Guild Wars 2

Hey Everyone. I’m trying to put together a build/guide for DH mob tagging, specifically in Cursed Shore and Orr. Since the “guardian staff” build on metabattle is not the most up to date I thought we could use this thread to post some build ideas and suggestions.

After years of farming Orr and using the Magic lootstick, I really find a lot of benefit in adding traps as a utility. Events such as Plinx loot phase and Loana where you constantly have to cover multiple sides you can place your traps on one side and focus your 111111 on the other side while maximizing your tagging. Here’s the build I’m working on and feel free to give suggestions!

For the sake of the build we are assuming you are using full exotic armor/weapons/trinkets with no food/infusions/sharpening stones. The base stats will be around 2.5k attack, 54% chance to crit, 210% crit damage with accuracy sigils and flame legion runes. Scholar runes will bump up the crit damage.

Weapons:
Staff is going to be your go to tagging weapon. As for your switch, I use either GS or LB depending on the event.
Sigils-Fire and accuracy for staff (although unded slaying may be better than fire)
Force/Unded and accuracy for LB/GS

Armor:
All berserker with flame legion runes for better Burn synergy and 7% damage or scholar if you can maintain 90% health.

Traits:
Since the premise of the build is DH, my other 2 traits are Virtues and Radiance/Zeal. I really like the Virtues trait mainly for its passive AOE justice with Permeating wrath. Finally Radiance and Zeal both have their benefits. Zeal should be used with GS for the added synergy with zealous blade and the 7% damage from fiery wrath. Radiance, however, is an interesting choice. You get blind spam through justice is blinded and renew justice. Since you’re killing fast you’ll always have justice off CD. You also get fury from inner fire which Synergizes greatly with the flame legion runes and radiant fire. Radiant power gives you a flat 10% crit chance against burning foes so your base 54% + 20% from the fury is 74% + 10% from the trait puts you at about 85% for the majority of the time with supreme Justice from the a virtues trait since you only had to attack 3 times to get the passive burn.

The one biggest “flaw” if you will is spamming spear of Justice because you won’t get the passive burn effect which Synergizes with permeating wrath and supreme Justice. However, staff range is only 600 whereas spear of Justice is 1200. You also stack vuln and get a 10% damage bonus if you use spear of Justice on a mob which will recharge instantly with a kill so not only do you get extra range but you can also spam 1111 on staff for close mobs and spam F1 on mobs at a distance. Both work great together if used correctly. I know this isn’t a condi build so burning damage doesn’t mean much however aoe burn ticks can really help you maximize your mob tagging.

Dragon Hunter:
Piercing Light ( for lower CD and daze on traps)
Zealots Aggresion/Hunters determination
Big Game Hunter (Synergizes with Renewed Justice)

Virtues:
Unscathed Contender (nice to have extra dps)
Supreme Justice (3 hits to trigger instead of 5)
Permeating Wrath (AOE burning)

Radiance (the passive minor traits make this trait):
Inner fire (easy 8 seconds of fury)
Radiant fire (longer burning)
Amplified Wrath (increased burning damage)

Zeal is optional for GS and has nice dps boost with Symbols, fiery wrath and zealous blade.

Utility:
Signet of resolve
Procession of Blades
Test of Faith
Bane Signet
Elite: Feel my Wrath (more fury) or Dragons Maw

Hope you enjoyed the guide and please feel free to offer advice/provide math to make the build optimized. As said above this guide is mostly for Orr event farming/any other events where you are trying to maximize your tagging to get dat l00t!

Have you considered valor instead of DH for the medi traits?

@Meld If you trait Valor instead of DH, you lose the traps, which kinda defeats the point of this entire build concept, doesnt it? Please elaborate instead of just asking vague questions.

Yannir.4132:

@Meld If you trait Valor instead of DH, you lose the traps, which kinda defeats the point of this entire build concept, doesnt it? Please elaborate instead of just asking vague questions.

It wasnt really a vague question… Valor naturally has more healing than DH, llowing for higher heals/survivability…

I think there were a couple of key words that were missed in the op.

This is open world farming, so medis shouldn’t even be considered at all beyond maybe JI for the utility. Mobs don’t inflict enough damage for you to worry about sustain and certainly not worth sacrificing traps.

Open world farming, even in HoT and specific to this build … farming with the zerg … you should just be aiming for pure damage output. I’m not of the same opinion as the OP, but I get what he’s trying to do with his build. For tagging, I think the staff combo’ed with VoJ traits isn’t necessary. One, or the other, not both. In fact, I would camp LB with VoJ … I think better range, better damage, better function for ranged tagging.

Why? because staff really suffers bad when you fight single targets. Remember, you’re just tagging and the bow does that quite well with it’s AOE attack and the puncture shoot too. That’s my preference anyways.

Well, that’s another thing. Lootstick is more for Central Tyria where stuff dies so fast sometimes even tagging them is a pain. An example would be the Frostgorge farm (happening right this week!)

In HoT maps, loot stick becomes a really poor idea since event rewards are not centered around event mobs but event completion unless you’re exp farming, but that tends to be really short term and a small issue since EXP is barely the throttle anyways. In HoT, enemies take a lot longer to kill, often boss centered therefore single target and some are even limited by time so if you bring in a lootstick there, you’re being a deadweight and you probably won’t get that much loot unless you have an organized crew, but they probably don’t want leeching.

Finally, the change where boons and heals also give you credit also downplay the need to tag as aggressively as before.

Yeah for sure and that’s my problem with the staff. It’s great in Tyria, in a zerg, for tagging lots of mobs, usually limited to events. That’s not actually applicable to much content. I think Staff still sees use in WvW but that’s another topic altogether.

I would encourage anyone wanting to expand their OW capability for zerg farming and including non-zerg content to avoid staff altogether and maximize opportunity with a DH spec using Lbow , Hammer and traps.