Guild Wars 2

I would like to seek advise on this.
Does EM works when we are solo-ing in pve ? Or it’s just benefit from allies around us?

thats the traited might every 5 secs on crit, if so yes stacking might. but if it works that depends on your build/weapons

All of the effects that I’m aware of that say “allies” also includes the caster. That goes for EM, Pure of Voice, the whole nine yards.

Empowering Might works on you too, in addition to allies around you. So with a decent crit chance it’s tons of free might stacks.

Great , Thanks for the replies. Currently having 32%, planning to hit higher. Got just 4 x berserkers and 2 x Soldiers. Trinkets is mixture of Knight & Soldier.

Just so you know, it’s on a 1 sec cooldown and lasts for 5 sec. Maximum 5 stacks of might, and that’s if you hit the crit at the exact moment the cooldown ends.

You’d have to crit once a second at just the right time to maintain the maximum 5 stacks on yourself. In practice I rarely get more than 3 sustained stacks. With a GS it’s higher because the 3rd swing of the auto-attack chain also grants might.

Unfortunately it’s not a ton of stacks since there’s a 1 second ICD.

The real advantage to EM is the synergy with AH. You get 5x AH heals when your crit, capped at on per second. At level 80, that’s roughly 75 health per heal (x5 for 375). That’s not too shabby if you pull off frequent crits.

My problem is I only put 20 pts into the vit trait line, and I have to choose between EM and 2H Mastery. I prefer the 2H Mastery since it effects a large group of weapons. A 20% reduction in wep skills is a 20% increase AH heals from skills like symbols, empowerment, etc.

Arken.3725:

Unfortunately it’s not a ton of stacks since there’s a 1 second ICD.

Might is still might. With receiving might when my aegis breaks, might on dodge rolls (via food), and might on crits it’s pretty easy to keep at least 3 stacks of might up, if not more.

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

For raw damage EM is better than 2H Mastery — but that’s not really a good comparison. 2H Mastery provides many other tangible benefits that outweigh EM imho.

juno.1840:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

For raw damage EM is better than 2H Mastery — but that’s not really a good comparison. 2H Mastery provides many other tangible benefits that outweigh EM imho.

Such as?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

juno.1840:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

For raw damage EM is better than 2H Mastery — but that’s not really a good comparison. 2H Mastery provides many other tangible benefits that outweigh EM imho.

Such as?

Being able to take actions 20% faster therefore having a de facto 20% damage buff?

There’s an internal CD on EM, so you won’t have many stacks of might active anyway even with a high crit chance build.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

juno.1840:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

For raw damage EM is better than 2H Mastery — but that’s not really a good comparison. 2H Mastery provides many other tangible benefits that outweigh EM imho.

Such as?

Speaking for the GS specifically, increased access to Light fields/Whirl Finishers, better mobility, more frequent AoE Blinds, and higher Retaliation uptime.

Worthy of special mention is more frequent access to Binding Blade, which means more interrupts and more chances to pull foes close together. In a situation where you have allies with you, assuming party members possess reasonable AoE damage, it’s doubtful that adding 5% damage to each party member’s damage is going to reduce the time to kill an enemy group as much as pulling all of the enemies into a point of AoE focus fire would. 2HM allows you to do this more often, and if you’re involved in a drawn-out battle, the reduced CD is very desirable. Granted, I’m describing a fairly specific sort of situation, but I don’t feel that it’s an uncommon one.

Not to say that EM is a bad trait, by any means, but I agree with the statement that there are many tangible reasons to opt for 2HM over it. I think it would largely come down to personal preference.

DeathPanel.8362:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

juno.1840:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

For raw damage EM is better than 2H Mastery — but that’s not really a good comparison. 2H Mastery provides many other tangible benefits that outweigh EM imho.

Such as?

Being able to take actions 20% faster therefore having a de facto 20% damage buff?

There’s an internal CD on EM, so you won’t have many stacks of might active anyway even with a high crit chance build.

Other than the Binding Blade pull, which Soryuju already mentioned, the reduced cooldown is in fact nothing more than DPS increase, since greatsword skills don’t do much else other than raw DPS. Also, it’s not a 20% buff, it’s about 5%. It doesn’t affect the damage output of your auto-attack, nor does it speed up the casting time of skills (and skills don’t start recharging till the channel is finished).

Also, accounting for the ICD on Empowering Might, you usually get about 3 stacks of might, which is about 5% extra damage, which is what I originally said. If there was no ICD you’d be getting closer to 7-8 stacks of might, which would be so insanely good there’d be no reason to ever not take it.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

DeathPanel.8362:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

juno.1840:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

For raw damage EM is better than 2H Mastery — but that’s not really a good comparison. 2H Mastery provides many other tangible benefits that outweigh EM imho.

Such as?

Being able to take actions 20% faster therefore having a de facto 20% damage buff?

There’s an internal CD on EM, so you won’t have many stacks of might active anyway even with a high crit chance build.

Other than the Binding Blade pull, which Soryuju already mentioned, the reduced cooldown is in fact nothing more than DPS increase, since greatsword skills don’t do much else other than raw DPS. Also, it’s not a 20% buff, it’s about 5%. It doesn’t affect the damage output of your auto-attack, nor does it speed up the casting time of skills (and skills don’t start recharging till the channel is finished).

Also, accounting for the ICD on Empowering Might, you usually get about 3 stacks of might, which is about 5% extra damage, which is what I originally said. If there was no ICD you’d be getting closer to 7-8 stacks of might, which would be so insanely good there’d be no reason to ever not take it.

Empowering might only gives you those stacks consistently if you have a lot of crit chance and use something that hits many times like Smite and that’s provided the target doesn’t run out of the damage field.

20% less CD trait also applies to all the CC abilities and buff abilities from Hammer and Staff. That’s what the poster was talking about earlier when he said about the other benefits of having 20% less CD.

I suspect, though I have no evidence for it, that the 20% less CD is by far most useful for the staff. I am not as familiar with the hammer as I should be, if you can get 100% prot uptime without the trait then its probably about the same as the gs.

Webba.3071:

I suspect, though I have no evidence for it, that the 20% less CD is by far most useful for the staff. I am not as familiar with the hammer as I should be, if you can get 100% prot uptime without the trait then its probably about the same as the gs.

The trait will give you the ability to proc retaliation off every single symbol of protection. You can using Mighty Blow after every auto attack chain, instead of every 2 chains, so it offers a shade more than the 20% dps increase the trait implies.

DeathPanel.8362:

20% less CD trait also applies to all the CC abilities and buff abilities from Hammer and Staff. That’s what the poster was talking about earlier when he said about the other benefits of having 20% less CD.

Don’t forget it also works for both your underwater weapons too, and you’ll always have a Spear and Trident equipped, so it’s basically 20% CD to every single weapon you will have equipped.

I struggled to make a choice between EM and 2HM myself. In the end I went with EP due to the synergy with AH considering I play a more supportive Guardian usually, but also the synergy it gives me when using my DPS set with focused Might stacking thanks to the EM trait, the third autoattack on GS, the on-crit Might sigil, Strength runes, and Fire Fields. Via Staff and GS I can pile up 25 stacks of might within the first few seconds of a battle, and once Staff 4 expires, maintain a solid 16-20 on myself the rest of the time.

I’d say both traits are equally powerful, so it all comes down to personal playstyle preference.

Tarsius.3170:

Webba.3071:

I suspect, though I have no evidence for it, that the 20% less CD is by far most useful for the staff. I am not as familiar with the hammer as I should be, if you can get 100% prot uptime without the trait then its probably about the same as the gs.

The trait will give you the ability to proc retaliation off every single symbol of protection. You can using Mighty Blow after every auto attack chain, instead of every 2 chains, so it offers a shade more than the 20% dps increase the trait implies.

2HM actually has absolutely zero effect on hammer DPS. In the worst case, it’s actually negative. Interrupting your auto-attack chain to use Mighty Blow actually causes you to lose substantial amounts of DPS; you should only be using it after completing a full chain. As such, Mighty Blow’s effective cooldown is basically fixed at 7.5 seconds; you can only do it every two auto-attack chains, so it doesn’t matter whether it becomes available after four seconds or five.

The same applies to staff. Orb of Light does not benefit from 2HM because the trait reduces the recharge to 2.4s, which is pointless because you can only do it every three seconds anyway if you want to avoid interrupting your auto-attack and losing DPS. Meanwhile, traiting cooldowns on Symbol of Swiftness and Empower is useless because the cooldowns on those skills are between 10 and 20 seconds, which means they will always be available every time you swap back to the staff anyway. You absolutely should not ever be sitting on staff constantly in a PvE scenario, that’s just dumb.

In fact, the same principle applies to greatswords too, if you are running the standard burst-and-switch rotation; the only skill that benefits from 2HM is Whirling Wrath. Otherwise, traiting Symbol or Binding Blade makes no tangible difference as to your rotation. And before you bring it up, you will get more DPS from unloading your greatsword skills on untraited cooldown then swapping to hammer or sword for ten seconds while they recharge, than you will just sitting on greatsword on traited cooldown.

And again, it’s not 20%, it’s 5% even in the best case. That’s about how much you can expect the greatsword to benefit in terms of overall DPS. It’s only going to be a 20% DPS advantage if ALL your skills have a cooldown and are instant-cast, and that’s never the case.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Tarsius.3170:

Webba.3071:

I suspect, though I have no evidence for it, that the 20% less CD is by far most useful for the staff. I am not as familiar with the hammer as I should be, if you can get 100% prot uptime without the trait then its probably about the same as the gs.

The trait will give you the ability to proc retaliation off every single symbol of protection. You can using Mighty Blow after every auto attack chain, instead of every 2 chains, so it offers a shade more than the 20% dps increase the trait implies.

2HM actually has absolutely zero effect on hammer DPS. In the worst case, it’s actually negative. Interrupting your auto-attack chain to use Mighty Blow actually causes you to lose substantial amounts of DPS; you should only be using it after completing a full chain. As such, Mighty Blow’s effective cooldown is basically fixed at 7.5 seconds; you can only do it every two auto-attack chains, so it doesn’t matter whether it becomes available after four seconds or five.

Sorry I meant a “shade more dps” not a “a shade more than 20% dps” – I was mainly commenting on the fact the benefits for the hammer is probably better than it is for the GS. But hammer #1 chain takes 3.7 seconds, to complete – so with a 4 second CD you can add mighty blow in between each cycle – I think a 0.3 pause in #1 is worth the big AoE damage + blast finisher + gap closer that mighty blow provides

In PvP when you have to time your hammer swings based on the movement of the opponent, #2 will usually be available when you need it.

That being said, I don’t personally use it – I find other traits in Honor have much more tangible impact.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Tarsius.3170:

Webba.3071:

I suspect, though I have no evidence for it, that the 20% less CD is by far most useful for the staff. I am not as familiar with the hammer as I should be, if you can get 100% prot uptime without the trait then its probably about the same as the gs.

The trait will give you the ability to proc retaliation off every single symbol of protection. You can using Mighty Blow after every auto attack chain, instead of every 2 chains, so it offers a shade more than the 20% dps increase the trait implies.

2HM actually has absolutely zero effect on hammer DPS. In the worst case, it’s actually negative. Interrupting your auto-attack chain to use Mighty Blow actually causes you to lose substantial amounts of DPS; you should only be using it after completing a full chain. As such, Mighty Blow’s effective cooldown is basically fixed at 7.5 seconds; you can only do it every two auto-attack chains, so it doesn’t matter whether it becomes available after four seconds or five.

The same applies to staff. Orb of Light does not benefit from 2HM because the trait reduces the recharge to 2.4s, which is pointless because you can only do it every three seconds anyway if you want to avoid interrupting your auto-attack and losing DPS. Meanwhile, traiting cooldowns on Symbol of Swiftness and Empower is useless because the cooldowns on those skills are between 10 and 20 seconds, which means they will always be available every time you swap back to the staff anyway. You absolutely should not ever be sitting on staff constantly in a PvE scenario, that’s just dumb.

In fact, the same principle applies to greatswords too, if you are running the standard burst-and-switch rotation; the only skill that benefits from 2HM is Whirling Wrath. Otherwise, traiting Symbol or Binding Blade makes no tangible difference as to your rotation. And before you bring it up, you will get more DPS from unloading your greatsword skills on untraited cooldown then swapping to hammer or sword for ten seconds while they recharge, than you will just sitting on greatsword on traited cooldown.

And again, it’s not 20%, it’s 5% even in the best case. That’s about how much you can expect the greatsword to benefit in terms of overall DPS. It’s only going to be a 20% DPS advantage if ALL your skills have a cooldown and are instant-cast, and that’s never the case.

A very good point about the staff and weapon swapping, I hadn’t considered that. Interesting and useful information, thanks!

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Tarsius.3170:

Webba.3071:

I suspect, though I have no evidence for it, that the 20% less CD is by far most useful for the staff. I am not as familiar with the hammer as I should be, if you can get 100% prot uptime without the trait then its probably about the same as the gs.

The trait will give you the ability to proc retaliation off every single symbol of protection. You can using Mighty Blow after every auto attack chain, instead of every 2 chains, so it offers a shade more than the 20% dps increase the trait implies.

2HM actually has absolutely zero effect on hammer DPS. In the worst case, it’s actually negative. Interrupting your auto-attack chain to use Mighty Blow actually causes you to lose substantial amounts of DPS; you should only be using it after completing a full chain. As such, Mighty Blow’s effective cooldown is basically fixed at 7.5 seconds; you can only do it every two auto-attack chains, so it doesn’t matter whether it becomes available after four seconds or five.

The same applies to staff. Orb of Light does not benefit from 2HM because the trait reduces the recharge to 2.4s, which is pointless because you can only do it every three seconds anyway if you want to avoid interrupting your auto-attack and losing DPS. Meanwhile, traiting cooldowns on Symbol of Swiftness and Empower is useless because the cooldowns on those skills are between 10 and 20 seconds, which means they will always be available every time you swap back to the staff anyway. You absolutely should not ever be sitting on staff constantly in a PvE scenario, that’s just dumb.

In fact, the same principle applies to greatswords too, if you are running the standard burst-and-switch rotation; the only skill that benefits from 2HM is Whirling Wrath. Otherwise, traiting Symbol or Binding Blade makes no tangible difference as to your rotation. And before you bring it up, you will get more DPS from unloading your greatsword skills on untraited cooldown then swapping to hammer or sword for ten seconds while they recharge, than you will just sitting on greatsword on traited cooldown.

And again, it’s not 20%, it’s 5% even in the best case. That’s about how much you can expect the greatsword to benefit in terms of overall DPS. It’s only going to be a 20% DPS advantage if ALL your skills have a cooldown and are instant-cast, and that’s never the case.

Sorry but I disagree — you’re over simplifying it.

There are situations where you will not switch weapons every time the weapon cooldown is up.

The 2HM is 20% more symbols, 20% more Empowerment, 20% more line of warding, 20% more everything. That’s 20% more AH from utilities that give out boons.

If you are constantly swapping weapons, your arguments on DPS are a bit different. You’re interrupting your DPS auto-attack chain on hammer/GS to switch to staff.

So loss of DPS from hitting more hammer #2’s for example is not a fair example when throwing weapon swapping into the mix. It’s a valid comparison when just staying in hammer to begin with. In that case you then have to look at the 20% more frequent boon application, etc. Using #2 is an AoE boon applier for retaliation, as well as a fast recharging blast finisher — yeah you prolly know that, but 20% improvement on that is useful.

If you are in staff longer than the weapon swap duration, now you have 20% more empowerment uses. That in itself may offset the might stacks from EM.

Both skills are good, but there’s no clear winner imho. I find more value in 2HM across the weps I use (hammer, staff, GS, trident, spear).

juno.1840:

Sorry but I disagree — you’re over simplifying it.

There are situations where you will not switch weapons every time the weapon cooldown is up.

The 2HM is 20% more symbols, 20% more Empowerment, 20% more line of warding, 20% more everything. That’s 20% more AH from utilities that give out boons.

If you are constantly swapping weapons, your arguments on DPS are a bit different. You’re interrupting your DPS auto-attack chain on hammer/GS to switch to staff.

So loss of DPS from hitting more hammer #2’s for example is not a fair example when throwing weapon swapping into the mix. It’s a valid comparison when just staying in hammer to begin with. In that case you then have to look at the 20% more frequent boon application, etc. Using #2 is an AoE boon applier for retaliation, as well as a fast recharging blast finisher — yeah you prolly know that, but 20% improvement on that is useful.

If you are in staff longer than the weapon swap duration, now you have 20% more empowerment uses. That in itself may offset the might stacks from EM.

Both skills are good, but there’s no clear winner imho. I find more value in 2HM across the weps I use (hammer, staff, GS, trident, spear).

Still not 20% more even without weapon swapping. Empower has a channel of 3 seconds, which means you can use it every 23 seconds in practice. With 2HM, you take 4 seconds off that, which is a bit more than 17% of the total cooldown.

Moreover, in terms of overall staff DPS, 2HM is still a bad choice compared to Writ of Persistence and Empowering Might. Writ of Persistence boosts the damage on Symbol of Swiftness by 40%; this is tacked on directly to a single cast of SoS, so it actually increases the overall DPS of the skill by MORE than 40%. At base stats, SoS is worth 32.375 DPS; with WoP traited it’s worth 55.5 DPS. Meanwhile, 2HM is only worth about 19% extra DPS from SoS.

Meanwhile, EM gives more overall might than a traited Empower does. Empower at base gives 5.33 stacks of might average, while traited it gives about 6.5, so it’s about 1.2 extra stacks from 2HM. By comparison EM with a staff gives about 2 stacks of might.

In terms of maximizing DPS with a staff (which, again, really should be a non-issue given that it isn’t a DPS weapon and you shouldn’t be trying to use it as such), WoP and EM are better options and also synergize better with what should be your main hand weapon, which, again, gain relatively little benefit from 2HM.

Lastly, if you’re still running an AH build, you’re probably not at the level where you need to worry about minmaxing DPS anyway, so I don’t really need to address that in-depth.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying 2HM will provide more damage than EM. My posts above state as much.

My point is 2HM brings some nice stuff to the table that I think out-weigh the few extra might stacks (and corresponding AH ticks) you get from EM — that’s all.

Greatsword and 2HM is useless indeed but for staff & hammer users the benefits are noticeable.8 seconds faster ring/line of warding.4 seconds faster empower is a 4s faster possible heal and a 5 seconds faster banish comes in more than handy.Sure maybe you lose 100 more power from possible 3 stacks of might on average using EM but imho 8, 5, 4 seconds is a looooong time in a fight for key skills.Ofcourse if one only uses autoattack and nr2 the differenfe is unnoticeable, but i find it quite inadeqvate.
Tldr:
Staff&Hammer ?2H mastery
Greatsword ? EM

Take both if you can…I do. I have +10% protection duration runes and used with hammer, I don’t really need WOP. With GS I can feel a tangible difference between having 2HM or not.