Guild Wars 2

With all of the recent changes to the DH, I wanted to take a look at how the DH will impact power-based Meditation builds in PvP and start brainstorming some setups. With Valor locked in for Meditation builds and Virtues considered basically essential to Guardians (more so now that DH Virtues have been buffed), I’m going to work on the assumption that DH will replace the Zeal or Radiance line in any meta DH builds that emerge.

First, a quick sample build. Let’s take a very basic Power meditation setup and then swap a Longbow in for a GS and a Sword in for a Scepter.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAsdTlsAhqhY3QwcIwPELJE11yGAJgMy2v/LAB-TZBFABiXGggTAQN7PswhAAgnAAA

DH Traits: Soaring Devastation, Zealot’s Aggression, Hunter’s Fortification

How would this build stack up to the current Meditation build? Let’s take a look at what we lose by swapping out either Zeal or Radiance and what we gain from DH:

Losing Zeal:
1) +7% damage modifier from Fiery Wrath
2) +5% GS damage modifier, GS cooldown reduction, minor healing on GS hits
3) Shattered Aegis damage
4) Miscellaneous Symbol effects

Losing Radiance:
1) Blind (+ Immobilize?) on Justice activation, refresh Justice on kill
2) General crit chance (Inner Fire, Right-Hand Strength, Radiant Power, 25-30% total)
3) Sword & Torch traits
4) Optional +10% damage modifier
5) Amplified Wrath or Perfect Inscriptions

Other Losses
1) Range of heal/cleanse on Virtue of Resolve activation
2) AoE Aegis at 600 range on Virtue of Courage activation

Gaining Dragonhunter
1) Option to kite & fight at range via Longbow, indirectly boosting our sustain.
2) 3,890 HP heal to self and allies every 25.5 seconds w/ gap close, Immobilize cleanse, and damage spike + 3s Immobilize. Can also have a triple AoE condition cleanse once every 25.5 seconds with Absolute Resolution.
3) Continuous frontal block every 65s, traitable for stun break, Protection, and Stability.
4) 1.5s Cripple whenever passive Justice procs, blocking charges passive Justice, +10% damage modifier on crippled enemies.
5) Condition cleanse on block, sporadic 10% damage reduction.

I’ve got to be honest, DH is looking fairly incredible on paper for this type of build. A few main points:

-The new Wings of Resolve ability provides just under twice the healing of a traited Meditation to yourself and allies (3,890), removing Immobilize and providing an AoE triple-cleanse with AR, gap-closing at 800 range, and Immobilizing/dealing significant damage to targets at the location, all on a 25.5 second traited cooldown.

Just to emphasize, if we use WoR and our Meditations on cooldown, WoR provides almost as much healing per second as Smiter’s Boon, Judge’s Intervention, and Contemplation of Purity combined (152 for WoR vs. 160 for the others). It’s roughly equivalent healing to Shelter without Smiter’s Boon (152 for WoR vs. 151 for Shelter) and also exceeds the healing value of Smite Condition (152 for WoR vs. 122 for Smite Condition). We’ve basically got a second heal skill now.

-We have much better cleansing overall now between WoR/AR and Hunter’s Fortification. 3 conditions + Immobilize removal every 25.5 seconds, 2-3 every 30 seconds with Shelter/Smiter’s Boon, 1-2 every 36 seconds with Shield of Wrath, and so on. If Shield of Courage actually counts as a block, that’s yet another source. We still also have access to tools like Smite Condition, Contemplation of Purity, and Ray of Judgment, and we can take every single one of these tools without any significant sacrifice compared to current Medi builds.

-Our soft CC is far better than it’s ever been in a Meditation build. Besides a 3s Immobilize every 25.5 seconds, Zealot’s Aggression gives us significant Cripple uptime with weapons like the Sword and Longbow. I’ve included Air and Blood Sigils on the Sword in the build above, each of which can count as an extra hit for proccing Justice, and Defender’s Dogma allows us to apply an additional 1.5 seconds of Cripple to targets whenever we block an attack (Shield of Wrath and potentially Shield of Courage would be great ways to take advantage of this, since they allow us to keep attacking as Justice is repeatedly recharged).

-Regardless of whether it counts as a block or not, Shield of Courage is now another focus break/damage immunity skill that can be refreshed with Renewed Focus. This improves our burst resistance considerably, especially since it can still be traited to break stuns while granting Stability and Protection. Under heavy fire, we can even pop SoC to break focus and gain our defensive buffs, leap with Wings of Resolve while blocking to heal 4k and cleanse while counterattacking, activate Renewed Focus to heal 2k more and go invulnerable after SoC ends, and then get both of these Virtues recharged for more blocking/healing/cleansing if we still need it.

To wrap up my initial points, what I’m seeing with the DH is a new Meditation Guardian with a ranged combat option, better mobility and control, tremendous sustain, heavy cleansing, and various ways to break focus, all in addition to almost everything current Meditation builds already have. What’s more, the massive healing and cleansing boosts we’re getting from Wings of Resolve and Hunter’s Fortification could actually give us a chance to diversify our utilities. Survival isn’t really a huge issue for most Meditation Guardians, so instead of becoming immortal with a triple-Meditation build, we could opt to bring utilities like Stand Your Ground or Fragments of Faith instead.

I know there’s been a lot of negativity about the DH recently, and I agree that there are still some big issues with the DH (like the Pure of Sight trait, the lack of good reason to activate Justice, and the design of Traps). It’s frustrating that these issues haven’t been addressed after months of development, but I honestly think that we could see power Meditation builds come surging back into the meta with HoT, and I’m excited to see what the DH ends up bringing to the profession as a whole.

What do you think? How would you build a power build in PvP with these new tools?

I agree with your assessment. I’d consider both sword and mace as viable options, and any off hand as viable also. With Mace I’d take Communal Defenses, which would pair very nicely with Shattered Aegis. In that case, I’d likely pair it with Torch or Focus, advantage focus. Sword and Shield makes for a good anti-projectile option mixed with Longbow. Aegis will synergize with many current traits, and there’s the option to trait shield for better uptime and 241 more armor.

Scepter isn’t useless, but it does seem redundant, and GS doesn’t seem appealing unless traited. Hammer is an option, especially if traited, but there are definitely tradeoffs to do so.

Hey Soryuju, very nice analysis of the DH in medi guard builds!

A small issue I have with your build though is taking Hunter’s Fortification over Heavy Light for the GM. If you ran GS and x/(focus or shield), then Hunter’s Fort is the obvious choice, but with gs/longbow you’re only going to be removing 1-3 condis through blocking (potentially more, most likely this though).

As for Sw/f and LB, it looks nice on paper, but I fear it’s not that great. I tried running essentially this build in both pvp and wvw roaming during BWE 2. The thing I suffered from most was lack of burst, and cleaving. It had good dps, but the lack of burst through gs 2, 3, and 5 was something I sorely missed, and is something I felt could have won me a couple 1v1s. In spvp, sw/f doesn’t provide very good pressure if you’re up against more than one opponent.

The 10% damage reduction of HF is great as a power med guard, but being able to cc with the HL trait is more valuable as a med guard where you have little else to cc with (especially with your build). This helps with rezzes, preventing stomps, and just raw dueling power (allows you to land Trueshot, or combo JI + Trueshot (knockback) + WoR + other burst).

Edit: Turned my wall of text into a slightly smaller wall of text. My apologies

@ Ghotistyx: Mace is definitely also interesting, especially if you’re stacking other on-block traits, but taking Shattered Aegis would mean dropping either Valor or Virtues if you’re still committed to a DH build. It might be possible with our new options for cleansing and healing to get by without one of these lines, but right now, I’m thinking that it’s more effective to stack Valor/Virtues/DH and just overload on the cleansing and healing (Mace even without SA could still be a powerful option, though).

It actually illustrates a fundamental design issue with the Guardian – if you want to improve our build diversity, you need to give us better options for cleansing and sustain outside of the Valor line, but you also need to design those options in a way that prevents people from just stacking them on top of the sustain tools our current builds have. That means either incorporating new sustain options directly into different utilities (e.g. giving us healing/cleansing on Signets, which don’t provide many boons and take up utility slots you’d usually use on Meditations) or moving more of our sustain from our traits into our baseline Guardian abilities. Otherwise, the meta Valor/Virtues builds will just become more dominant and continue to smother new builds.

@Arcaedus: I hadn’t intended the build I put up to represent some definitive “meta” build, and the weapon choices are easily the most speculative part. Mace could very well be preferred over Sword, like Ghotistyx suggested, and Longbow might end up falling short of the meta’s standards even after all the changes it’s seen. These are definitely possibilities I’m keeping in mind, and I’m interested in seeing what people end up using this coming weekend.

As a side note, the build I linked does use Focus, which is why I’m taking Hunter’s Fortification. Frankly, I dislike the current version of Heavy Light and hope that it’s iterated on again after next weekend’s beta. The fact that it can trigger on any LB attack makes it difficult to predict exactly when you’re going to land it in any prolonged fight, and lessens its value as a burst tool. If the knockback only activated when you used Deflecting Shot, I’d give it serious consideration over HF.

That said, a lot has changed about the DH since BWE2 that we haven’t gotten a chance to test. True Shot on the Longbow is 25% stronger now, and Symbol of Energy is 10% stronger and fires faster. Wings of Resolve now travels 800 range and can be used much more frequently (important for both burst and healing applications). We have potentially permanent Cripple uptime when using a Sword. We’ve got a melee block on Courage and massive healing/more frequent cleansing on Resolve. There’s more, but you get the idea. I don’t know if the specific build I posted above is what’s going to stick, but something using the build’s general principles is probably going to be at least viable and possibly very good in the post-HoT meta.

As a side note: I also tried out a meditations power build with Longbow and Mace/f. It’s pretty neat! Has great damage and good dueling potential! Definitely a contender for spvp, but not so much for roaming or zerging (again, no cc unless you use HL, and very low mobility).

I can understand your dislike of heavy light. I didn’t like it at first either, but I started adapting my playstyle around it and found it to be pretty nifty if you keep certain landmarks in mind!

- You can very easily control which arrow knocks back enemies upon switching to longbow/entering combat at first. This lets you set up very neat combos. My two favorites are: Cast Trueshot—> JI—→(trueshot hits, they get KBed)—> use Wings of Resolve—→ switch to gs, WW. The other combo I’m fond of is WoR—> Chase them (if they dodge), KB with longbow 1 auto —> Free Trueshot hit. Have yet to see someone avoid the follow-up trueshot after getting KBed. More often than not, I would switch to lb, and used this first guaranteed KB to interrupt some1 stomping an ally.

-If you stay on longbow for >10s, yes it’s a bit harder to tell when that second KB comes. In general though, you know it’s coming about 1-2 seconds after your second trueshot (assuming you use it liberally). I generally like to do the second true shot, back up a bit, deflecting shot, and then run forward with autoattack knowing 1 of my next 3 arrows is gonna KB, then I get in a free trueshot. Personally I felt like I had good control of when the second KB occurred and was able to make good use of it.

It’s true that the first CC from Heavy Light after you swap to LB will be consistent (hence why I specified that it can be difficult to predict in long fights) but the mechanic is still problematic in several different ways.

You can track the cooldowns on your other LB skills to get an idea of when the KB is going to hit, sure, but frankly, most of these skills are poorly suited to the role. True Shot roots you and has a significant windup, so there are going to be plenty of situations where you can’t fire it on cooldown. Deflecting Shot is best used to react to an opponent’s attacks, so it’s going to be worthless if you’re trying to sync it up with your KB cooldown. Symbol of Energy and Hunter’s Ward have longer cooldowns than the KB, and Hunter’s Ward roots you for way too long anyways. Besides all of this, being CC’d or not having a clear shot at the target can also disrupt the timing of your attacks. There are too many variables for cooldown-tracking to be anything more than a band-aid fix to a flawed mechanic.

Let’s argue that you play Longbow for a long time, though, and you get a good natural sense for the KB’s timing without needing to look at your skill cooldowns. The next problem we have is that there’s no guarantee that you’re going to want to proc the KB when it comes off cooldown. It may recharge when another ally has already CC’d your target and is about to burst them. There may be defensive boons on your target like Protection or Aegis to interfere with your burst, or debilitating conditions on you like Blind or Weakness. You might have a nearby ally at low HP, and you want to save the knockback for if/when they go down to prevent opponents from finishing them/create an opportunity for you to revive them. You might just want to wait until your target is in a position where you can maximize the strategic value of the knockback, such as pushing them off of a ledge. There are many more examples, but in all of these cases, the current KB mechanic forces you to either waste the CC or avoid using any of your LB skills until the stars happen to align for you.

The fact that they’re moving Stability onto this effect is also problematic, albeit not as much as the KB. Stability is generally going to be helpful to have, and it’s a 6-second stack every 10 seconds, so it’ll have good uptime unless you get chain-CC’d early on. Even so, I’d still rather be able to control when it activates in a prolonged fight. It’s just reinforcing bad design as it stands.

Whether you bind it to Deflecting Shot or give it some other activation condition, Heavy Light needs to be something you have some control over in a fight. In its current state, it allows for too many ways that your plays can fizzle due to circumstances that you can’t control, and having to keep an eye on your UI/cooldown timers whenever you’ve got your LB out is just a pain overall. It sounds like you did a good job of adapting to a poor mechanic in the last beta, but that doesn’t mean the mechanic is something we should have to live with.