Guild Wars 2

I recently finished the HoT campaign with my guardian, using a mace/shield build that worked much better than I’d expected. Now I want a chance of pace, and to actually use Dragonhunter. So, I put together a build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJASTn8cC1ChVdCuCBEEhFLiSO2n9gHLAqtHIL8KwzD-TpQaABdu/AAlBAA

I splurged on Berserker gear and went off to finish training DH, and then on to the 3rd season of LS. The problem I encountered immediately is that this build is super-fragile if I try to go into melee. And even if I hang back with a longbow. Any advice on how to make it more durable? I’d like to stick to the hammer and longbow for now, although I might swap the hammer for sword/focus if I have to. Using a heal-on-crit sigil and food helped, but not quite enough.

Writ of Persistence, for starters. It’s a must-have for hammer. Other than FMW, forget the shouts. With Writ you are healing for over 100 health per second, receiving 33% less damage because of protection, and your hammer symbol is always up while attacking. Added with your virtue heal and it’s a pretty good sustain. Don’t discount the damage that symbols add! The longer a fight is, the more powerful symbols become.

If you’re only bringing one trap (aside from the heal), bring Procession of Blades. Lower recharge and the damage isn’t conditional.

It’s a toss-up between Virtues and Zeal for your middle specialization, but for different reasons. Look carefully at your skill and trait descriptions to see the synergy.

Example 1- Virtues for Permeating Wrath + DH for Zealot’s aggression, equip Signet of Wrath. Burn every 3 hits, AOE burn, AOE cripple, increased burning damage from signet, 10% extra damage to crippled enemies.

Example 2- Zeal for… well Zeal does it all. Symbols burn enemies and apply vulnerability, symbols so 10% more damage, attack skills do an extra 10% damage to foes inside your symbols, And you get bonus condition damage for your burns.

Either way, the trick is to set yourself up for the best damage modifiers possible.

Dragonhunter runes definitely wouldn’t be my first choice because the T6 bonus is pretty weak. Scholar, Pack, Strength, Eagle (yes, Eagle). Or go cheap with 5 Mesmer + 1 Centaur. For 1G you get 200 power and 100 Precision. Remember that Ferocity is useless without Precision.

Sigils… Force is a must-have. For the second one, Strength if you just want an all-purpose damage boost, or Fire on weapons that only hit one enemy (such as scepter). Air is also good for bonus damage but not my personal first choice.

As for ranged, Scepter is now better than Longbow, but the bow still has some good perks. Longer range, easier to hit a moving target, autoattack can hit 2 foes and cause cripple (triggering a damage bonus). However, the scepter has it beat for pure damage because A) you get >90% symbol uptime with Writ, you can stack Might very easily with the right traits. It isn’t a sexy weapon like the longbow, but it is quite effective.

Even though scepter is a “ranged” weapon, it is most effective when used at melee range because you miss less often, you get the might and healing of your symbol, and the symbol damages your foe as well as applies the bonuses from Zeal.

Hope that helps and doesn’t confuse you further.

Thanks, this is quite helpful. I figured out myself that Writ of Persistence was something I needed. I’ll experiment between Virtues and Zeal for my “middle” speciality. If I’m dropping Shouts, I figure my utilities will be Purification, Smite Condition, Procession of Blades, Signet of Wrath and Feel my Wrath.

Scepter may be more effective, but I used it when running my mace/shield condition build, so I’d like something new now.

You are playing solo right? Etterwyn put some good advices there but if I may add I would advice you to bring atleast one stun breaker. Our defense is pretty strong when we can use them, Blocks, Prot etc, but when you are stunned you wont be able to continue attack chain for prot and you dont have instant blocks aside from Focus 5. I would advice Signer of Judgment for solo play.

I would advice you to use Dragon’s Maw or Renewed Focus on solo. Feel my Wrath is good, but you are not in a dps race and can use some more defense. Dragon’s Maw, while giving you 10 mights, also conveniently shuts down groups of mobs for its duration and destroys breakbars, giving you some room to breath. Renewed Focus is probably our best elite and is one of the best elites in the game. It has unparalleled defensive capabilities and is essentially a reset button for you when things go wrong

I think there are better options for solo survivability than Hammer. Perma prot is surely tempting and looks good on paper, but it is just better to avoid damage altogether. If you are keen on melee, I would either go with your previous Mace + Shield or Focus, Sword + Shield or Focus or Greatsword. All of these choices provide active means of mitigation in some form of CC, block or blind, and can have higher burst dps than Hammer which reduces the time you are in combat taking damage.

If you want to try ranged, I suggest you try Scepter with Zealous Scepter or Longbow with Retribution and Unscathed Contender. You can stack plenty of might while ranging with Scepter, and when you are solo that might is more valuable than Fiery Wrath. You probably need about 7-10 stacks to break even. I can cap myself on might pretty easily with a group of foes, and with Procession of Blades and Permeating Wrath I can cap and maintain might on myself on a single target. I am currently experimenting with Rune of Strength and Sigil of Concentration on T4 to get as much damage as possible when I cant rely on might from party or Scholar bonus.

As for Longbow combo I told, it shines on a group of mobs and bursting, which is what open PvE is all about. Start with F1, which will give you %30 damage from Retribution, Big GameHunter and Zealot’s Aggression combined, use Retreat (and possibly Save Yourselves) for Unscathed Contender and Power of the Virtuous and use Longbow 2 for absurd damage.

Fair points. I am indeed playing mostly solo. So far, the build is field-testing well, especially when I added Signet of Resolve and Renewed Focus for stun-breaking and a panic button like you suggested.

I realize that hammer isn’t really the best weapon in the guardians’ lineup, but I felt like giving it a try. I like trying out new combinations – the reason I dropped my mace/shield set-up is a change of pace, since it worked well enough. I do plan to try sword+focus later, though.

Morty.4721:

Fair points. I am indeed playing mostly solo. So far, the build is field-testing well, especially when I added Signet of Resolve and Renewed Focus for stun-breaking and a panic button like you suggested.

I realize that hammer isn’t really the best weapon in the guardians’ lineup, but I felt like giving it a try. I like trying out new combinations – the reason I dropped my mace/shield set-up is a change of pace, since it worked well enough. I do plan to try sword+focus later, though.

hammer is not bad, the dmg is very good (2’nd best dmg build for DH is with hammer), and the protection is amazing. Main problem is the ramp up time and many mobs die before you really start doing max dmg

Hammer is good mostly in group play. One can expect it to be good on solo as well but you wont be mitigating as much damage as you think, for you have no blocks, blinds and have to go melee. However, it also has its upsides, mainly in good symbol and prot uptime and massive CC. If you want to play hammer for solo, I suggest you don’t camp it and pair it with something else. Sigil of Agility on Hammer is also a good idea, as it reduces the time you are initially using your auto without Prot. You can also use the sigil for the CC skills if that is the reason why you swapped to Hammer.

Hammer auto has some tricks that can be useful on solo. For one, you can use the next step of auto chains if you already started it, even though you killed your foe. This also allows you to use the third step of your autoattack two times. So when you kill some mob, use 1 again for another symbol. You can also dodge in between the second and third steps of the chain and not reset the auto. Finally, if you decide to use Hammer with a range weapon, you can start to go to range as you are done with second step of auto. You will cast the third step of chain in range and the symbol will be placed between you and your foe. After that you can swap to your ranged weapon and enjoy your on range Prot symbol.

Morty.4721:

I do plan to try sword+focus later, though.

Try it. At least in open world, most standard mobs melt from sword #2 and one AA chain. Due to the blind from #2, they don’t even have the chance to hit back. With radiance traits, F1 adds another blind and recharges with every mob you kill, allowing you to mow through mobs without any break in between.

Mobs with break bars are the only real weakness of such a build. Blinds don’t work and it lacks the hard CC abilities to break the bar efficiently.

I did try sword+focus, but with the same set of traits as the hammer so far. It worked quite well. I considered using Radiance instead of Zeal, but it felt like most of its traits would be less useful than Zeal’s.

Both hammer and sword+focus are fun to run with in their own ways, so I’ll be using them as I please. I tend to switch builds often on most of my characters.

Radiance has %10 more damage for Sword, %20 less Sword cooldowns and %25 Sword crit chance in traits, not to mention high amount of blind spam, Big Game Hunter synergy and Greatsword synergy. Zeal is a good staple for builds, but having a Sword build without Radiance is like having a Hammer build without Honor.

A sword/focus build with Radiance turned out scarily effective at melting enemies on contact, so it seems you’re right.