about the potential DPS loss from not taking the 30% crit damage from valor, but there are, believe it or not, options in Honor, depending on your build and group composition that can add DPS too.]

and when did i ever say i hate AH or won’t play it? i’ve repeated on multiple occasions, i love AH and when needed or i feel the best, i will most definitely take it. again, your tunnel vision and selective reading at its best. i never said i don’t run MF or AH. in fact, i frigging love MF. i don’t claim to have any personal builds either. i switch builds for different content. to keep things interesting. to challenge and have fun. i don’t play so i can be king of the spread sheets. i was just using 10/30/0/30/0 as an example. again, it’s not a competition to see who’s better. i don’t see how hard it is to udnersatnd that there is no one build that trumps all in any and every given situation – player preference, skill, gameplay all taken into account.

i just ask that you stop putting people down personally. try to recognize that behind every user name here, there is an actual human being.

Bloodgruve.6038:

PS crits for 5k to 5.5k

Crap, that one stack of might just invalidated my claim I bet.

pretty nice. depending on squishies/GC’s, i’ve seen up to 7 – 8k in WvW as well. it’s glorious.

DeathPanel.8362:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

Adelz.8429:

I run AH in all the dungeons, It doesn’t effect your DPS in any negative way.

you do get 30% crit damage from taking 30 in valor, but there are some things that your build is missing.

1 – lack of condition cleansing. this isn’t a problem if you’re in a static group as a 2nd guardian with the first one bringing condition cleanses, but otherwise you’re missing out on a lot of utility

2 – lack of consecration traiting. this is pretty unacceptable. consecrations are amazing in almost every dungeon. you can still use your wall of reflection but it’s gonna be less effective and this will hurt your team.

also, radiant fire is terrible compared to powerful blades; don’t take it. even if you plan on taking the trait, it’s going to be pointless since you lack the 10 in zeal for fiery wrath.

tl;dr – while taking AH may give a seemingly significant statistical boost, the massive loss in utility and the loss of 30 trait points cripples your effectiveness.

Taking valor doesn’t exclude you from taking condition cleansing abilities and traits.

A full meditation build that builds valor also has cleanse/convert effects for example.

Taking AH also doesn’t exclude one from taking pure of voice.

I find it ironic that the whole argument against taking AH is dps yet all of a sudden survivability matters when it somehow suits your argument.

firstly, meditations don’t remove party conditions. therefore meditations are useless for party support (and they are pretty useless in PVE anyway). perhaps I should have made it clearer that I’m talking from a dungeon-running viewpoint but since the post I replied to was about dungeons, I would think this to be a given.

secondly, if you take AH and pure of voice, that is not a dps build.

Sutcliffe.5491:

@bloodgruve
Sometimes you say 10/30/0/30/0 built and sometimes you say 10/30/30/0/0 built and it can be confusing. I just want to clarify which built do you use? I think it’s 10/30/30/0/0 but just want to be sure.

@deathpanel
What Guanlong is referring to is group condition cleansing which the 10/30/30/0/0 lacks apart from purging flames and if you are taking pure of voice then your built will be like 0/0/30/30/10? This 0/0/30/30/10 built will deal fundamentally lower damage than a 10/30/0/5/25 where both have group condition removal and consecrations cd

Let me reiterate my point.

If you trait away from AH or MF in order to squeeze out dps you are sacrificing too much survivability for little to no gain in the dps department.

The example I pointed out was regarding his 10/30/30/0/0 data without AH or MF and I had pointed out you can also take AH OR MF with that setup, maintain 100% of the dps gains, AND have more survivability.

In fact with 10/30/30/0/0 MF you can also gain cleanses via meditations, making the gains ever better. So empirically 10/30/30/0/0 with AH or MF is simply better than the same without.

Also, regarding his 10/30/0/30/0 build. That actually has LESS dps and even less survivability than 10/30/30/0/0 because you lose up to 450 toughness, and 30% crit damage from not taking valor. (Sure you gain vit and healing but vit is useless when you have low armor)

So the bottom line is, the trade offs are simply not worth it as I’ve shown.

Personally, I have 2 80 guards one with AH and one with MF.

0/0/30/30/10 ah
10/0/30/25/5 med

I don’t think consecrations are that useful currently outside of specific situations but maybe the buffs to consecrations in new patch will make them more viable as main slot utilities.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

firstly, meditations don’t remove party conditions. therefore meditations are useless for party support (and they are pretty useless in PVE anyway). perhaps I should have made it clearer that I’m talking from a dungeon-running viewpoint but since the post I replied to was about dungeons, I would think this to be a given.

secondly, if you take AH and pure of voice, that is not a dps build.

Firstly, support was not a relevant topic for discussion here. Personally I agree support is useful but you’re going to have to talk to the other guy who thinks that it’s not and that any “potential” dps lost is a bad thing.

You’re arguing over these topics with me when I’ve been arguing the very same things at the other guy from your very perspective.

Secondly, POV is not required in AH builds. It’s a matter of what variant you are building.

What I’ve demonstrated is that:
10/30/30/0/0 build without AH is worse than 10/30/30/0/0 with AH if all other things are equal.

akamon.2769:

Dear DeathPanel,

first of all, i’m not trying to see whose build is better. not eveythign revolves around yuo and how you think you’re superior than everyone else in here – your tone really reeks of that, regardless of if that’s what you’re thinking or not.

That’s your opinion. I’ve never stated that I am better than anyone.

I’ve only argued the advantages of certain builds over others. Just because my tone rubs you the wrong way doesn’t suddenly mean I have some sort of God complex. I let facts speak for themselves.

You’re free to extract yourself from this thread if you don’t like the discussion.

DeathPanel.8362:

Also, regarding his 10/30/0/30/0 build. That actually has LESS dps and even less survivability than 10/30/30/0/0 because you lose up to 450 toughness, and 30% crit damage from not taking valor. (Sure you gain vit and healing but vit is useless when you have low armor)

So the bottom line is, the trade offs are simply not worth it as I’ve shown.

Survivability is relative to the player.

You haven’t shown or proven anything other than your love for AH n MF.

You haven’t quantified ‘survivability’. In a 10/30/30/0/0 build with my current gear my effective health is 16654 with a HP pool of 12k. In a 10/30/0/30/0 build my effective health is 18364 with a 15K HP pool. It seems that Vitality outweighs Toughness at this level and if you use Effective Health as your empirical evidence Vitality wins out.

10/30/0/30/0 is a good build with versatility, survivability and utility. Prolly somewhere around 10% lower damage then top end dps builds. Its a nice smooth ride.

Bloodgruve.6038:

DeathPanel.8362:

Also, regarding his 10/30/0/30/0 build. That actually has LESS dps and even less survivability than 10/30/30/0/0 because you lose up to 450 toughness, and 30% crit damage from not taking valor. (Sure you gain vit and healing but vit is useless when you have low armor)

So the bottom line is, the trade offs are simply not worth it as I’ve shown.

Survivability is relative to the player.

You haven’t shown or proven anything other than your love for AH n MF.

Then you obviously have reading comprehension problems.

I literally outlined exactly what’s wrong with your statements in that post you responded to on the inner quote yet you are pretending I have not shown anything?

Do you deal with all problems by plugging your ears, closing your eyes and pretend that it doesn’t exist?

Do you object to the fact that 10/30/30/0/0 meditation build empirically have more dps than 10/30/0/30/0 (your build without AH or MF) given the same gear and weapon?

Wasn’t you the one who argued against me when I talked about the bad idea of trading off survivability and talked about losing “potential dps”? Yet you are now trying to push slightly higher “effective health”?

Edit: One last thing, your build with 10/30/0/30/0 has effective health of 15993, not 18364 unless your gear includes vit gear. And since we are talking about full zerk builds you are either wrong or presenting false data.

While 10/30/30/0/0 has only 15166 effective health, the difference is insignificant while my build has meditation heals cleanses and yours don’t. In 10/15 patch meditations will also gain fury, further boosting the dps potential.

Why am I trying to advocate for dps here? It’s because your mental gymnastics to avoid the truth has completely turned this argument around on its head?

You’re the one that’s supposed to be arguing for highest potential dps yet you are now arguing for survivability.

That folks, is irony.

DeathPanel.8362:

That’s your opinion. I’ve never stated that I am better than anyone.

I’ve only argued the advantages of certain builds over others. Just because my tone rubs you the wrong way doesn’t suddenly mean I have some sort of God complex. I let facts speak for themselves.

You’re free to extract yourself from this thread if you don’t like the discussion.

again, you’ve only managed to reply to this. and not any of the other valid points i’ve made, that i believe are contributing to the discussion. don’t get me wrong, i see that you have experience, and in the beginning, we were sharing opinions and “facts” about our experiences with the Guardian and builds. then you started to tell people off. i will extract myself from the thread after this, not because i’m not enjoying the discussion, only because of the way you present yourself to others here.

if you do take a look at how you treat others, you’ll see it’s more than just “my opinion”. for example, you telling people’s opinions are wrong. or that your builds are better than others. though you may not have EXPLICITLY stated it, you are sitting on a high horse. it doesn’t hurt to give a little respect to others, even when you don’t get it first. what do you have to lose? i’ll admit, your tone is more than rubbing me the wrong way, and i’ve merely expressed my opinion. that i own up to. yes, it is my opinion, which does not make it any less valid than yours.

with that though, i apologize, OP, for this. i hope that you’ve found good use of most, if not all, of the information in here.

:/// whelp. some people.

akamon.2769:

DeathPanel.8362:

That’s your opinion. I’ve never stated that I am better than anyone.

I’ve only argued the advantages of certain builds over others. Just because my tone rubs you the wrong way doesn’t suddenly mean I have some sort of God complex. I let facts speak for themselves.

You’re free to extract yourself from this thread if you don’t like the discussion.

again, you’ve only managed to reply to this. and not any of the other valid points i’ve made.

When you attack me based on my “tone” rather than the merits of my arguments and that in itself is an admission that you don’t have a valid point.

You admit I have facts and experience yet your gripe is based on me “telling people off”.

Sorry but in case you didn’t know facts are not decided by popularity contest. I don’t feel inclined to be overly cordial to people who knowingly propagate bad ideas.

The bottom line is cookie cutter builds exist for the simple fact that they work and work great and have been put to the test repeatedly and come out on top. If this other guy’s build was anywhere near the effectiveness of a MF or AH build or even healway/boonway his build would be the new cookie cutter and I’d be one of the first in line to respec to it. Note that it’s not.

DeathPanel.8362:

Sorry but in case you didn’t know facts are not decided by popularity contest. I don’t feel inclined to be overly cordial to people who knowingly propagate bad ideas.

The bottom line is cookie cutter builds exist for the simple fact that they work and work great and have been put to the test repeatedly and come out on top. If this other guy’s build was anywhere near the effectiveness of a MF or AH build or even healway/boonway his build would be the new cookie cutter and I’d be one of the first in line to respec to it. Note that it’s not.

Lol @ you contradicting yourself. After claiming that facts are not decided by popularity contest, u go on to say that your ah/mf built are the top because they are cookie cutter. Cookie cutter builds are the most popular builds and just because most people use it, it doesn’t mean it’s the best. Most of the times, it is just because it is the easy to use and give good results.

To me, survivabilty is not just a matter of EHP, it also comes from dodges/aegis/block/ consecrations/blinds (negation of damage), boons(protection/vigor etc)If u can negate most damage and your #6 heal is enough to keep yourself alive. Why will you need AH/MF at all? You keep claiming that ah/mf is so crucial for survivability but I disagree wholeheartedly (at least in pve content).

If u look at guild speed runs videos in dungeon (eg DnT/rT) etc, the guardians in those videos dun even use AH/MF.

Mr. panel,

Do you have a comprehension problem?

As I stated, 10/30/0/30/0 will prolly have lower dps then the highest dps builds. You also stated it has less ‘survivability’ which I disagree with. You’ve stated that Vitality is worthless without Toughness in previous posts, which is wrong also. Please fully read my posts before you make a fool of yourself.

I am not trying to push anything. I was just proving you wrong about Toughness vs Vitality.

I’m looking forward to the 10/15 patch with fury… Please don’t bring future patches into this. We’re talking about the current game.

What truth am I trying to avoid? That AH/MF is great but not necessarily needed to play the game?

I’m not arguing for survivability or DPS as best in show. I’m showing you that 300 toughness is not equal to 300 vitality at this level. I don’t want people to think that AH/MF is the only good build out there.

I personally run Soldiers Back and Amulet. That’s why you see my effective health at what I stated. Hence the statement ‘with my current gear’ applies.

Seriously. Please figure out what you’re arguing so we can have a civil conversation.

I have always been arguing that a 10/25/x/x/x build will do more DPS then a x/x/30/30/x build. Nothing more.

I’m sorry if you have to do mental gymnastics.. Its not that hard to see what I’m arguing..

I’m not asserting that my view of the class is right or absolute. But you should step back for a second and take a look at yours.

All of my comments are geared towards PvE content. Not WvW or PvP, in which case AH/MF potentially holds a lot more value.

Blood~

Bloodgruve.6038:

Mr. panel,

Do you have a comprehension problem?

As I stated, 10/30/0/30/0 will prolly have lower dps then the highest dps builds. You also stated it has less ‘survivability’ which I disagree with. You’ve stated that Vitality is worthless without Toughness in previous posts, which is wrong also. Please fully read my posts before you make a fool of yourself.

Blood~

Well that goes against everything you’ve argued so far so maybe the problem is yours.

As I recall it was you who argued for “potential dps” in favor of survivability in the first place and it was I who argued for a more balanced approach with more survivability. (Btw, AH or MF variants has more survivability than your build, period. Your disagreement is irrelevant. The raw extra healing from AH or MF offers far more survivability.)

All I see here is a dishonest attempt to change your stance without admitting you were wrong to start with. It’s mental gymnastics of Olympic levels.