Gear Stats for HoT
For now it seem that Beserker will still be the best stats. Most group that killed the first boss in the beta were all bezerker. The main difference was their build with more support and self survivability on them. The only other gear I could see would be Zealot, but it’s expansive. Probably a Cleric would be nice, but then you are better off with using a Druid.
At least, that’s my opinion. So many thing we don’t know about raid. We only saw 1/4 of the first wing. And it only a small portion of the community that was able to try it.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
Berserker is the only thing you should be using on guardian, otherwise our dps is far too low.
I personally also thought about zealot’s. I also am wondering how sinister guard would be for those groups that do not have condi engis. Lastly, I will probably be our “tank” and also have considered clerics while using either hammer or mace/shield traited for writ of persistence. I have been running a similar build in dungeons since the change to shield 4, and find it pretty good.
I don’t have the experience on guardian that some others do, came back after a 3 year absence, but I think I am more committed to finding a way for my small guild to do the raid than I am to simply modelling our roster based off of what other people are doing, and currently I only have one engineer.
I am curious though to see what others think.
If you are going for condi builds, guardian is not great and there are other professions that can do it much better. (Mesmer/engineer/necromancer, hell even ranger.) Guradians really only get access to burn, and while it’s a powerful condi, it’s not great if it’s the ONLY one we get.
I’d plan on a basic zerk set for open world/mastery stuff. Wait and see for other content.
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yeah most of our condi toons will be rangers probably. I plan on trying to tank with my guard. Of course right now i’m mostly just doing a lot of guessing, since i only have half to 75% of my roster currently. Gotta get recruiting!
I would actually go for a wvw set first.
1) a wvw armor set will always let you wvw, which is nice
2) the extra defense will help you survive in an unknown environment
3) your kill times will be just a little slower, giving you more exposure to how the new areas play
4) once you get into raids, you can use that to figure out your role. Generally, wvw sets are soldiers so you’re already on your way towards the tanky kite role.
5) pve content can be completed with any armor and any build, so building specifically for pve is usually not important. The only building specifically for pve I would rationalize would be to complete for dungeon speedruns. If you aren’t doing speedruns, you really don’t need the “meta” build and armor.
But ultimately, do what you feel you need to do.
Fishsticks
If you had the time & money I’d suggest a mix of zerk &celestial.
The celestial will help keep you and others alive without lowering your damage as much as soldiers would.
One or 2 or 3 pieces should be more then enough.
I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately also. I already have 2 full ascended sets of celestial, and berserker gear; including trinkets/weapon swaps. I would like to think I’m prepared for raids and the new GvG content already, but I still can’t seem to get away from the thought of a full Zealot’s set also. I’m waiting to see if I want to convert my cele set, or finish crafting a Zealot’s set once we get a new way to buy the recipes instead of from the expensive TP ones.
Build ideas sound fun so far for self sustain guard in raids/gvg
If you are going for condi builds, guardian is not great and there are other professions that can do it much better. (Mesmer/engineer/necromancer, hell even ranger.) Guradians really only get access to burn, and while it’s a powerful condi, it’s not great if it’s the ONLY one we get.
Actually Guardian is the third best condition profession in PvE right now. Engineer and Ranger are best, but most other profession are below. It’s mostly because it’s the only three profession with enough burning. Bleeding profession like warrior, mesmer, necromancer, etc. They are all behind because of how much more powerful burning is versus bleeding. But in the end, the engineer is just too powerful compare to any other profession in condition and will probably the only one worth it in raid.
As for gear. Beserker is the only safe choice. We’ll need to see what the raids will look like and what will be the composition of your group to see if other gear will be necessary or if they give us new stats and new way to get older stats.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
If you are going for condi builds, guardian is not great and there are other professions that can do it much better. (Mesmer/engineer/necromancer, hell even ranger.) Guradians really only get access to burn, and while it’s a powerful condi, it’s not great if it’s the ONLY one we get.
Actually Guardian is the third best condition profession in PvE right now. Engineer and Ranger are best, but most other profession are below. It’s mostly because it’s the only three profession with enough burning. Bleeding profession like warrior, mesmer, necromancer, etc. They are all behind because of how much more powerful burning is versus bleeding. But in the end, the engineer is just too powerful compare to any other profession in condition and will probably the only one worth it in raid.
As for gear. Beserker is the only safe choice. We’ll need to see what the raids will look like and what will be the composition of your group to see if other gear will be necessary or if they give us new stats and new way to get older stats.
They don’t only get access to bleeds either. I can’t speak for mesmer or ranger, but necro’s get just about every condition imaginable.
If you are going for condi builds, guardian is not great and there are other professions that can do it much better. (Mesmer/engineer/necromancer, hell even ranger.) Guradians really only get access to burn, and while it’s a powerful condi, it’s not great if it’s the ONLY one we get.
Actually Guardian is the third best condition profession in PvE right now. Engineer and Ranger are best, but most other profession are below. It’s mostly because it’s the only three profession with enough burning. Bleeding profession like warrior, mesmer, necromancer, etc. They are all behind because of how much more powerful burning is versus bleeding. But in the end, the engineer is just too powerful compare to any other profession in condition and will probably the only one worth it in raid.
As for gear. Beserker is the only safe choice. We’ll need to see what the raids will look like and what will be the composition of your group to see if other gear will be necessary or if they give us new stats and new way to get older stats.
They don’t only get access to bleeds either. I can’t speak for mesmer or ranger, but necro’s get just about every condition imaginable.
Except for burning, confusion, torment (outside a bad uptime on a handful of stacks)…. you know the high damage dealing ones. Whereas on a guard I can self stack like 9 stacks of burning easily with no condi duration, and I don’t even mess around with burn guard.
Best condi user is engi, followed by ranger – but I think sinister guard is a solid 3rd. Now whether that 3rd place is good enough to clear the new content, I have no idea.
I wouldn’t say Ranger is the second best as it requires a target dummy to achieve anything. As in, it has to stay in melee range and the boss can’t move. I don’t believe these situations are going to be the norm in a lot of the harder content.
As for Guardian gear, you will definitely want to start out with a full zerk set. Condi guardians aren’t bad, but they aren’t as flexible with their utilities. The amount of active mitigation you have should be plenty. Hell, DH may also be very competitive with the new damage modifier and their F3 can be ridiculously powerful.
You make a fair point about ranger requiring a more static target, but I don’t know what character you’d bring for that other than them or an engi – and IDK bout you guys, but I don’t run into many engis.
As far as our class, yeah I agreee zerker will probably be the best – but again I’m just wondering what other things acan work in the raid, not necessarily optimal. In my guild for example I’ll probably tank. I hear that scrapper and rev may be better at that, but because of my raid roster, it looks like I’ll probably be the one doing it.
Levelling that engie….
Use the gw2 build editor to determine your stats distribution and the type of gear needed to achieve the desired stats. Guardians have amazing sustain and it feels great when you play a class to its’ strengths. Going full zerker with low sustain can be a bit of a challenge, considering that Guardians have a a very low health pool, dmg mitigation can only take you so far.
Currently, I’m using a mix of zealot + berserker + knight + cleric ( a balance between healing + toughness +direct damage); My initial plan was to go zealot + knight. but zealot gear are incredibly expensive to craft, hence a compromise was formed.
More importantly, u need to figure out your ideal (and effective) playstyle.
I’m running mace + shield, with Symbolic Avenger for DPS, and Writ of Persistence + Altruistic Healing for sustain. Mace Symbol of faith grants regen and it provides additional heal with each pulse (writ of persistence); when you have have allies standing in your symbol, they gain boons, which in turn triggers Altruistic healing. This is just my build. Trait synergy is very crucial; Experiment and see what works best for you and your party.
They don’t only get access to bleeds either. I can’t speak for mesmer or ranger, but necro’s get just about every condition imaginable.
And?? Poison, Confusion, etc All of those are super tiny part of any dps in PvE. They have powerful capability in PvP, but for PvE the only two that count are Burn and Bleed. I’m not saying that the others are useless, but you can’t have a decent condition build if you don’t focus on either Burn and Bleed.
Unfortunately, when they fixed stacking condition, they made burning powerful, but bleed not as much. Yes you can put a lot of different condition on necro, but that doesn’t give you good dps. For exemple. If you want to do the same damage as 10 Burning, you would need 20 Bleed + 7 Poison + 7 Confusion. You need a lot more of the other condition to be on par with burning.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
I also think Berserker is still a likely candidate for Guardians going forward, but I’m curious to see if we’ll start mixing pieces of Valkyrie gear with Berserker for raids. Two reasons that could factor into that decision:
1) Druid is likely going to be a presence in raids, and they’ll be bringing the Spotter trait to give a Precision boost to the party that was often missing in dungeon runs. This could give us some more leeway for extra Vitality.
2) Supposedly we’re going to be dealing with more damage sources that can’t be dodged, and it’s likely that this undodgeable damage is also going to ignore blinds and blocks. This puts us in a position where we may need to have a higher HP buffer to survive, and Valkyrie is the best way to achieve that while minimizing the DPS loss.
That said, if we can survive well enough in Berserker, Valkyrie could potentially be a liability to the party. Having higher HP means that it takes more healing to top us off, and with the 5-target limit on heals, Valkyrie makes us more likely to soak up healing we don’t need while denying party members who could be in trouble without it. It just makes the Druid’s job harder.
As for our role as tanks, I think that’s going to depend heavily on how raid mechanics interact with our active defenses, but we can probably still put up a respectable performance with a PvP-style AH bunker. Soldier seems likely to me in this case, but Cleric’s could potentially make us a good off-healer with Selfless Daring, Pure of Heart, and Battle Presence, and we might even be able to get away with Nomad’s gear, depending on whether more DPS or stronger support comes out to be more valuable in a given encounter.
I’m not sure conditions will end up being a thing for us, since I feel like our utilities are going to be a big part of the demand for us in raids, and Burn builds are more inclined to fill those slots with damage than power builds are. It does depend on how many encounters discourage power damage, though I’d still question if we’d be more useful in a tank/support role during those fights instead.
Soryuju, I personally already run a few pieces of valk so I can totally see this being a thing – though in a healing rich environment maybe toughness would be a better investment?
As far as the tanking and off healing, I have two methods I am considering going:
1. Mace/shield. Run writ of persistence, focus on aegis, healing, and toughness. Prolly running a combo of sets. Could “off tank and off heal” maybe main as either one depending on stats.
2. Run the PvP style AH hammer/shout build. Gives 100% prot uptime, and if you also stack AH and writ, lots of healing. Stack some toughness to help keep aggro.
As far as condi… I mean like I said I agree that we’re not the best choice, but my question is if you don’t have enough condi toons with your rangers and engies…who else would you bring?
I have a full set of ascended zealot’s gear with half cleric’s trinkets and half berserker’s trinkets. Ascended zealot’s gear is pretty easy to get now days with the ascended gear swap recipe, although I think the recipe for making exotic zealot’s insignias is fairly pricy now.