Guild Wars 2

It’s good for open world since you won’t need much support. I’d use superior aria though when your not doing big zerg fest events for more swiftness. You will be doing almost as much damage as gs + 1h/focus builds.

Back again!

So with the new update 2 question, just if you have it at your fingertips Obal (or anyone). What is the DPS on Tome of Wrath now? We’re looking at 10% increased damage on the #1 skill and 5% faster iirc.

Also, the Spirit Sword and Spirit Hammer, what are the DPS on those? Not that I see them getting a lot of use but there are times I have an extra slot I could toss something in, and Vuln from sword doesn’t sound bad and neither does an extra blast finisher, though I’d imagine the knockback of hammer could be troublesome.

Just curious as always.

And thanks for the tips on Lupi Obal, I’ve gotten him into the third phase so far, but still having trouble there.

I will look into the weapons and tome soon. Sword seems worthwhile but I don’t think hammer will be. I guess it can be taken over ban sig/save yourselves at times. The shield change is definitely nice though. I didn’t see the tome skills getting faster except for #5 in the notes. I’ll probably update the guide around the patch if they turn out worthwhile.

Doh yeah i read some of the notes wrong, there is no decreased cast time on the #1 skill. For some reason I read it as a 5% on the #1 skill when it was just referencing the #5 being reduced, my bad. And thanks. I’m already slotting tome of wrath at times just for the poor man’s time warp tht I can activate right before a fight for a few seconds of quickness (like on the way down to destroyer and such) but it’d be nice if I could actually make use of the tome more without it being a waste of time.

I finally switched to your Hammer Build and I have to say I’m impressed, my virtues seems to be refreshing quicker, my utilities refresh quicker, seems as though I can even spam my blast finisher all the time; plus it feels like I’ve got more survivability with your build than with the AH build I was putzing around with.

The only thing I changed was the trait that increased Great Sword damage to the number 3 trait that increased Protection since I use Hammer exclusively.

PS off to farm some more to save up for my Mjolnir ( the real Hammer legendary).

Are you going to edit the guide,Obal?Any significant changes?

I already did. Sword of Justice is decent in unoptimal cases. In an organized group that stacks might and vuln bane signet would be better. Tome of Wrath still isn’t worth taking. The only good part of the change was Shield of the Avenger. Use the command immediately and when it recharges to get 2 more aegis. I don’t see it being a replacement for retreat but it will be amazing in fractals or wherever you take both wall and shield.

can yawl link your post September pack GUARDIAN DUNGEON BUILDS?

ty

The builds didn’t change so the links are still the current builds. I just never added all the rotations to all the links but they are in the main text guide here.

thank you very much

Maybe this has been asked before, but I am wondering if the dps calculations for builds that include Greatsword assume that the player is always in enemy hitbox for Whirling Wrath. Being in enemy hitbox can sometimes be tricky when they are moving, too small or their aggro is on the player. If the calculations are made by that assumption, does hitting poorly with Whirling Wrath affect the dps substantually?

It assumes 16 hits on whirling wrath. I’d imagine it would be something like 1k or less dps but I don’t have calcs without it so I can’t say for sure.

I’d also like to add, for a while now when stacking straight on a boss and using reflect/projectile absorb, the projectile bypass the reflect and goes straight to me, in some case like alphard where stacking behind the boxes is usually the preferred tactic reflect often fail, and if you want it to work you have to back up outside the enemy box which make whirlwind wrath a lot weaker.

I’d also like to know what kind of dps loss we should expect from standing outside the enemy box. Thanks Obal.

Trice.4598:

I’d also like to add, for a while now when stacking straight on a boss and using reflect/projectile absorb, the projectile bypass the reflect and goes straight to me, in some case like alphard where stacking behind the boxes is usually the preferred tactic reflect often fail, and if you want it to work you have to back up outside the enemy box which make whirlwind wrath a lot weaker.

I’d also like to know what kind of dps loss we should expect from standing outside the enemy box. Thanks Obal.

yeah I’ve noticed that on Alphard, it seems if you’re inside the enemy hit box you’ll be hit before the reflect can trigger, so you have to step out. As soon as you see that large reflect spam, get in and whirl, then back out.

And again, curious as well Sometimes you just can’t get inside, Lupi for example if I have agro on him, if I jump inside him he seems to want to move, so I can’t (yes I know scepter is optimal, but I’m a lupi noob and the leap on sword is nice for getting back quickly after the p3 big AE circle as well as for cleaving down locust).

I’ll ask dekeyz to run a few builds with normal ww. I’m not going to have her run them all though. If you have a specific one in mind you want to see then let me know.

obal.3218:

I’ll ask dekeyz to run a few builds with normal ww. I’m not going to have her run them all though. If you have a specific one in mind you want to see then let me know.

I really need to sit down and look at her math sometime just to feel less dumb about it

But, how did she figure the coefficients of WW? Did she figure it as one lump sum total of all 14 hits projectiles and melee?

If she figured the damage of each individual projectile and melee hit couldn’t it be as easy as sitting outside the hitbox and finding an average of hits , maybe even a range on different sizes, and multiply that by the coefficients of the individual strikes?

As far as the build and total dps loss overall and all that, /shrug I’d just go with 45005 as to me that’s the most middle ground “base build” IMO.

Though, I asked it a while ago and you had said it was worthwhile but I’d be curious to see it on the 35042 hammer build honestly. If you’re not in the hit box I still have the feeling it’s just not worth swapping to GS for damage other than to give an opening between light fields for whatever reason.

Either way, thanks to you both for always keeping us informed on the math side of guardian (and for her, her elementalist guides are amazing!) so, please pass along my thanks when you do ask her.

1k of loss seems nasty. I was thinking for quite some time to go with something like Hammer / Mace + Focus, maybe I should start trying it now. The numbers of that setup seems good on your calculations too. Thank you very much.

Pregnantman.8259:

1k of loss seems nasty. I was thinking for quite some time to go with something like Hammer / Mace + Focus, maybe I should start trying it now. The numbers of that setup seems good on your calculations too. Thank you very much.

Both mace and hammer’s big weakness is those darn light fields.

Dekeyz added rows to the bottom of the dps chart for 9ww. It is one single lump sum like you said though the # of hits are taken in account for virtue of justice passive proc.

Despite the light fields I feel mace + hammer setup is quite good after trying especially in pugs, which I almost always roll in. I can still have on demand burst with mace and focus that I had in greatsword, though I miss the CC and the leap in greatsword 2 extra blocks, chain blind and condition removal comes handy and I have more vulnurability for using two frequently applied symbols. As for the light field issue, mace is on the same boat as greatsword; both have symbols that can be applied on demand so they can be applied after better fields.

My only problem is what to select as a master trait when I have 5 in Zeal. I wish we had more options.

I just got my guardian to 80 recently and am considering how to gear him up. my only other 80 is an engineer so I only really needed to craft an ascended rifle for him. As such I can start right away on ascended weapons for my guard and think I have enough mats for 1 already. So, I am wondering what my priorities list should be. My guess is greatsword should be first but not sure after that. maybe hammer → sword → mace → focus? (looking at this, it is obviously a long term goal especially if I ever want to make armor lol)

I’d probably go focus second, as you’ll use it with sword, mace, and scepter.

I’d agree with GS first and focus second. After that I would get a sword. After that if you do fractals often and play with groups that need a little help staying alive then hammer. If you don’t then I would just go for mace then scepter. Torch would be the last. You should be using GS, mace, sword, and focus the most.

I think the base damage improvement is the real deal breaker in ascended weapons, as stat increase is minimal. You can benefit from the base damage improvement more if you attack by using the weapon skills of the ascended weapon more, so I think you should get your main hand weapons first since the base damage improvement will constantly be seen through auto attacks, unlike say focus where you can use its skills rather infrequently. Also note that the base damage improvement should be around %5 for one hand weapons and %10 for two handed weapons.

If you want to go for sword/greatsword setup, I would start with greatsword then do sword, scepter, mace, hammer and finally focus. If you want to go with hammer/greatsword setup I would do (I am doing in this order) greatsword then hammer, mace, scepter, sword and focus. You should get scepter after getting the base of your set done (main hand) as it can come handy in some situations where you have to range, kite or solo.

What are your thoughts on mixing Nomads and Zerker for more survivability?

Nomads is the worst gear for pve since it doesn’t boost damage. It would be better to get gear that boosts both damage and survival. Celestial would give the most damage and least survival. Knights is middle ground for the two. Soldiers gives the least damage and most survival. The difference between knights and soldiers for damage is very minimal so you can take your pick. I prefer knights for reasons I use it but a few soldier pieces would probably be the best all around thing for you if that’s what your going for. Also keep in mind that healing power scales very poorly so it’s basically a wasted stat so it’s best to ignore anything with that on it.

I wound up going with soldiers armor, and Zerker weps/Trinks.

Curious as to the dps potential of the following two builds.

2h Mastery
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR5NmIeQs7TtBag90tRB-ThRBABXt/o8DPdDAcRAy7JAQp6PmpEkUA6JMC-e

Mace of Justice
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR5NmIeQqNQDcnu9yj9A-ThRBABXt/o8DPdDAcRAy7JAQp6PmpEkUA6JMC-e

The idea is utilizing the following rotation:

Sy Faith → Swap GS → Sy Wrath → WW → Auto → WW → Swap Mace → Sy Faith → Auto/repeat

Unsure if 2h mastery is better for shorter wait between swap to mace, or 5% extra mace damage is better.

The Sy Faith + Sy Wrath + WW provides some pretty big burst, overlapping symbols provide some sustained dps while auto attacking till next burst. Could try to time in a protector’s strike for more burst if you want.

Question is how does that match up to the optimal builds. I looked at the attached spreadsheet, and the GS/Mace builds didn’t have the same trait layout, and I was unsure of how the dps rotation was being measured.

I didn’t know if you guys had a spreadsheet that would calculate out the dps based on rotation, or just went out and tested it yourselves. If anyone would be so inclined, I am wondering how someone else’s math compares to what I am estimating it out to be.

The second build doesn’t look worthwhile over the first one since it would do less dps and has no blind/vuln spam. The first one would probably be more dps doing 2/6 instead of 5/3 since the majority of your damage isn’t coming from symbols. Judging by the rest of the spreadsheet the first one would probably be in the upper 9k range if you ignore elusive power since it won’t be triggered much and a bit more if you consider it. There is 3/5/0/4/2 gs mace calc that is 9896 which would lead to similar damage. I’m not sure if 2h or writ was used but it would be the better of the two for that trait spread. It seemed like 2h mastery rotations were harder to pull off when I did them for the calcs.

The rotations video I made are what were used for the calcs along with a few others like 2h mastery tests and such. We do a rotation for 30s as perfect as possible and count all the different attacks done chopping off any further hits and symbol ticks at the 30s mark and then plug them into formulas. Doing new rotations would be a lot of work and Dekeyz isn’t that interested in the game anymore so I don’t want to bug her for exact numbers. She started to use some program as well which makes her work unsharable for people to pick it up and try to use it and dumps the results to a spreadsheet. The best I can give you is the ballpark above.

obal.3218:

The second build doesn’t look worthwhile over the first one since it would do less dps and has no blind/vuln spam. The first one would probably be more dps doing 2/6 instead of 5/3 since the majority of your damage isn’t coming from symbols. Judging by the rest of the spreadsheet the first one would probably be in the upper 9k range if you ignore elusive power since it won’t be triggered much and a bit more if you consider it. There is 3/5/0/4/2 gs mace calc that is 9896 which would lead to similar damage. I’m not sure if 2h or writ was used but it would be the better of the two for that trait spread. It seemed like 2h mastery rotations were harder to pull off when I did them for the calcs.

The rotations video I made are what were used for the calcs along with a few others like 2h mastery tests and such. We do a rotation for 30s as perfect as possible and count all the different attacks done chopping off any further hits and symbol ticks at the 30s mark and then plug them into formulas. Doing new rotations would be a lot of work and Dekeyz isn’t that interested in the game anymore so I don’t want to bug her for exact numbers. She started to use some program as well which makes her work unsharable for people to pick it up and try to use it and dumps the results to a spreadsheet. The best I can give you is the ballpark above.

Unfortunate that we can’t try it out for real, but I trust the judgement and experience. Thank you for the time.

About 2-3k off from the top dps, not horrible but probably not worth going down unless you like the weapon set. So I guess we can stamp “average” on it.

If Obal is still around, curious what the difference between Focus and Torch will be as far as potential damage with the change? I figure focus is still better, but any thoughts on the comparison? I need an excuse to throw fire!

The patch won’t make a difference for that in gs + 1h builds. You should be on the 1h set for about 9-10s. Camping it longer for another zealot’s fire would be worse. If your starting out in 1h for quick boss fights then the 2 focus skills will do quite a bit more than torch since the shield. The only way it could be better damage is if the shield doesn’t hit or if it is a long fight since shield will be on cd every other rotation. Adding 6 stacks of vuln and not having to dodge while shield is up still would be more appealing. Open world bosses I guess throw some fire if you want.

The only change I see with it would be the scepter rotation. The new rotation of smite -> focus skills -> 3x zealot’s fire instead of 2x -> focus skills -> repeat would be better. It will be less dps in our calcs since they are cut off at 30s and that means 1 less ray of judgement and a few seconds of waiting on zealot’s fire again. It will lead to more at that point. Both focus skills will be off recharge instead of having to swap back and forth like before for longer fights so it will be a nice clean rotation.

obal.3218:

The patch won’t make a difference for that in gs + 1h builds. You should be on the 1h set for about 9-10s. Camping it longer for another zealot’s fire would be worse. If your starting out in 1h for quick boss fights then the 2 focus skills will do quite a bit more than torch since the shield. The only way it could be better damage is if the shield doesn’t hit or if it is a long fight since shield will be on cd every other rotation. Adding 6 stacks of vuln and not having to dodge while shield is up still would be more appealing. Open world bosses I guess throw some fire if you want.

The only change I see with it would be the scepter rotation. The new rotation of smite -> focus skills -> 3x zealot’s fire instead of 2x -> focus skills -> repeat would be better. It will be less dps in our calcs since they are cut off at 30s and that means 1 less ray of judgement and a few seconds of waiting on zealot’s fire again. It will lead to more at that point. Both focus skills will be off recharge instead of having to swap back and forth like before for longer fights so it will be a nice clean rotation.

Thanks, that makes sense, really hadn’t even though about the whole “i only have 10s anyways” thing

I updated the guide for the 1/27 patch.

Thank you, Obal for the update!

I just wanted to leave a short but honest “Thank you!”.
This guide gave me plenty of insight and inspiration while juggling with traits and equipment over the past months and I think I finally found a build for myself that does ok’ish dps while maintaining the support abilities I like having and that helps my team to stay alive (background: I’m almost always running with my guildmates, which are a bunch of great people but mostly playing pretty casual/rp’ish, so there’s usually no such things as pre-fight mightstacking etc.).
I started with 0-5-1-6-2, using mostly zerker gear and runes of the traveler (mainly for the boon duration after I had to drop my 2-2-2 combo due to the rune change back then, but I soon fell in love with the movespeed bonus).
Lately I changed my build and adjusted my equipment and now I’m running with this core build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVMQNAR89ksAtUI8DRR8Ql5Y8i2+BtQdBAWPBA-TRDBABsfQAq4CAolSiKV95MlgYpEDgHAQWKDMTpQK6GKa/BdUDIgjAQAAEAl4En4EnYTciTciTcijBIP-e
Took me a few hours to get used to it (especially using Shelter instead of SoR as my heal took some time), but after running some fotm and arah lately I’m quite happy about it. Adjustments can be made with little effort (e.g. lowering virtues in favor of zeal or honor, depending on the encounter and used weapons) and my dps increased significantly.
I know it’s not exactly “meta” nor “optimal”, but it works pretty well even under sub-optimal conditions

So again- thank you, Obal!

As long as you have 25xx2 (when MoC is needed) then your build is fine. You would be better off going 2xxx5 instead of 3xxx4. You won’t get enough vuln for the group to make up for the loss in personal dps from power of the virtuous Force would be better than strength as well on your gs. Force is something you should always have on a weapon since it will do more than the rest other than night/slaying.

Thanks for your response obal, really appreciate it!

What I posted is just my “core” build, when I’m doing fractals/dungeons I’m constantly swaping traits, weapons and utilities to keep my party going.

But may I ask you two more questions, just for clarification:
- you really think in a scenario where there’s no reliable might-source, Sup Sigil of Force is better than Sup Sigil of Strength? Strenght should give me a constant 3-4 Might stacks = 90-120 Power, +5% flat from force still wins?
- putting 5 into Virtues (besides the benefit of faster virtue recharge and +5% boon duration) is really a dps increase when lowering Zeal to 2, losing 50 Power and some buring uptime (though the latter is prbly too low to notice)? I mean, it’s just 1% per boon?

Night or slaying + force is the best where applicable for guard. The only weapon that Night or slaying + X where strength could beat force is scepter. For day you would run force + x. For gs, staff, mace (assuming not hitting crit cap) it would be accuracy since these are bursty weapons that have breaks between bursts where you attack slow and don’t get stacks quick enough. For sword, hammer, and scepter strength would be better than accuracy since they constantly hit fast enough to keep the stacks up. If you don’t need might since your group caps on it then frality if you hitting the crit chance cap with 1h weapons.

If you put points into virtues then you should have 2 or 5. Having 4 means you put points to something else that will do less dps. You should have 3-5 boons while in a group and the multiplier affects all your damage so it’s worth it.

When is Power of the Virtuous better than Right-Handed Strength? (4/6/0/0/4 × 4/5/0/0/5)

It’s better when your not camping 1h weapons which you shouldn’t do anyway except for scepter.

obal.3218:

Night or slaying + force is the best where applicable for guard. The only weapon that Night or slaying + X where strength could beat force is scepter. For day you would run force + x. For gs, staff, mace (assuming not hitting crit cap) it would be accuracy since these are bursty weapons that have breaks between bursts where you attack slow and don’t get stacks quick enough. For sword, hammer, and scepter strength would be better than accuracy since they constantly hit fast enough to keep the stacks up. If you don’t need might since your group caps on it then frality if you hitting the crit chance cap with 1h weapons.

If you put points into virtues then you should have 2 or 5. Having 4 means you put points to something else that will do less dps. You should have 3-5 boons while in a group and the multiplier affects all your damage so it’s worth it.

Hey obal,
sorry for my late reply, rl got me quite busy lately. Nevertheless I’d like to thank you again for your input! Though I admit I had doubts about that 5th point in Virtues being superior to a 3rd point in Zeal, you were absolutly correct about it. I did some testing at those golems in the mists and the damage raise was noticeable (didn’t make it very scientific, but the average dps gain was about 5-12,5%, depending on the number of boons on me).
So kudos to you, good sir!

Heyho,

thank you for your Guardian PvE Guide, very helpful to get a good Hammer/Mace+Focus-Build.

A short question:

Can I translate your Guide to German (Im from Germany, and in the official German forum someone had even mentioned your guide and said that no one had the motivation to translate this into German)?
I would of course make it clear that this guide is by you and link to your guide.
I find this guide very useful, and maybe he can help so even more indecisive and new players.

Best regards and thanks for your work!

~Leopold

(Hope my english isn’t so bad ;D)

I’m fine with that. Someone from the French forum did the same in the past.

I like to run staff with my DPS guardian for some more utility, so I’m not really rotating between weapons.
I’m curious to what do you think about a build that revolves around Sword rather than GS?
Which one of these weapons do more DPS when you build around it? and which offhand would be better for the sword?
Assuming this is all for dungeons …

GS would probably be better because it has the burst damage, but both are much less than a hammer build for weapon camping.

If you really like staff being handy on your weapon swap I’d suggest Hammer/staff though try to minimize your staff usage while in fights.

Jerus.4350:

GS would probably be better because it has the burst damage, but both are much less than a hammer build for weapon camping.

If you really like staff being handy on your weapon swap I’d suggest Hammer/staff though try to minimize your staff usage while in fights.

I want the staff strictly for between fights Swiftness and Empowers, don’t want to use it in fights.

Thanks for the reply

Hammer and sword are about the same. After the gs burst it is worse then the other two. I’d just go with hammer as Jerus suggested. It would be worth throwing the staff symbol down at the start of a fight then swap to hammer for extra damage and hammer pull ahead. You can check the dps charts in my guide since it has nearly all the setups so you can see the difference in damage.

I updated the guide for the 6/23 patch.

Is it worth adding some Sinister or Carion armor/accessories mixed with the Zerker?
Burning hits so hard now with condi damage.