Guild Wars 2

Has anyone tried a Communal Defenses build? I was thinking that it would make for a good WvW support build. Here is the build I was considering:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNApdSlsApZo1CxUI8DNRCRl5MEgY+BZw1BwFMmA-TVCFABHcICq+AIgwZCIIlfpo+jBPQQJIAm/0QfDO7PQKAmEGB-w

I am using Exotic Items and not Ascended because I am not counting on having items with those stats.

The idea is to block as much as possible to give Aegis to allies, and then have Aegis heal allies via Pure of Heart. So Mace 3 and Shelter block to give Aegis to allies, Aegis from Virtue of Courage passive, Retreat and Valorous Defense give Aegis and all of this blocking gives my Guardian Might stacks.

What do people think of this idea?

I think it would be interesting. Assuming WvW. Need to find a group willing to have you sacrifice some group stability and condition cleanse to pick it up.

Also you can run Rune of Resistance to gain another aegis from using a signet (30s cooldown) for an additional block if you want.

I think another interesting twist that could provide huge burst would be the utilization of shattered aegis.

5 targets all being hit by 200-300 per aegis (6-8 potential blocks by guardian, not counting shelter).

Also communal defense does not have a target limit, so if you have 5 allies you just did
2,400 dmg to one person and 12,000 dmg collectively to 5 targets.

Lets say you had 10 people in your zerg.

24,000 dmg to one target and 120,000 dmg collectively to 5 targets.

30 man zerg

72,000 to one target and 360,000 to 5.

That’s just one guardian, if more than one guard was running that you would be doing stupid zerg damage just for blocking things (if your zerg ball runs tight against another zerg ball).

Tie that in with Pure of Heart for damage and heals

I tried to talk my group into running this when I used to wvw and they were interested but never attempted it.

What I wonder is, if two guards run communal defense, can you chain aegis blocks off each other? infinite damage!!!! I assume this won’t work cause it sounds broken and could crash the game. Probably a 1s internal cooldown between aegis procs from the trait.

guys 20 sec cd on the trait ….

20 seconds!?! Why? That is ridiculously long! I still want to try the build, it could be fun. Why is the cooldown so long on a Grandmaster trait that blocks 1 hit. So essentially ANet spent the time coding a trait that will never see use. It should have a cooldown no more then 8 seconds. I can understand 1 second would be way too much healing. Pure of Heart heals almost 1k HP. If it was 1 second that would be a bit much, but 8 seconds sounds reasonable. ANet be REASONABLE!

Well I will try the build and see if it has uses. It probably sucks with a 20 second cooldown but maybe it wont

gah, 20 seconds is a LONG time, why do they give guardians such long cooldowns on our stuff

I feel 5 maybe even 15 is a good target, but 20? I mean at that rate you can’t even do a group aegis per cooldown of protector’s strike, which this trait would perfectly synchronize with. More broken synergy….

Same with rune of resistance, 30 seconds between signet usage for aegis? If you trait for signets you drop them all under 30 seconds, so why even trait for signets at that rate. Also no point in bringing more than 1 signet at 30 second cooldown. (or any signets at all honestly)

and for the sake of a source to show 20 seconds:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Communal_Defenses

it’s true

Is there a Profession review coming up soon? Maybe we should all petition for ANet to change it so that it will be used. It is competing with AH so it needs to be a viable option. sigh I think 5 seconds would be perfect. ANet read my post and then make the changes!

/signed for 5 second cool down! Make new viable builds possible.

Tried it, and it’s sadly disappointing because aegis only blocks one shot every 20 seconds if you’re lucky. You sacrifice way too much, because the only way to make it work is for shattered aegis, but that means you will get hit by tons of retaliation damage.

Secondly, you must have a gap closer or you will suffer from premature… umm explosions.

Finally, while in theory mace/focus would give you the most blocks, with the new retreat, it is somewhat redundant. I would rather go sword/focus for the mobility. Mace block is also unreliable at setting it up.

Also, you don’t have AH sustain, and if you try going for Shattered aegis, you will suffer from bad sustain, condi removal, support, or all of the above.

This is the best build I ever came up with it, and it really only works in smallish groups of 5-10, used it in zergs for some laughs (take master of consecrations in that case), but unreliable at best.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQJAWRlsApUoNDxVI8DRx8Ql1XUVAg5SUEX3CDxjC-TVSBwAB3fAn6PmVCeV5HKNM41Fs4CAo5JAA4QAQGAmtA-w

Support ver where you can stick with mace, though this won’t be frontline: (Though AH would be better)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNApdWlsApWolCxVI8DRRCRljNY/BZQKcdA0AjJA-TlzDABM8AAiRlCXUX5KlGSpEDVlgAYCSE9AbpMwDNMKt/QAHBAIOFAnoJgMAMbB-w

You might find a place against world bosses… like teq. That’s about it though.

The Cd is garbage. You might have better luck with shield of the avenger. Triggering it is supposed to guve aegis.

messiah.1908:

guys 20 sec cd on the trait ….

Plus a small radius. It could be a good trait, if they fixed these two things.

I thought the radius was 360

Tobeyeus.9376:

I thought the radius was 360

It is, which is extremely small. I’d like them to increase it to 600 (similar to shouts). However, they can limit it to five allies, currently it’s unlimited. 600 plus unlimited would be too much.

Going down that trait line really limits your other choices in terms of utility, so getting the most out of it really requires both shattered aegis and pure of heart.

We used to run the shattered aegis build as a hard counter to the heavy hammer train. it works well in that situation. We used it extensively in season 2, but then the meta changed.

As the T1 wvw meta has moved on to a more balanced comp and more spread out tactics, it’s become less useful due to the low range on communal defenses and shattered aegis. Also dps focus has shifted to necro wells, which makes it less effective as well due to the unblockable nature.

It still has some uses in very specific situations. like hills lords room choke where everyone is forced into a very small area and 5 shattered aegis guards in your zerg will down most their zerg instantly.

Tobeyeus.9376:

So essentially ANet spent the time coding a trait that will never see use.

Well, at least it’s more useful than Purity of Body. Purity of Body is at most an adept trait in a grandmaster slot, and in addition to that it takes up a valuable virtues slot.

360 radius is the same as cannons. That’s plenty large in a zerg if you’re stacked tight.
You can have a few of these kinds of guardians in a zerg. they’ll pretty quickly get off synch, and then you’ll start to see some effects. I’d agree that it could be better with a 15s cd, but 20s allows you to proc it consistently with just Courage passive and untraited retreat.

The easiest use for this is in Teq with aegis traits. You’ll easily be very near tons of people, and that healing and damage will rack up. Imo, one CD guard per 10 people is a good number. As for use in wvw, there’s many ways to run comps, not just Meta. maybe have your guild test it out when you rally for fun, just like some guilds do with Kill Shot warriors and other fun things.

Also, Purity of Body isn’t terrible, and works well with Battle Presence.