Guild Wars 2

So now seeing as Ascended Amulets are rollig out. Still missing some stat combinations. And now im lost within the build.
I have a full Power/vit/tough Armour + weapons
And I had Knight jewels Power/prec/tough.
This made me tanky yet do decent damage.
Now the Knight combination isnt coming ascended gear.
So, what should pick te replace this lost combo?
All prec came from my jewels.

Hey guys

Just hit 80 yesterday and I wanted to say a few things and ask a few questions.

Thanks Brutality for posting this build. I’ve tried a ton of builds throughout my leveling process and keep coming back to this one.

Thanks akamon for your support of this thread\build inspiring innovation and keeping the build alive.

Those things being said let me say that being 80 is a bit intimidating. The amount of gear available is a bit overwhelming and I’ve read through this thread regarding the different sets etc. I currently sport the cheap karma gear from various vendors in Cusred Shore (not temple vendors) just because I liked the look. I also know that there was a patch yesterday and many things may change.

I play PvE almost exclusively so please consider that when evaluating my questions.

So my question is, where do I start? I’ve got 35 Jugs of Karma and a Karma booster waiting to go so I figured I’d start with a karma set from one of the temples in Cursed Shore. Is this a good idea?

Is there a “Baby’s first exotic” cookie cutter gear set you’d recommend to start with that I can then branch out from? (Including accessories)

Moving on, I have a trait question. First here’s my current build:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mccM0z0MzcNvGmmNvGm9MxxaVoqMsRM

Considering that and my PvE-centric gameplay the trait that gives me the most grief is Empowering Might. Because I can’t decide between it and Pure of Voice (or even Battle Presence). I know I could drop 2H Mastery and have both but I just can’t bring myself to do that. What has been your experience with this trait line? What’s been most beneficial? Is it worth dropping 2H Mastery?

Thanks guys again for the build and active discussion on the guard. It’s what made me roll one.

After new patch animationskipping does not work anymore.

Regarding skipping, and other stuff, i will update the guide but i have tons of work to do and i dont have time to read thru right now but i hope i will get to it during february.

DamagePlan.5694:

Is there a “Baby’s first exotic” cookie cutter gear set you’d recommend to start with that I can then branch out from? (Including accessories)

For first karmagear i would go for vit/tough/pow and get soldiers runes in them and use master maintenance oil, omnomberry pie, berserker weapons and earrings and knights amulet/rings.

Top that with a 0/15/30/20/5 build and you can do all content in the game and hit hard as well. I would run with hammer adn GS as first set of weapons and have a scepter/focus as back up when ranged is needed.

@DamagePlan – glad you found the guide so useful! i did as well so i try to contribute as much as possible. and always up for sharing with other Guardians.

i know what you mean about the gear choices. then throw in builds, traits, sigils, runes… i have about 3, 4 variations of an AH build. and more outside of it lol and i still am not super set on one. i keep changing and have so many sets of armour now. but that’s one of the beauties of this game i feel.

that being said, if you want to use karma, like Brutaly said, go for PVT (Soldier’s) gear and Soldier’s runes are always a good start for an AH build.

i’d suggest taking Retributive Armor as well in Valor (precision from toughness) to add more crit chance since you’re sporting PowVitTough gear.

i personally went with all knight’s gear, knight’s jewels and a mix of berserker or knight’s weapons. i then went and got a PVT set and felt it didn’t work as well for me. though everyone’s different : )) then i slowly started mixing in berserker’s jewelry / gear the more i got used to the build. also changed my runes to be more “offensive” as well.

i also loved running hammer with staff using AH. staff #4 was always a good mini-massive heal dependig on how many allies are around you and adds a ton of dmg. switch back to hammer and you hit hard.

[added: oops! forgot to mention. regarding 2h mastery.. i personally love it. but i choose depending what weapons i plan to use and in what situation. for e.g. if it’s an easier dungeon, i’ll go with empowering might (i never felt not running with this drastically affected the heals i was getting either). if i’m in WvW, i might stick with PoV since there’s a higher chance of being inflicted with conditions, if i’m running hammer and a MH/OH set, i most likely won’t run with 2hmastery. though i will if i am sporting both hammer and GS or staff, etc etc… i think writ of exaltation or writ of the merciful can be extremely strong as well, in both group and solo situations, namely in PvE. so mess around with all of the traits. i think when you max out Honor it’s a very strong line to play with. especially with the hammer or anything symbol heavy. hope this helps!]

So… what’s the general direction regarding ascended gear? If we don’t switch to ascended then it’s like we’re running around in rares, but the ascended doesn’t offer Pow/Tough/Pre. Are we better off staying with exotics?

hmm, i assume they’ll eventually add Knight’s (and other gear like Cleric’s) to ascended in the future. at least i hope so. currently running exotics now and don’t feel the need to get ascended yet…

PowPreTough is definitely one of the best sets of gear for a staple AH build. hopefully we’ll see some soon.

I hope so too. Maybe ANet is trying to lower the amount of precision in a build? I’ve thought about running P/V/T gear… it just doesn’t sound too great though. Less toughness, no crits, and only a little more health :/..

So I switched from 0/0/30/30/5 to 0/15/30/20/5 as suggested above to test out.

I was doing some random running around and I was surprised as how much lower my survivability was. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I haven’t picked up my exotics yet

I’m in full exotics (Knight’s) with exotic … everything. Even I found my survivability tanking (so to speak) with that build and immediately went back to 30/30/10.

Where is the Karma vendor who sells vit/pre/heal armor? I could use this one while I collect what I need for my knight armor

Thanks

hithlain.4385:

Where is the Karma vendor who sells vit/pre/heal armor? I could use this one while I collect what I need for my knight armor

Thanks

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightbringer_Brutefur

In fact I have noticed this is one of the many merchants, one in each cathedral. But if we want vit/pre/heal armor, then we have to mix armor pieces, right?

I have made the mistake of buying both the dwayna breastplate and leggings. Breastplate is vit/pre/heal, but leggings is pre/toughness/cond damage.

Hey folks!

New to hammer, I was wondering what you all thought about this build for PvE

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQBgCIXglCAAA/AAXPAAAAA

I would swap Strength in Numbers for Purity when running dungeons.

@Balerathon I don’t see any traits on that build. I will say that I’m not a big fan of Selfless Daring and the 5 points could go somewhere else. I’ll offer more thoughts when I know what traits you want to run.

Selfless daring is the heal on roll, right? If so, I think this is a good trait. This is one of OP build, I mean to put 5 points in this. As with other traits you have vigors on criticals, you do critics quite often, so you can roll quite often, and so to heal while rolling is very fine to me…

Today we killed a level 80 champion troll, we were just two. It took a bit of time, but evading while healing was a good thing, and I healed myself AND the other one as well, as I planned my rolls so I ended up near him…

@DamagePlan Sorry, I didn’t click “get link” at bottom, I’m used to calcs updating a visible url on the fly.

Here is a build I’ve been thinking about since I posted here…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS7dlYg67mFyIEfIFRWhVaVggYK0YGve4QKyQA

Not really sure about the Virtues line, but I’m not seeing much else. I do roll with a scepter/focus offhand though.

As before, I would swap Strength in Numbers for Purity when running dungeons.

Ideas?

@Brutality / @akamon
Maybe I missing something but according to the info here:
http://i.imgur.com/RJX6Y.jpg

There is no soldier’s heavy helm is that true?

@Balerathon
I found with builds etc you really have to play what you like and what feels good to you. That being said, what was your thought process in foregoing Superior Aria?

I’m a little confused as to what to choose on a purely PvE standpoint. I play mostly dungeons and fractals, and I’m a little sick of using the greatsword. I’d be grateful if someone knowledgeable could answer a few questions.

I currently have a full set of PVT armor, 0/15/30/20/5, and knight jewelry. I have less than 40% crit chance at the moment.

Rune wise, should I go with of the Soldier for the condition removal or Lyssa for the added crit chance ?

And for the hammer, considering I have low Healing Power (325) would it be wiser to choose Magi or go with Knight ?

@DamagePlan

Well I hadn’t really thought about it much, but I suppose that being able to click off all my Hammer skills 20% faster than being able to do SY and HtL.

I’m not married to it. Do you think it’s worth dumping 2h mastery for SA?

If I was going to drop anything for SA it’d be WoE but like I said it’s important to play what you like

So you’d sacrifice radius for frequency. Do you find that the effect of a smaller radius has a significant or noticeable impact during group play?

I have a question regarding armor guys. Which is better to gain you that “sweet spot” of critical chance and damage while maintaining a tanky build? P/V/T Armor and Knight trinkets? or Knights armor and P/V/T trinkets? or just full on knights everything?

Imo pvt isnt the best choice for an AH guardian, in pve its knights and as you get better you use berserkers instead.

In fact i find knights to offer better survivability then pvt.

Knights are tanky and dps at the same time and the sweetspot should be found with the help of berserkers. Pvt actually dont make you any tankier, it just gives you a larger healthpool and less chance to crit/procc EM or vigorous precision. So more of a larger room for error but less survivability over time.

Thanks but would this be the same for accessories as well? Start with knights and as you get better use berserkers? I need to know where to wisely spend my laurels :P

I would start with full knights armor and trinkets and berserker weapons and rune of the soldier.

This is a really nice starting point regarding toughness, crit, critdamage and also decent vitality.

After that i would start to look for the sweetspot that suits you.

Some people need knights weapons as well but the better you play the more offense you can add in thru changing gear.

My adice is to use omnomberry pie and master maintenance oil.

This is a kick kitten combination i all aspects of the game.

@DamagePlan – there are a few Soldier helms actually : )) AC, HotW or SE (iirc) dungeons offer PVT stats. but if you’re going the karma route, then yes, there is no temple that sells Soldier helms for Karma.

@Ashariel – just speaking from experience here ; )) again, PVT armour has it’s place, but i’d at least mix in some Knight’s with it (your crit chance could be EASILY higher). like Brutaly mentioned, i myself found full Knight’s to be more survivable than PVT mixed with Knight’s jewelry. AH build hugely benefits from crits, from traits to runes to sigils.. so the more crit chance, the better i feel.

plus, if you plan to go with Soldier runes, you get added vit and toughness from there, so maybe you’d feel more comfortable picking up some knight’s armor to bring up the crit chance. I’ve heard Lyssa does wonders and many Guards like it. quick question – which elite do you use? do note that if you use either Tome, since they count as transformations, the #6 Lyssa effect doesn’t occur with the Tomes, unless if you actively transform out of the Tome Elites (i.e. if you just let it run it’s course, the runes won’t remove conditions, and give you boons). though works okay with renewed focus, and i assume racial elites, again, as long as they aren’t transformational skills.

lastly, for hammer, it’s one of the “tankier” weapons if you will. with great CC and the symbol of proection. with high enough crit chance ~40%+, i don’t feel you need extra healing with the AH build. so i’d go with Knight’s. or even Berserkers when you get more used to the build and can mitigate more dmg through gameplay ; )))

@Balerathon – when i go deep in Honors, it’s always hard for me to choose traits lol. when i am using WoE i love the added radius. can hit more allies, and foes.. though shout CD is super useful as well. so depends on my build and weapon choices at the time. if both weapon sets i’m currently equipping don’t have symbols, then i’ll most likely ditch WoE. if i am using judge’s intervention or purging flames or WoR consistently, or even a mix and match, i’ll most likely drop SA. and i don’t feel the regular sized symbols are gimped too badly. though i’d just wish they were the traited size to start with. :ppp

and everything Brutaly said ; )))

I got a question regarding secondary weapons for PvE. I know that I should sport a weapon for every situation depending on the dungeon but I want to justify my buying expensive skins for weapons I never use in normal combat so here goes.

I run a weird Knight (Legs, Boots, Gloves), H/P/V Helm and Soldier Chest with 6x Lyssa, H/P/V acc and Berserker amulet/rings because I’ve been trying to mix things up and I’m rocking a berserker hammer.
Well, the issue comes now: I never use the scepter and the sword and I only use the staff in certain dungeons. Usually I just cycle through the hammer and the GS to either do everything or do some slightly better damage.
I really get the feeling that investing in anything that isn’t a hammer and maybe a GS might be a waste of time and money.

Am I doing something fundamentally wrong?

Hi. I have soldiers armour, and run with full knight’s accessories. I play with 0/0/30/30/10. The problem is I only have a critchance of 34% and critdamage of 30%. Sould I change my gear? My only concern is the cost and that I will not have the 3000+ armour and 16000+ health.

Thank you for your time =)

@RAVVSlathotep – nahh, you’re not doing anything wrong per se. everyone has their weapons of choice. that being said, i do carry a butt ton on me (i think i have about 20 weapons on me at any given time, lol 5 of them being hammers lol). for me, i like it because i have a good 3 – 4 builds i run depending on mood, but i also need to match armor / concept / color schemes / background stories lolol so i might be overboard.

that being said, it ultimately depends on what you’re doing as well. in general i feel with an AH build, my favorite set-up would be hammer and staff (#5 LoW to stop enemies, then #4 empower, then switch to hammer #2 is to die for XDD). though for e.g. if you’re in WvW and you need more control, the shield is a good alternative. if you’re solo-ing, the sword / focus is nice to have. scepter for when you’re at “ranged” fights in dungeons or taking keeps in WvW… so it all depends. if you really just want to use hammer and GS, by all means, for got it. it’s easily one of my favourite weapon combos ; ))

there are Guardians out there that can make ANYTHING work. so long as you enjoy it. both hammer and GS work well with the build.

@Tiibags – i did some basic math so might not be exact to the number you presented, but here goes. i’m assuming you’re already using Retributive Armor (trait – 5% of toughness to precision)? also, what runes, weapon stats and sigils are you using? and food and oil?

it’s not necessary that you change your gear. if you haven’t yet, try tacking on a master maintenance oil (should add about ~160+ precision with your stats = ~7% crit chance). other ways you can compensate and make the numbers you want:

• food – for e.g. food that adds precision + crit dmg% if you so pls. also, take a look at the wiki and check prices. lot of good food out there that are dirt cheap
• runes – TON of options right here and i think to be quite fun figuring out : ))
• sigils – again, even more options. for e.g. sigil of accuracy adds 5% crit chance, though it doesn’t reflect on the hero panel / tooltips (unless if they fixed / changed that)

so you can mix and match to get your desired stats. though i will add, i ran full knight’s starting off and was more than fine. a lot of people will then move to mix and match knight’s berserker’s gear and maybe even valkyrie after they get more used to it. or like to min/max. Soldiers/PVT is good to start with. though i feel once you get more crit chance, you’ll just want more. ; ))) hope this helps!

[edit: typos and added info]

@akamon – Don’t get me wrong, I have all the weapons and two versions of each at least (I got 3 hammers, not 5, though). The deal is I don’t think that the present Guardian has any use for most of them except in very situational occasions so I keep telling people to focus on 2h weapons and maybe a sword and a focus. Maybe. And maybe this has to do with the fact that a 0/15/30/20/5 Guardian like me can switch from EM to 2HM on the fly.

@RAVV – ahh my bad! i somehow missed the bit about justifying expensive skins. i can definitely relate though. like for e.g. torch i only have one, and i rarely use it and i got a cheap skin that i didn’t mind. the rest i worked hard cause i have different builds and they have their place in my various builds, so to speak. i’ll agree the beauty of this build (and game) is that you can switch traits on the fly. the writs can be quite effective too! depending on what you’re wielding. i personally feel 2hers do pretty awesome with this build. and with your build in particular, sword + focus is good too.

but i will beg to differ than the other weapons are only situational. again, boils down to personal preference : )) though that can be for a different thread. lol

Love guild fellas! Keep up the solid work. I’m running running 0/10/30/30/0 with full exotic knights gear and trinkets. For runes I’m running a full set of superior dolyak. I can take my full share of hits no doubt but is the runes overkill on toughness?

Been a while and i have been very busy in my business but i got a couple of hours to kill so i updated the guide with some minor changes.

I also fixed some typos (not all) and made a couple of changes to increase readability.

Updated sections

“4. Altruistic Healing and its potential” due to change in vigorous precision.
“7. Must have traits” Fixed the description on Vigorous Precision.
“10. Armour” changed the order of priority on the armor and also added clerics which in combination with certain runes and accessories can work really well in a AH/crit build.
“11. Accessories” Added magi accessories as fourth priority.
“12. Runes” Added Runes of Melandru as a valid choice for the ones that has issues with conditions and play AH without shouts and use consecrations instead.
“15. Consumables” Added Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup for reduced condition duration.
“22. Animations skipping” Removed ninja skipping since its been removed in the last patch.

I will make it so the links work so you guys can speed scroll to the section of your choice.

EDIT:
Updated the links in OP so now you can click them and brows the selected chapter.

Brutaly thankyou, guss you are never in on GW2Sverige, have solved the most questions i had

Shadow.3475:

Brutaly thankyou, guss you are never in on GW2Sverige, have solved the most questions i had

Will pop in there tonight and help you out. Been very busy in my business lately but it has settled now. I have no idea what people are talking about when say its a recession. :-)

They say that because they cannot spend willy-nilly now and not deal with the consequences. People (myself included) have to be smart about our purchasing decisions.

Updated:
“18. Recommended stats for it to work” with lower critchance. The reason for the update is that the change to vigorous precision makes it possible have to have lower critchance, and still benefit from a procc. The internal cd makes it possible to min/max without high critchance.

This makes AH builds relatively more favorable for more defensive setups like soldiers gear, and relatively less favorable for Berserker/knights.

thanks for the update, Brutaly! much apprecaite for the time and effort you put into maintaining this for all of us – new and vet Guardians alike.

and i take it business is going well then. ; ))) keep it up!

happy Canthan new year to all heh.

Want to say thanks so much for this guide, only hit 80 a week ago on my guard and had no idea what I was doing.

tried a full power/tough/vit staff build (trying to be a healer) and found my damage was horrid, so I switched for out for this build and its amazing

running Hammer/Staff 0/5/30/30/5 with knights in the big slots and berserker in the less important ones, hit like a truck and can face tank and heal pretty well too.

Thanks for this guide

Now that i have 30 laurels, is there any specific ascended amulet that would fit best for this build? or would it be better to continue using a exotic knight’s one till they release an ascended knight’s amulet?

Depends on you current setup. If you are full knights on everything then i would go for berserker first and soldiers as second.

Or save the laurels and wait until they introduce knights, i have a hard time believeing that they wont introduce it in the near future.

Is it just me or links to the gw2skills.net website not loading the proper major traits?

@Xavi – it’s meant to be that way, if i understand you correctly. : ))

Brutaly essentially laid out the trait points distribution that serve this build well, but is not saying you must use specific traits for the builds to work. which is great – because (1) it allows each player to mix and match their own preferred play style, and (2) it in a sense makes us learn the class better by thinking and experimenting and hopefully be able to further improve upon this build or the class in general.

there are probably more points lol

What do you guys think about Solaria and Lunaria for Rings?

That there are a bunch of stats you don’t need.

That some people find then to be a good choice, if they dont know where they will evolve to next and what stats they need in the future.

In general i dont find them fitting for the profession. I would consider using them on my power/crit/condition/shout warrior though.

Excellent read, useful even before reaching 80 (or even 60, the earliest you can unlock AH). Helped me learn some things and plan ahead while I’m levelling, too. One part of the guide sparked a memory of my own that might help update information.

In Section 13- Sigils, there was a question about using Perception and Bloodlust together. Specifically, with Perception in one weapon set and Bloodlust in the other, could you build stacks of both effects together by killing some with one weapon and some with the other?

A while back I was running a Minor Bloodlust sigil (was in the late 20’s at the time) on one weapon, and decided to try a Minor Luck on my other set. From what I recall of that experiment, I don’t think the stacking buffs from these “gain stack of X on kill” sigils are compatible- whichever one gets earned first will be the only one that will count until you lose the stacks. It DID work to have the same rune on all weapons in the loadout though, so you could stack on every kill regardless of which weapon set was out.

I’ll try to get some time in to field test this again and make sure, maybe also test the different strengths to see if it was just a bug in the Minor tier sigils or if it’s across the family. Can’t try out the top stuff yet since I’m still yet to break 60 (limited game time most nights) but I’ll do what I can.

UPDATE: Well, some of tonight’s non-GW plans collapsed so I went ahead and checked out the sigils at Minor and Major tiers. My memory was right- whichever stack effect is earned first will lock out the others until the stack is lost. Minor level didn’t actually HAVE a Perception sigil (odd, that) but I tried out another stacking one and the results were consistent. I’d wager it behaves the same all the way to 80.

DhZ.8234:

using Perception and Bloodlust together. Specifically, with Perception in one weapon set and Bloodlust in the other, could you build stacks of both effects together by killing some with one weapon and some with the other?

You are correct, it was doable a long time ago, but in this case its a typo and will be fixed in the next update.

Thx for reminding me, i missed that in the update i did.

I would wait until the pvp patch at least. If knights are introduced they would be my first choice but it all depends on build and what you need, there is no straight answer here.

What do you lack in your build?
What will you have the best lever from?
That is what i would choose.

But if you want an advise i would go for berserkers on the back and the reason for that is that you get just as much crit damage as on any other piece but the rest of the stats are lower so if you want crit damage then the back is an excellent choice for that.