Norn Guardian
Isle of Janthir
Hi All,
Would like some advice on what armor set(s) should I invest on if I wish to be flexible in terms of content.
Currently I have a full set of Exotic Knight’s Set. (No Runes yet but I plan on getting Soldier Runes)
I plan on completing a set of Power/Toughness/Vitality Gear as well. (A combination of Orr Karma Vendor Armor, and/or Dungeon Reward Armor.) I currently have Shoulder piece from Orr Karma Vendor. Was wondering if it would be easier to continue collecting Karma or just to a Dungeon runs to get the other five armor pieces. Please give advice on this one.
Lastly, was wondering if I should collect materials for another Exotic Armor Crafting – this time for Cleric’s set. Or does the “Cleric” set from dungeons compare in effectiveness? Basically that’s Power/Toughness/Healing vs Precision/Vitality/Healing. What’s more Viable for support? Advice on this one too, please.
I like Power/Vit/Tough the most as it makes you a brick wall, doesn’t butcher your damage completely and nothing is wasted.
Cleric crafted gear is great as again, does not completely remove your offensive stats (and it’s relative easy to acquire), you still want to do damage in this game no matter how deep you inch your build towards support.
However, I feel healing shouldn’t be heavily stacked and it does sort of hit a point where it feels less worth it. You can easily break 800 Healing with just having a Cleric Staff + Accessories and trait points in Honor (Vitality/Healing Line) and over 1k should you be fully clothed in Cleric’s gear.
Regeneration Formula Here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Regeneration
With 500 +Healing, your regen would tick for: 192.96
With 800 +Healing, your regen would tick for: 229.96
With 1000 +Healing, your regen would tick for 254.96
You’ll end up living longer(thus helping everyone longer) if you took the same stats and straight up have 18k vs 10k HP, your outgoing heals will still be pretty potent with some +Healing investment, just don’t make it your #1 priority. And remember, your Tome of Courage heals to full regardless of how much Healing you have.
Another thing is, Guardians share the same HP Pool as elementalists in thieves, meaning the least. I know we have a lot of condition removal skills and what not, but when everything is on CD, the only thing that will save you is more HP.
In terms of flex i’ve found soldier (power/toughness/vitality) armor tends to be one of the better ones, best one IMHO, as most of your stats will come from weapons and jewelery. Its easy to swap weapons and jewelery around to fill out your other stats as a set of soldier gear without any other vitality will set you to roughly, i say this because i have some talents into vitality, 15000 hp which is the sweet spot for guardian hp that i have found. This also nets you a little toughness to help out with squishy problems.
From what I understand, getting a Cleric armor set wouldn’t be much a priority, as Weapons and Trinkets will do. Got it. Thanks, so much for the replies.
I would just get Valkyrie jewellery. Maybe the cleric’s jewellery for dungeoning or support. The Knight’s armor suits Guardian’s well.
Knight’s gear (T2 Pow/Pre, T3 Tuf) is downright amazing for Guardians if you have investment in both the Honor and Valor lines, since you take virtually no damage, hit moderately hard, and proc healing in the hundreds with every hit.
I don’t recommend Cleric’s gear even though I’ve seen some people using it, for various reasons. The biggest problem is that it gives no precision, which is arguably the most important stat for guardians since it enables their massive DPS and healing capabilities. Also, it’s tier 3 healing power, which is IMO the worst stat since it scales very poorly in general. It also obsoletes the Valor line, since critical damage is worthless with no precision, which in turn means you can’t take Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing. That means the only thing that giant stack of healing power actually boosts (slightly) is your slot-6 heal skill, which scales poorly with healing power, and your healing from regen. What that effectively means is that you are giving up about 15% damage reduction from toughness (compared to Knight’s) and a minimum of 20% in DPS in exchange for an additional 1k healed on your heal skill, and a doubling in regen per tick.
tl;dr healing power sucks, don’t get it.
Ill just say i have never once seen a heal crit. As for this healing power kick. It is actually a VERY useful skill if you plan to do support. If you want to do only damage its not worth your time. But to say it outright sucks couldent be further from the truth. 2-3 guardian play styles will get more use from healing power than from precision. The three styles im talking about are dps, hybrid, support. Hybrid and support will use healing power way more effectively than critical chance.
I’ve been using 5 pieces of exotic and 1 piece of rare cleric armor for 2 days. I was using random rare/exotic pow/tgh/vit armor before that. No gems/sigils are placed yet but I’m pretty dissapointed with the set so far.
I run Arah story mode with cleric armor, died only once and nobody else died. But before cleric armor, several deaths would occur. So I guess either I was supporting well or the group was good.
But in WvW I was wasted. Before cleric armor I could kill about 3/5 1on1 matches without any difficulty. With cleric armor I cannot even deplete half of my enemy’s health.
Also before cleric I could run away about 15 sec from a small group of enemies without dying, now I just die. But this may be because the groups I encountered with cleric armor was pretty strong. I need to test this a little bit more.
So far, I see that cleric is a good option for support guardians running dungeons but not good in WvW. And imho the trade off is not worth it. My second set of armor will absolutely be pow/tgh/vit.
(edited by Drauger.2158)
Great input everyone – for the fellow who isn’t in favor of Cleric’s (Pow/Tough/Healing), what say you for the alternative healing Set, which is (Prec/Vitality/Healing)?
I would like to have at least a set with Healing, just in case my party really needs it. Which among the two would you recommend more? Cleric’s is from craft, while the second can be obtain through dungeon rewards.
Great input everyone – for the fellow who isn’t in favor of Cleric’s (Pow/Tough/Healing), what say you for the alternative healing Set, which is (Prec/Vitality/Healing)?
I would like to have at least a set with Healing, just in case my party really needs it. Which among the two would you recommend more? Cleric’s is from craft, while the second can be obtain through dungeon rewards.
Its a better set for hybrid if you can find it for jewelery is my thoughts. Issue with it is i’ve yet to find it in jewelery form. Now if you want it for armor best dump a ton into power otherwise your crit damage will be less than someone rolling only power.
Its a better set for hybrid if you can find it for jewelery is my thoughts. Issue with it is i’ve yet to find it in jewelery form. Now if you want it for armor best dump a ton into power otherwise your crit damage will be less than someone rolling only power.
With the Precision/Vitality/Healing set, I was hoping to address the issue of not having Critical Hits to trigger the healing from Guardian traits like Empowering Might + Altruistic Healing. With this as Armor, I would imagine that Weapons and/or Trinkets will be Knight’s or Valkyrie. Offense becomes Second Priority with this one.
From a fully support view i guess it would be decent. I personally play a shout support hybrid. I dont use things that proc from crit personally. But i do know even with only 8% crit i crit a ton.
As a new’ish Guardian, I always enjoy reading these kind of threads, but I’ve noticed that players’ builds are rarely mentioned, which leads me to kind of a fundametal question: Do you guys gear to compensate for weaknesses in you trait selection, or do you go for flat out stacking?
I’ve been trying to go for kind of a balanced approach. 30 in both valor and honor seems pretty defensive (but I like the traits), but I was considering going bereserker’s or something to make up for the lack of offensive firepower on my armor, and maybe some healing on accessories to make some of the passive heals (direct too I suppose) at least somewhat effective.
Does this work? Or am I kittening myself by spreading stuff around too much?
As a new’ish Guardian, I always enjoy reading these kind of threads, but I’ve noticed that players’ builds are rarely mentioned, which leads me to kind of a fundametal question: Do you guys gear to compensate for weaknesses in you trait selection, or do you go for flat out stacking?
I’ve been trying to go for kind of a balanced approach. 30 in both valor and honor seems pretty defensive (but I like the traits), but I was considering going bereserker’s or something to make up for the lack of offensive firepower on my armor, and maybe some healing on accessories to make some of the passive heals (direct too I suppose) at least somewhat effective.
Does this work? Or am I kittening myself by spreading stuff around too much?
I use traits to make up for the lack of defense I lose by wearing dps gear. Zerker gear, Valkrye jewelry. 10/10/30/20/0 traits.
My opinion is that since the stats from your gear far outweighs the bonuses you get from trait investment, it should be used as a means to amplify the intentions of your build. Even if you went with more defensive traits, if you went for more DPS oriented gear, you’re going to hit harder than one that invested his stats elsewhere.
I went for Power/Vit/Tough because I made the Guardian not to be a glass cannon or a rampaging berserker, but an immovable brick wall that could help others. The stats and traits I chose merely reflect that. It just so happens the traits I happen to be more interested in grant defensive bonuses too (Honor, Virtues).
My PvE build is different from my WvW one.
PvE: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cVccMV9cmvLRomClbo0aGxaMVRcabo8kii7kiU70z7070z7kIM70V7ofF70m
Main abilities Hold The Line, Purging Flames, and Signet of Judgement. 20% off Signet cooldowns is good for shorter cooldown self-heal. Signet of Judgement is passive 10% reduction with short cooldown aoe debuff/reflection. Purging flames to cleanse debuffs. My build is a cross between a Tank and a Support Healer.
WvW: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cVccMV9cmClbomClbo9MGxGVRcaboc8kii7kiU70z7070z7kIM70V7ofF70m
This is entirely support build. Always upfront using consecration skills. Sanctuary + line of warding for area denial. Swap out Purging Flames with Hallowed ground depending on what you’re doing. Constantly switching between staff + mace to heal group. You aren’t going to get a lot medals, but you contribute.
(edited by ComeAndSee.1356)
As a new’ish Guardian, I always enjoy reading these kind of threads, but I’ve noticed that players’ builds are rarely mentioned, which leads me to kind of a fundametal question: Do you guys gear to compensate for weaknesses in you trait selection, or do you go for flat out stacking?
I’ve been trying to go for kind of a balanced approach. 30 in both valor and honor seems pretty defensive (but I like the traits), but I was considering going bereserker’s or something to make up for the lack of offensive firepower on my armor, and maybe some healing on accessories to make some of the passive heals (direct too I suppose) at least somewhat effective.
Does this work? Or am I kittening myself by spreading stuff around too much?
Eh im geared power/toughness/vitality armor and weapon’s with cleric jewelery. Heres my build so you can get an idea.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cccz0V9cMaGvoMaGvo9MaxxoMabmsa
I personally think that in dungeons it’s better to have healing over vitality as the support from healing benefits the whole group. Having high vit may help negate some of the high numbers but in pve it’s too easy to dodge and avoid those high hitting numbers. A constant higher healing of a lower health pool is better than a slower healing of a higher health pool. why have the health if you’re struggling to keep it topped up?
In WvWvW it seems different as people can burst you down very easily (something the NPC AI doesn’t have the brains to co-ordinate) so having the health pool to allow you to survive the burst and escape seems more beneficial. As for sPvP. I use a full clerics bunker build mostly. and it seems to keep me alive for a long time (1v1 and 2v1 it’s pretty much a victory for me every time) While also helping the group as a whole. Having a high health pool doesn’t prolong your death better than blocking and outhealing people imo.
So.. I would say, Clerics Healing for Dungeons & sPvP. Knights Vitality and so on for WvWvW
How would Knight’s Armor compare to Melandru Karma bought armor?
Bit of a dated thread here, but timely to my question. I see tons of these types of threads mostly focusing on Knight VS Cleric. However, now and then someone will mention Melandru (Aurora) karma armor as well.
So, I assume that the Aurora armor is mentioned less as it’s perceived as harder to obtain (I believe the other sets are crafted)?
Given the state of my personal gw2 finances, I’m thinking I might actually have a better shot at karma armor. What’s the deal? Am I the only one pulling in quite a bit of karma in wvw?
I just bought my 5th Aurora (Melandru) piece yesterday. I don’t grind much, but WvW and surf the DE wave in Cursed Shore for 30 mins every day. Not sure if it’s worth going for the 6th piece or get something else….
i AM trying to get a legendary so trying to save up as much karma as possible lol. (funny story, while previewing some cultural weps, i must have accidentally double-clicked cause the numbers went all red and i got a new wep… O_______________o tier.. 2… as… well…. sigh hahaha) anyways, WvW actually yields a TON of karma. so if you don’t plan to spend it anywhere else, i don’t see why not as long as you feel you can benefit from the set.
i am majority running knight’s and then adding some vit here and there. i would like to pick up some healing / more vit though so looking to balance that out with my jewelry. will have to do more reaerch before i invest though.
quick question – what about weapons? i run with hammer mainly and then scepter / focus or shield for dungeon / WvW. PvE i’m not as worried as much and will play with whatever i like.
i ask only because i’m struggling to get my vit up and with certain weps i can get up to 15k (vs 13k-ish HP), but then i lose out on crit / dps, etc.
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