Guild Wars 2

Hi. I’m having trouble deciding on stats for a guardian.

I want to play a high level FoTM and dungeon player with healing symbols. Problem is, how should I gear?

Should I go full berserker? Or should I go half Precision+Vitality+Healing power with Berserker Jewels? With 4 Runes of Rage and 2 Runes of the citadel? Or do you have any other equipment ideas entirely?

Furthermore, what trait setup should I use? I was thinking 0-0-30-30-10 for access to healing symbols, altruistic healing, the aoe toughness boost, battle presence (AoE Virtue of Resolve), Empowering Might, longer symbols, and longer conscretions.

I’m not sure what you’re after.. you want to run fractals and dungeons with healing symbols. That sounds like a support build to me. Yet you’re asking about using berserker? Berserker certainly wouldn’t benefit your dungeon utility. You need to elaborate on what you want out of the build other than healing symbols.

I do want to be support.

But isn’t the best defense a good offense? I want to find the balance enough to mitigate damage to my team while being good at damage myself.

No, the best defense isn’t a good offense. The best offense is a good defense. Your group will benefit a lot more from you staying alive to heal and give boons than they would if you had twice the DPS. Check out the Boonway build here on the forums.

As far as gear goes, I strongly believe you cannot go wrong P/V/T. With that as a base, your traits and jewelry can be infinitely tweaked.

For most dungeons (except maybe Arah) and low level FOTM (haven’t done high fractals yet), pretty much any build will work.

I’ve run a number of guardian set-ups and while they all play differently, they all are pretty viable. The standard Altrustic Healing build (0/0/30/30/10 for example) is a good place to start, especially if you are looking to fill more of a support role. The Boonway build (0/15/0/30/25) is a good one as well and it brings a little more mobility and greatly enhanced boon duration (the boon duration runes are critical to the build) at the expense of some self healing so it is not quite as sturdy. There are a number of DPS focused builds (10/30/0/30/0 and similar), but they trade some amount of sustain and HP for the increased damage.

You can add as much Berserker stat items to any of the builds if you want to improve the DPS output. Or you can add PVT, Knights, or Valkyries stats items to increase your survivability if you want.

Danson.1094:

No, the best defense isn’t a good offense. The best offense is a good defense. Your group will benefit a lot more from you staying alive to heal and give boons than they would if you had twice the DPS. Check out the Boonway build here on the forums.

As far as gear goes, I strongly believe you cannot go wrong P/V/T. With that as a base, your traits and jewelry can be infinitely tweaked.

I got full PVT armour and weapons, I play condition remover with shouts and virtue of resolve (0/0/10/30/30)

What would you recommend as jewelries? Even more PVT or perhaps cleric, since I do a little bit of healing with staff?

or is it better to balance out with damage?

Farzo.8410:

Danson.1094:

No, the best defense isn’t a good offense. The best offense is a good defense. Your group will benefit a lot more from you staying alive to heal and give boons than they would if you had twice the DPS. Check out the Boonway build here on the forums.

As far as gear goes, I strongly believe you cannot go wrong P/V/T. With that as a base, your traits and jewelry can be infinitely tweaked.

I got full PVT armour and weapons, I play condition remover with shouts and virtue of resolve (0/0/10/30/30)

What would you recommend as jewelries? Even more PVT or perhaps cleric, since I do a little bit of healing with staff?

or is it better to balance out with damage?

I personally run 10/0/0/30/30, PVT armor with Major Water, Superior Water, and Superior Monk runes. For jewelry right now I’m running Clerics. A big portion of my group utility as well as my own survivability comes from Selfless Daring. Since I can’t get AH or Monk’s heals, I rely very heavily on dodge rolls for heals. I keep energy sigils on my weapons and constantly dodge. If necessary, I can chain heal three times with Selfless Daring for a 3k+ heal to anyone close enough, including myself.

So if you want more staying power and group support, go Clerics. If you want the best of DPS and survivability, go Knights. If you simply must have more damage, Zerkers is the best bet.

Is it really wise to use P/V/T? Granted it helps you stay alive, but where is the damage? What exactly is the point if you are able to mitigate dmg using dodge and skills?

The damage of a PVT build does not exist, it’s as simple as that. So no, PVT is the exact opposite of a wise choice if you want to do PvE. That kind of gear is just the maximum of useless egoism – much more short-term defense than necessary, no sustain, no support, no damage.

If you want to play support, cleric will probably be the way to go. You don’t do any damage either, but you can support your group a lot and help them that way. In groups that are not very well organized and don’t play too well, this kind of support guardian is pretty useful. It just loses any function as soon as you play in an organized group of people who know what they do – there, the typical zerker builds beat everything else.

In other words, CptAurellian, it would be better to just go full zerker? Or is there a point where a LITTLE bit of healing power is good?

Offtopic: I wish we had Power+Precision+Healing gear. Seriously.

I’d either go full zerker or full cleric. Ok, to be honest, I personally would never touch a healway build or something similar, but that does not matter. Do one thing right, instead of both things badly.

The damage of any given build is going to hinge on two things – how much crit damage gear you have and how many damage multipliers you have through traits. Any build that claims to do damage that is lacking Fiery Wrath at a minimum is kidding themselves. If you really want to kill stuff you need Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power. If you are seriously committed to DPS you’ll also pick up either Greatsword Power or Powerful Blades.

Gear wise, full Berserker works but you can also use Valkyrie armor or trinkets to add to your HP pool and ward off conditions. Valkyrie has the same high power and crit damage stats of Berseker, minus precision. Precision is going to be easier to come by than health through runes, ruby orbs, sigils, and food.

foofad.5162:

Any build that claims to do damage that is lacking Fiery Wrath at a minimum is kidding themselves. If you really want to kill stuff you need Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power.

Why do you say this? Also, what do you hit for on a normal whirling wrath

Because an extra 10% damage is a huge multiplier. It’s also easily accessible as it only requires 10 points, and you get 100 more power thanks to it as well. You can keep Burning up almost constantly by yourself, more so in a group. It would take a lot of stat points to accomplish that same increase.

I’m assuming by normal you mean solo. I’m not at my computer right now but off the top of my head I hit for about 6 to 8k depending on how many crits/projectile hits I get. In a party with lots of vuln and might, my record is 16k. I also hit for about 2k/2k/1.8×3k with sword auto attack chain in that same party. That’s 10/30/0/30/0 RHS PoV.

mrauls.6519:

foofad.5162:

Any build that claims to do damage that is lacking Fiery Wrath at a minimum is kidding themselves. If you really want to kill stuff you need Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power.

Why do you say this? Also, what do you hit for on a normal whirling wrath

i am curious mrauls, with your 100%+ crit dmg, what do you hit with WW?

does 10% , 20% crit dmg make a huge difference?

Zackie.8923:

i am curious mrauls, with your 100%+ crit dmg, what do you hit with WW?

does 10% , 20% crit dmg make a huge difference?

My WW hits are normally between 5-8k. If my might stacks are high my damage can surge really high. I believe 10% or 20% c. damage does make a huge difference

Wandering around:

well dam, i just dropped 12% crit dmg for more power and crit chance.

i still hit the same at around 4-5k raw.

my crit dmg at 60 and 72 issn’t much of a difference that i can see

I like to hit as much as I possibly can, so huge for you and me is probably very different

Since you increased your power and critical chance, things probably balanced out. Higher power means higher base hits, so your critical multiplier has a better number to go off of. Along with a higher chance to have criticals, that’s probably the reason for you hitting the same

yea as i thought..

seems like the holy trinity of power/critc/critdmg is key. multiplier is a bonus that i haven’t grasp its potential yet.

but my only bonus of elusive power seems to make me hit a few hundred more only.

then there’s the other thing about DPS, i counted the number of hits it takes for me to down a mob and it seems they are about the same for 60% crit dmg and 72% crit dmg.

my power and prec went up by about 40 and 20

does this then mean 12%crit dmg is about 40power/20prec? lol i wonder…

That’s really ghetto math. Just use gw2buildcraft to compare the effective power between builds. 12% crit damage is a lot more than 40 effective power. Damage multipliers aren’t rocket science. If you have a 20% multiplier from traits, and you ordinarily do 10k damage from a Whirling Wrath, now you do 12k.

if it is as you said , then i will have to demolish my build again

but it also depends on where your current crit% dmg and power and critchance.

at baseline stat, 40 power is > 12% crit dmg because of low crit chance

and the way buildcraft’s calculator calculate effective power is weird

it uses cumulative % increase for effective power for dmg multipliers.

this means that if you have 10% increase, and your effectpower is 1000, you get 1100.

if you have 20% increase you now get 1100 + 10% of 1100 = 1210

shouldn’t it be 20% increase of 1000 = 1200?

Unless ANet has implemented really weird and stupid calculations behind the scenes, why should it be otherwise? Those multipliers come from totally independent sources, so it is only natural that they stack multiplicatively and not additively.

yea until you see a warrior hit 36k on lupicus with hundred blades.

which tells me if you max stack dmg it will be pretty insane.

so my WW of 4-5k dmg is crap.

The big problem of WW is its unreliability which needs to be fixed. The damage potential is quite fine with something like 15k under circumstances comparable to those of the warrior you mention. Also don’t be too impressed with HB numbers – he can do his 36k or whatever, but in the same time, we can have two auto-attack chains which may also hit for something like 25-30k (Or even more? In my guild, I never manage to get a decent offensive group to find out -.-). Other classes are in a worse situation than we are.

true… in fact i am starting to use auto attack rather than WW in WvW because of the better mobility and also it hits about the same in a given time.

WW isn’t much of a DPS boost unless you’re hitting 4 targets or more, because you can’t cleave more than 3 targets at once with autoattack. So you’re right in not using it except in certain circumstances. Plus autoattack keeps your might stacks going.

Secondly, damage multipliers are all summed up and multiplied out together at the end of the damage calculation (before crits). In other words, if you have 10% more damage, you’re doing 1100 instead of 1000. Gain another 10%, your multiplier becomes 20%, and now you do 1200. Where you may be getting confused is that by adding trait points to your build in order to actually get those multipliers, you’re also adding stat points, which can make it look like it’s cumulative when it isn’t. In other words just to get Fiery Wrath you’re also adding 100 power, so compared to a build without it it’s going to look like a much larger boost than 10%.

Also, yeah, 5k WW is pretty sad. Keep in mind that the 36k 100b Warrior is stacking Vuln and Might like crazy in order to accomplish that. I regularly get 16k+ WWs in groups with warriors because of all the Vuln and Might flying around. Also, 100b is just ridiculous, but whatever.

If you’re looking for maximum damage, 10/25/x/x/x with all zerk gear is a good place to start.

foofad.5162:

WW isn’t much of a DPS boost unless you’re hitting 4 targets or more, because you can’t cleave more than 3 targets at once with autoattack. So you’re right in not using it except in certain circumstances. Plus autoattack keeps your might stacks going.

Secondly, damage multipliers are all summed up and multiplied out together at the end of the damage calculation (before crits). In other words, if you have 10% more damage, you’re doing 1100 instead of 1000. Gain another 10%, your multiplier becomes 20%, and now you do 1200. Where you may be getting confused is that by adding trait points to your build in order to actually get those multipliers, you’re also adding stat points, which can make it look like it’s cumulative when it isn’t. In other words just to get Fiery Wrath you’re also adding 100 power, so compared to a build without it it’s going to look like a much larger boost than 10%.

Also, yeah, 5k WW is pretty sad. Keep in mind that the 36k 100b Warrior is stacking Vuln and Might like crazy in order to accomplish that. I regularly get 16k+ WWs in groups with warriors because of all the Vuln and Might flying around. Also, 100b is just ridiculous, but whatever.

If you’re looking for maximum damage, 10/25/x/x/x with all zerk gear is a good place to start.

well, but gw2buildcraft’s effective power calculation uses culmulative %increase not flat % increase. i didnt add power, i only added the elusive power trait which doesn’t include any attack modifiers.

how does effective power translate to actual dmg though, it is a mystery to me.

yea 16k WW sounds cool until you drop dead faster than you can cast WW in WvW

GW2Buildcraft’s calculation is either wrong, or they know more about the damage formula than I do. My understanding is that it goes (skill coefficient * power * weapon damage) * (multiplier 1 + multiplier 2 + multiplier 3) / armor but GW2Buildcraft is saying ((((coefficient * power * wpn) * (multiplier 1)) * (multiplier 2)) * (multiplier 3)) / armor. If GW2Buildcraft is correct, then it further reinforces what I was saying – the more unique multipliers you have, the better off you are.

As far as effective power translating to damage goes, you can essentially say that if you translated all of your critical chance, critical damage, damage multipliers, and so on into raw power, that’s what you’d get. In other words, if you had 0 crit and no multipliers and only had power, you’d deal the same damage if you had your effective power as you would if you had the stat combination that equaled that effective power. Just glancing at one of my builds, it has about 35% in multipliers, 2182 power, 80% crit chance, and 62% crit damage, for 6051.39 effective power. If it had 0 crit chance, 0 multipliers, and 6051.39 power, it would do the same damage as if it had the mixed stats.

Then you can compare damage between builds very simply. Because of how damage is calculated, any % increase in effective power between one build and the next translates directly into that % more damage. If you have a build that has 5500 effective power compared to one that has 6050 (a 10% increase) you know for a fact that the latter build will do 10% more damage on all its abilities, across the board.

As for dying in WvW, I’ve been running all berserker for a long time now and haven’t had any issues. GS + S/Sh.

foofad.5162:

GW2Buildcraft’s calculation is either wrong, or they know more about the damage formula than I do. My understanding is that it goes (skill coefficient * power * weapon damage) * (multiplier 1 + multiplier 2 + multiplier 3) / armor but GW2Buildcraft is saying ((((coefficient * power * wpn) * (multiplier 1)) * (multiplier 2)) * (multiplier 3)) / armor. If GW2Buildcraft is correct, then it further reinforces what I was saying – the more unique multipliers you have, the better off you are.

As far as effective power translating to damage goes, you can essentially say that if you translated all of your critical chance, critical damage, damage multipliers, and so on into raw power, that’s what you’d get. In other words, if you had 0 crit and no multipliers and only had power, you’d deal the same damage if you had your effective power as you would if you had the stat combination that equaled that effective power. Just glancing at one of my builds, it has about 35% in multipliers, 2182 power, 80% crit chance, and 62% crit damage, for 6051.39 effective power. If it had 0 crit chance, 0 multipliers, and 6051.39 power, it would do the same damage as if it had the mixed stats.

Then you can compare damage between builds very simply. Because of how damage is calculated, any % increase in effective power between one build and the next translates directly into that % more damage. If you have a build that has 5500 effective power compared to one that has 6050 (a 10% increase) you know for a fact that the latter build will do 10% more damage on all its abilities, across the board.

As for dying in WvW, I’ve been running all berserker for a long time now and haven’t had any issues. GS + S/Sh.

Can you post an SS of your stats, your damage in a fight, or a video?

I’ll just give you the link to my build. Currently I’m running: http://tinyurl.com/bakbo8b

When I’m feeling more adventurous I swap out the signet for Bane, which gives me an additional 9% damage increase. I forget if this is with Bane or without, but with full might and vuln my Sword autoattack chain hits for 3.2k/3.2k/2*3k.

I understand why your damage is so high now. I don’t understand how you could possibly survive in a dungeon for more than a few seconds with that much armor, and no sustained healing outside of sigil of blood and virtue of resolve

Omnomberry Pies, too. I heal myself for about… 1.5k every 5 seconds, I think. Something like that. Have you ever tried? If you know when to dodge, when to blind, when to stability, etc etc etc it’s really not that hard. Also, Judgement is worth 300 armor or so. And anyway, dead trash deals no damage.

In my earlier days I ran builds like that, but when I tried my first dungeon I died way too much to provide anything for my group. My builds changed a lot over time, and I believe you need at minimum 30% damage reduction and high sustained healing to compensate for low armor. Perfect scenarios are hard to come by, and things you don’t expect can happen (i always pug.) Here’s my build:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h1b|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.71j.1p.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1n.71j.1c.71j|2s.d19.2s.d19.2v.d19.3s.d1a.2s.d19.2s.d19|0.a0.u56b.u000.0|39.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

glass cannon builds will work in dungeons only if you have 4 other people who know what to do and are spec to kill.

i don’t believe a glass cannon guard will survive in wvw . maybe 1v1 you can kill before killed.

zerg fights, i don’t think so.

mrauls.6519:

In my earlier days I ran builds like that, but when I tried my first dungeon I died way too much to provide anything for my group. My builds changed a lot over time, and I believe you need at minimum 30% damage reduction and high sustained healing to compensate for low armor. Perfect scenarios are hard to come by, and things you don’t expect can happen (i always pug.) Here’s my build:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h1b|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.71j.1p.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1n.71j.1c.71j|2s.d19.2s.d19.2v.d19.3s.d1a.2s.d19.2s.d19|0.a0.u56b.u000.0|39.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

Your Critical Damage is insane!

The build i’m going for is:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.4|1.1g.h1|6.1k.h1j|1n.71j.1p.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1p.71j|311.0.311.0.211.0.211.0.311.0.2v.0|0.0.u56b.k28.k29|0.0|w.13.19.18.1i|e

Wish I can use your build but I’m not skillful enough to surivie with lower armor and health in WvW

I’m not going to argue with you. It’s what I run, and it works. Pugs, zergs, bounties, roaming, whatever.

Zackie.8923:

glass cannon builds will work in dungeons only if you have 4 other people who know what to do and are spec to kill.

Even that works, although it is more work than fun. But if you know what you encounter and have good reactions, most things are doable as a melee glass cannon no matter what kind of group you have.

Oops, just checked the link I gave – replace first Radiance trait with Blind Exposure.

CptAurellian.9537:

The damage of a PVT build does not exist, it’s as simple as that. So no, PVT is the exact opposite of a wise choice if you want to do PvE. That kind of gear is just the maximum of useless egoism – much more short-term defense than necessary, no sustain, no support, no damage.

If you want to play support, cleric will probably be the way to go. You don’t do any damage either, but you can support your group a lot and help them that way. In groups that are not very well organized and don’t play too well, this kind of support guardian is pretty useful. It just loses any function as soon as you play in an organized group of people who know what they do – there, the typical zerker builds beat everything else.

That’s a really stupid conclusion. Short term defense? No sustain? NO SUPPORT? If we are talking about PvE, we are talking about dungeons primarily. I can chain dodges together to provide a 3k burst heal to my party, if necessary. I run Healing Breeze and either shouts or consecrations, and use traits like Protective Reviver and Resolute Healer if warranted. My boon duration keeps regen, might, swiftness, and protection on allies nearly constantly, and I can provide stability very often if needed. I use Hammer/Staff which gives me a hell of a lot utility.

Don’t even attempt to tell me this build doesn’t offer my group healing and support. To suggest someone go Berserker instead while saying this build offers no support is pure idiocy. Your point about organized groups is likewise stupid. Of course more damage is the most beneficial if your group is perfect; but at that point any build is irrelevant. If you have a perfect group that mitigates their own damage, clears their own conditions, heals themselves, and are self-reliant, then it’s obvious that any support build is wasted. However, not everybody plays with the same people every night, and not every group of people plays so much that they can be perfect in a dungeon. That’s the fun of the game for some of us. If I had a group I could steamroll dungeons with effortlessly, I wouldn’t even play the dungeons.

Beyond all of that, as I said before, PVT gives you a solid amount of protection which allows for swapping of jewelry or traits as you see fit. PVT with Berserkers doesn’t do bad damage at all, and PVT with Clerics can do great support. At the end of the day it’s up to personal preference, so don’t come onto the forums trying to spread your one prescribed build as the best because it’s what works best for you in your group.

foofad.5162:

I’m not going to argue with you. It’s what I run, and it works. Pugs, zergs, bounties, roaming, whatever.

i see it as a discussion

Danson.1094:

That’s a really stupid conclusion. Short term defense? No sustain? NO SUPPORT? If we are talking about PvE, we are talking about dungeons primarily. I can chain dodges together to provide a 3k burst heal to my party, if necessary. I run Healing Breeze and either shouts or consecrations, and use traits like Protective Reviver and Resolute Healer if warranted. My boon duration keeps regen, might, swiftness, and protection on allies nearly constantly, and I can provide stability very often if needed. I use Hammer/Staff which gives me a hell of a lot utility.

Indeed, we are talking about dungeons, but obviously, you did not think about what that implies for a second. So, let’s see …

Short-term defense? Yes, absolutely, compared to knight’s (or even zerker). PVT gives you a bit more health, but once that has been beaten away, that vitality is not helpful unless you can refill it. For which PVT does not do anything, while knight’s provides extra healing by the on-crit-effects of an AH build. It’s the same for cleric’s, which will heal a lot more in any fight than the PVT vitality can give you.

No sustain? Same as above, PVT cripples AH without giving anything in return (apart from a bit health that you should not need) and cannot compare to the healing potential of cleric.

No support? Of course, that was exaggerated. Nevertheless, a healway with cleric’s gear offers a lot more support without any big downside. Both of them won’t do any meaningful damage anyways. An offensive build, on the other hand, can have the same support, but a lot more damage.

Chain dodges, healing breeze, stability, protection and whatever are not related to the armor question. That stuff can be done by anybody who choses to do it.

Don’t even attempt to tell me this build doesn’t offer my group healing and support. To suggest someone go Berserker instead while saying this build offers no support is pure idiocy.

So, let me think about it, what kind of support does PVT bring exactly that zerker can’t? Ah yes, none. They both offer more or less the same, with the slight advantage on the zerker side since it activates EM more frequently.

At the end of the day it’s up to personal preference, so don’t come onto the forums trying to spread your one prescribed build as the best because it’s what works best for you in your group.

Obviously, you should improve your reading comprehension. He asked for advice, so I pointed him into the two (!) most efficient general directions a guardian has for PvE. PVT simply has not anything to do with efficiency, but is all about egoism.

Except for the fact that by taking AH and EM in the first place, you’re crippling the support that you’re saying you can provide. By providing more up-front vitality, one can completely forgo the Valor line because the self healing is no longer necessary in order to function with an otherwise pitiful health pool. Which is great, since the Adept and Master traits in Valor are terrible.

Would you seriously argue that a build with 30 points in Honor and 30 points in Virtues does not provide more support to a team than a 30 Valor AH build? Where’s your Resolute Healer, Absolute Resolution, Battle Presence or Pure of Voice? Where’s your 10 second duration Sanctuary for interrupts and revives? Where’s the 70% increased boon duration? But yes, clearly wearing armor that grants me more damage but necessitates AH for any sort of staying power is the better supporter.

Running PVT on your armor gives you the option of switching weapons and jewelry as needed, while also enabling you to focus on traits that benefit others rather than yourself. That’s what a support build is. The OP said he wanted to support his party.

@op: this is my stats i do everything with (1 build to rule them all)
its the standard 0/5/30/30/5 AH build, i run high lvl fracs (48), general pve, wvw with this set up and it works great so far

Try swapping that signet for Bane and see how much more damage you do. You probably won’t miss the old one.

Danson.1094:

Running PVT on your armor gives you the option of switching weapons and jewelry as needed, while also enabling you to focus on traits that benefit others rather than yourself. That’s what a support build is. The OP said he wanted to support his party.

For the last time: PVT has no viable role in PvE. If you really want to do support, take cleric’s (with maybe a bit magi, if you play so badly that you need the extra health) with a healway build. That beats any PVT crap by worlds since most groups will profit a lot from it. On the other hand, zerker/knight with AH, if you still struggle to survive, or without AH if you do well, will help you to deal much more damage with still some decent support.

Now I’m done with wasting my time on this incredibly stupid issue. Have fun.

CptAurellian.9537:

Danson.1094:

Running PVT on your armor gives you the option of switching weapons and jewelry as needed, while also enabling you to focus on traits that benefit others rather than yourself. That’s what a support build is. The OP said he wanted to support his party.

For the last time: PVT has no viable role in PvE. If you really want to do support, take cleric’s (with maybe a bit magi, if you play so badly that you need the extra health) with a healway build. That beats any PVT crap by worlds since most groups will profit a lot from it. On the other hand, zerker/knight with AH, if you still struggle to survive, or without AH if you do well, will help you to deal much more damage with still some decent support.

Now I’m done with wasting my time on this incredibly stupid issue. Have fun.

Of course you’re done, you’re wildly incorrect.