Guild Wars 2

I’m aware that this is a bit tl;dr, so skip it or bare with it if you don’t mind helping me.

After months of using a pretty run-of-the-mill AH Shout build using Hammers and Scepter/Torch, lately I’ve been experimenting with Consecration skills, notably Wall of Reflection, Hallowed Ground and Purging Flames. The Fire fields are great for Might stacking and the skills themselves are very versatile for both PvE or PvP (though mostly going to be using this in PvE) but I still feel unwilling to let go of Shouts simply because I’m used to them and because Stand Your Ground is probably the best stun breaker in the game.

Arguments for and against the skills:
• SYG versus Hallowed Ground: SYG is a stun breaker that makes you immune to stuns and non-condition control for five seconds on a 24 second cooldown and also applies stability to anybody within 600 range (though this seems to be longer while in groups, haven’t tested that though). It’s pretty freaking good. AH Healing when entire group is affected: 720. Hallowed Ground is not a stun breaker but the Stability last for twice as long and applies the Stability constantly for better synergy with AH. It does not grant Retaliation but in PvE Retaliation is negligible. It does however require a group that is standing together to be fully effective and has a much longer cooldown. AH Healing when entire group is affected: theorized ~5000 (not entirely tested but about 1,000 per person).
•Hold the Line/Retreat versus Wall of Reflection: Hold the Line and Retreat are Shouts I switch out based on what sort of fight I’m going into. Both provide Boons that I like to stave off spike damage (33% less damage from Protection or one attack blocked with Aegis makes a huge difference) while the other Boon is just for more survival and better AH healing. AH Healing when entire group is affected: 720. Wall of Reflection can be used in a variety of situation to cut off almost all incoming damage providing the Wall works correctly and the entire group is behind it as well as punishes the attacker with their own attacks (much better than Retaliation) and PvE monsters will not stop attacking because I raised the Wall. It has a slightly longer cooldown than Hold the Line and a much shorter cooldown than Retreat. AH Healing when entire group is affected: 0 (no Boons).
•Purging Flames versus Save Yourselves: This one is for helping out my allies. Save Yourselves is an excellent skill for both helping your allies and spiking your offense and defense. It also works well with my Superior Runes of Lyssa/Renewed Focus as I can trigger Save Yourselves right before the Invulnerability period ends to absorb all of my group conditions only to immediately purge them with my Elite. Likewise, Purging Flames gets rid of Conditions on my allies but purges them rather than transferring them to me. It also produces a Fire field that burns foes that enter it and that is useful for Combo Finishers. It’s on a shorter cooldown than Save Yourselves but requires my allies to be grouped around me and does not grant me 8 Boons for 10 seconds. AH Healing when entire group is affected: 0 (no Boons).

So I’m at a place where I need to make a decision:
• Remove 10 from Honor and add 10 to Virtue. This would result in a loss of 100 Vitality and 100 Healing and I don’t feel like 10% faster Virtue recharges and 10% longer boons makes up for the lose of 1000 health. Replace Superior Aura trait with Master of Consecrations. Replace Hold the Line/Retreat, Stand Your Ground, and Save Yourselves with Wall of Reflection, Hallowed Ground, and Purging Flames. It also creates the issue of not being able to use both Empowering Might and Two-Handed Mastery.
• Remove 10 from Radiance and add 10 to Virtue. This would result in a loss of 100 Precision and Condition damage meaning 5~% less critical chance and about 25 less damage on my Burns per second (negligible) which would hurt AH on my regular skills. Replace Signet Mastery trait with Master of Consecrations. Replaced Superior Aura with either Writ of Exaltation or Resolute Healer. Again, replace Hold the Line/Retreat, Stand Your Ground, and Save Yourselves with Wall of Reflection, Hallowed Ground, and Purging Flames. This is where I’m somewhat leaning because with a Superior Sigil of Accuracy and Food/Tools my Critical chance is still over 50%.
• Other solutions: This is why I’m asking here. Does anybody have a better solution for me? Do you see flaws with my theories or something I’m missing entirely?

Really I would say it depends on your play style and what you’re doing. If you’re in PvE or WvW where you will have lots of kills, 15 Radiance is beautiful synergy. Virtue of Justice blinds, and kills restore it, so you can spam it greatly increasing survivability with misses from blinds and heals from might stacking. Add in this with DPS from crits, and I would say this is more important than Honor. However if your main bit is against bosses or small scale PvP, then that synergy is lost. You can get crit chance in the high 40s with 0 points in Radiance, so I’d dare say to even completely dump for Virtue as both Master of Consecrations and Consecrated Ground are both nice abilities.

Personally I would go with a 0/10/30/20/10 build. You keep your crit chance up, your virtue blinds for a damage avoidance clicky, and signet mastery for faster cooldown on your heal. 10 points in Virtue allows for Master of Consecrations, which you can flip to Consecrated Ground for when you need to drop your circles on others (very useful in defending a keep). Use writs in Honor for when you’re concentrating on consecrations, use hybrid (as you can easily have both shouts and consecrations on lower CD), or even be on the fly flexible to unscathed/spirit weapons.