I have been thinking about keeping this one quiet, but i have already told a fair few fellow guardians on Sanctum of Rall, and i thought it about time for me to share it with the community.
Utilities
6. Shelter 7. Hold the line 8. Save yourself 9. Stand your ground 0. Renewed Focus.
So the build is focused on:
high healing (Burst + Regeneration)
Symbols (Small but constant AOE damage/boons) Mace/Shield + Hammer
Retaliation (Symbol blaster finishers, virtues and utilities)
Evasion of hits/healing (Burst Heals on dodging)
Control (Knock Back/Immobilize)
Stability (Two forms)
Maximum boon duration 90% – obtained by running superior and major runes plus food
With this setup you will be able to maintain permanent swiftness, protection, regeneration and retaliation plus grant decent amounts of might. On top of that you gain the ability to block/absorb multiple hits from burst dps professions.
Now that all sounds good but there are downside and they can be hard to deal with, the first being weapon damage is just dismal, so that means some people run away or npc’s such as dolyaks that don’t attack you take a long time to kill. The flip side is that burst classes that do fast constant damage like thieves, warriors and rangers die from the wrath of retaliation being up 100% of the time.
Food choices can be a bit limited, i prefer chocolate omnomberry creams and mango pies plus i use superior sharpening stones.
Great 1vs1 or 1vs6 (It is possible)
Note for the permanent swiftness you can bring in retreat to the utility setup if you prefer for traveling. Also you can run a second mace with life sigil on it to double up the speed to takes to build stacks.
Final tip use the virtues wisely, if you are smart, retaliation will be at the ready anytime you need it. But don’t forget about your allies/realm mates as you can save them also.
Check out the build and hit me up in game or on the forums here to ask questions i am willing to help out others to further develop on this build and rock other professions.
(edited by Cave Rock.4869)
do you have any vids of it in action?
I wish i could do video’s but my computer setup is a bit outdated and i have trouble running fraps with GW2.
Reminds me quite a bit of Cristos’ Healway build that has been of great fun for me since i start using it. Same traitlines, armor and even weapon sigils ^^ Might test it a bit but i somehow dislike the feeling of immobility i get when using symbols.
Interesting build. The damage comes from retaliation. My biggest concern with this would be the low health though.
Looks like you concentrate mostly on the WvW or PvP aspect. How does this fair in PvE, say with dungeons and fractals.
Also, what about using GS and Scepter or Sword/Focus. I mainly use those weapons myself.
(edited by Lonewolf Kai.3682)
It does okay in dungeons but you will not be the main tank more of an assist support off tanker. Its a mobile plus stationary healing build, that is what i was trying to pull off with it. To my surprise it works. People maybe concerned with the health pool but it really does okay trust me.
(edited by Cave Rock.4869)
I run this build on my Guard Full PVT Armour, Soldier Runes and Cleric Trinks, I like it a lot.
I do focus mostly on WvW. Don’t worry about the low health pool. The regeneration effectively gives you more health pool than what you would have if you stacked vitality, overtime. Well, you really do need the hammer, for its control and also the ring of warding allows you a few tricks to further the healing and also that lock down so they turn to attack you and damage themselves off your retaliation. GS is an option because it gives you the symbol still but it is on a long cool down. I have thought about mace/focus. But i need to do further testing on that though. For the moment what really works is the mace/shield and hammer combo.
One thing is that the traits do differ from Chris dawnheart’s because he goes for burning and more blind traits. Mine focuses more on the survival/retaliation damage plus allows for stationary fighting.
I feel like this build as well as Chris’ is pretty good except you’ll never kill anyone. If you can manage to dps someone down (after a long while) they’ll almost always have to option to just run away from you with great ease. How do you deal with that?
I have been using the same build in WvW and also PvP. It works fine. It is not a good direct dps build, but I always play together witm my friends allowing them to dps while I support them, also cc foes, etc.
I do not use AH anymore. This build is mutch more fun.
Your right that you do have trouble getting people down that play smart. But there are plenty of people that are unaware of what build you bring to the table. They will continually try to take you out if you have a red name tag above your head. If they look like they are about to back off you need to give em a prompt to hit you again. Play like you are loosing health and are in trouble or go all out assault and tempt them to hit you more if your solo. But as Kisangyal said you will be great in duo and party format. Plus GW2 is a game played as a community mostly, it’s not always about being by yourself although i do a fair bit of that myself i am just crazy, to even attempt that in tier 1.
I watch fellow guardians that play the AH/Crit build they do alright but end up dying more than this build, have to be rezzed alot, but that’s not to say they don’t have a purpose. High Toughness builds can be great to npc supervisors or tower captains.
In response to Bastionhawk, my way of stopping them is by control most of the time. I use the hammer 3 skill to chain em to the ground and charge then number 5 to encase em with ring of warding. Most smart players dodge over and totally avoid it, but that then leads to them being susceptible to damage by not being able to dodge hits.
Almost the same exact build as the healway…. just some minor tweaks in the traits and weapon choices.
I feel like this build as well as Chris’ is pretty good except you’ll never kill anyone. If you can manage to dps someone down (after a long while) they’ll almost always have to option to just run away from you with great ease. How do you deal with that?
Damage output is probably higher than you think. The typical PTV player can’t just run away. They’ll still die in a reasonable amount of time unless they’re an Ele or Thief considering how many abilities they have to gain distance.
Obviously a bunker can just run away, but that’s beside the point. People just have a hard time thinking a build can stop runners just because it lacks crit or a higher base pool of power compared to Knight’s and what-not.
Food+Utility nourishment, in addition to whatever stacks of Bloodlust and some select PTV pieces (ascended), provide more than enough damage to make short work of runners. Actually understanding how to play the build and adjust your strategy helps as well.
(edited by Christos de Soufre.3802)
I do give most of the credit to Chris, i had previously chatted with him on how outstanding his build was and it’s ability to survive as well. He gave me advice about the mango pie food which is a great choice. But for me the blocking, to do burns was just not my play style or choice of weapons.
So i then looked at what worked for me. I changed out the burning on block trait to something more useful if i wasn’t going to block many hits as a focus like Chris, to burn multiple enemies. I went more of a remove condition and stronger/longer boon duration to do my damage. This allowed me to be a mobile healer and also stationary. This gave me the options to also get more control to finally down people. Like Chris said part of a build like this is practicing and see what works for your play style.
Also from what i have seen it is possible to do equal if not better damage through power builds over critical/precision specs.
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