Guild Wars 2

Hello guys,

I’ve been lurking around pretty much these days about the future build of my guardian, though I still can’t decide what to do.
I (only) play WvW, and I aim to being some support guy in the Zerg. Therefore I focused on rolling a guardian that is almost unkillable.

For now, it seems like there are 2 kind of build to achieve this:
- Healway with Cleric gear (0/0/10/30/30 or something) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/WvW-The-Healway-Guardian/first
- Classical AH with PVT gear (0/0/30/30/10, I assume you know the build)

I’ve tested AH mainly, which is pretty strong in survivability in the middle of the zerg (the #4 staff just heals me more than my actual healing skill, without even having cleric gears). However, after reading lots of thoughts on both build, people seem to find Healway much more enjoyable and powerful while doing WvW zerging.

The thing is: I can’t figure why. Sure the 1.5k heal / dodge is pretty nice, but is it stronger than the AH build? Apart from this, there’s no more “group or self healing” (I’m not counting the 150-ish heal / second from the Virtue of Resolve, which is a bit worthless in a zerg fight. And you also have it in the AH build)
I also don’t get why it spends 30 points in Virtues. Am I missing a point here?

I’m all ears for your arguments on this I’m really wanting to understand a bit more the depth of the Healway build compared to AH, since I really feel like I am missing something.

You pretty much got the facts right for those two builds. At the end it all comes back to you; which gameplay do you prefer?

AH gives tons of your own survivability; not your party’s. Even though you have less support, you gain lots of opportunity to get DPS (this is the reason people use the combo of zerker, soldier, and knights). AH build is the key to Jack of All Trades guardian; giving support, tanky, and could deal damage. It’s also not set to 0/~/30/30/~. I use 0/15/30/20/5 to spam blind in an enemy zerg.

Healway is heavier towards Support. On top of the dodge heal and VoR healing, your Regeneration boon is also stronger. However, you’re missing out on awesome things when you only have 916 precision. 30 Virtues is just to maximize boon duration and Virtues.

I tried Healway. It wasn’t for me. Which one is for you?

I agree with xFireize, it really comes down to preference. However, you should pick the build that best fits your play style. There’s no point in using AH if you’re not at the front of the pack taking damage.

I’m always at the front, so staying alive is more important than being a boon generator for the team.

Also screw allies XD, they should feel lucky to even have a Guardian in their presence ;P My Guardian can’t fart without giving a boon to someone.

You forget the most important part of healing guardian.—- Book.
Book 1 used to have coefficient 1 to healing power, it was nerfed to 0.5 now but it’s still a lot. with 1500 healing power, you can group heal 2k+ every 3/4 second and if you trait for elite you can keep book up for 30 sec, so that’s 80k healing and it’s mobile.
So a healing guardian is basically a moving water field+blast combo himself, if your team have 2 or more of such guardian, they can keep your team alive for pretty long time.

Flibusto.7984:

Hello guys,

I’ve been lurking around pretty much these days about the future build of my guardian, though I still can’t decide what to do.
I (only) play WvW, and I aim to being some support guy in the Zerg. Therefore I focused on rolling a guardian that is almost unkillable.

For now, it seems like there are 2 kind of build to achieve this:
- Healway with Cleric gear (0/0/10/30/30 or something) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/WvW-The-Healway-Guardian/first
- Classical AH with PVT gear (0/0/30/30/10, I assume you know the build)

I’ve tested AH mainly, which is pretty strong in survivability in the middle of the zerg (the #4 staff just heals me more than my actual healing skill, without even having cleric gears). However, after reading lots of thoughts on both build, people seem to find Healway much more enjoyable and powerful while doing WvW zerging.

The thing is: I can’t figure why. Sure the 1.5k heal / dodge is pretty nice, but is it stronger than the AH build? Apart from this, there’s no more “group or self healing” (I’m not counting the 150-ish heal / second from the Virtue of Resolve, which is a bit worthless in a zerg fight. And you also have it in the AH build)
I also don’t get why it spends 30 points in Virtues. Am I missing a point here?

I’m all ears for your arguments on this I’m really wanting to understand a bit more the depth of the Healway build compared to AH, since I really feel like I am missing something.

might have to add AH to my condition build since I do regularly give my allies boons so…

Maybe in a zerg it matters how much self-healing you got and how well you sustain but in a small group fight you’re not going to be focused. If you’re fighting groups that put targets on enemies instead of a friendly commander, they’re going to burn down all your allies and save the guardian for last. At that point having a 2nd stability and more condition removal is better. Longer boon duration directly converts to more healing from regeneration on top of all the extra healing power (hold the line gets up over 3k). You retain still lots of CC and can actually tank too if you need to so you basically are boss at everything but DPS.

I find healway scales really well between different sizes of groups so if you have a team that needs to fill all sorts of roles, it’s fantastic. Though I’d say the small scale stuff is where it shines best.

Thanks for your replies guys

@xFireize: oh thanks for the tip about regeneration. Didn’t take it into account. Seems great on the paper! An alternative could be maybe 0/0/30/20/20 also, to rely on both AH + Healway…
About which gameplay, I still can’t decide (hence my post :p). I like both gameplay tbh.

@CRrabbit: indeed! Forgot about this skill. I’m not really used to use it, I should maybe try (currently using renewed focus or whatever it’s called)

@styx: Yep, DPS is quite bad actually with that build. But well, ZvZ is more about surviving than doing awesome damage. At least it’s my vision on the “fgs I can’t even kill a cow on my own in less than 2 minutes” :p

So I’ll maybe mix them for something like 0/0/30/20/20 or something, with half cleric and half [something else] (soldier, zerk, whatever), so that I can have both gameplays in one shot.

I run something in between =) 0/0/10/30/30 with PVT gear w/boon duration runes.

I’m actually becoming more and more against AH. Mainly because I’m in this puzzling situation. It’s a catch22 sometimes. It heals BIG, but it makes me immobile while doing so. Sometimes that immobility is going to just lead to me taking big damage countering the effects of the healing. So that just bugs me personally.

Second, my main reason for changing is that AH is for yourself only. If I just play well, dodge things, and generally do things right, I don’t need AH. So I went with the virtue lines instead.

With Virtue I go with absolute resolution, and Indomitable courage (as well as consecration in adept). This gives me a condition removal heal that passively ticks higher than normal. And my courage virtue now gives stability. Both of those are HUGE in a zerg.

Then I use the Sigil of Stamina which recharges endurance to full on a kill. Kills happen fast and often in zergs, so I’m pretty much constantly flipping around on my little asura tossing heals everytime I land. and with my gear being all boon duration focused I’m at 95% some say overkill, I say stability ftw. 9.5s on stand your ground, then like 7s or something like that on Virtue of Courage. Basically I can maintain stability pretty kitten well without even having to try and use hallowed ground.

So I’m an incredibly stable flipping monkey with swiftness that lasts for days! =)

Yes I see why some may say clerics gear, but that gives up a LOT of health. I’m ok with less healing, it doesn’t scale that well anyways, but passive survival… that’s the stuff that keeps me alive when I make mistakes!

Don’t get too attached with mix n match boon duration runes; they are fixing them and if they get to the point where boon duration becomes consistent, you’ll just end up angry like the people who don’t like the Ferocity idea.

I too run non healing power 0/10/0/30/30, but I avoid using those runes. I still prefer my melandru.

xFireize.6318:

Don’t get too attached with mix n match boon duration runes; they are fixing them and if they get to the point where boon duration becomes consistent, you’ll just end up angry like the people who don’t like the Ferocity idea.

I too run non healing power 0/10/0/30/30, but I avoid using those runes. I still prefer my melandru.

Yeah we’ll see what they do with them, but good call, probably not a good idea to spend the money now with changes on the way.

Sure, I will not spend my money before the patch. That’s why I take my time to weigh the pros and cons.

Jerus, I agreed with your post until the very end
However, running that build requires healing power IMO. The dodge that heals 1.5k is just insane (compared to the 400-ish without Healing Power). Not to mention that Selfless Daring scales VERY well with healing power. This goes also for the F2 virtue (can’t remember the name) active effect.

About health, that’s a concern indeed, but you have high toughness/armor, and if you play well, you don’t need that much vitality/health as you stated. (anyway you’re almost perma dodging if you tag ennemies with the staff )

On a side note: Staff #4 with AH is very effective when you repack in zerg fights after each impact, as it heals you and gives power to your allies.

For sure staff4 every time you stop if you can, even if you have to stop it early, might stacks are never bad =) and if you get the whole thing off even without AH the final heal is not shabby.

I realize the concern, with my 1 cleric ring and cleric weapons, I’m getting 780 on the dodge heal, but then I also have a Life Sigil in my other weapon so I can bump that up a decent bit with that extra 250 power.

By no means am I saying what i do is ideal, just that it works. AH to me is a power with TONS of potential, but with drawbacks if you want to tap that potential. IE being immobile when using empower and the reliance on allies to power it up.

That all being said, using that setup, my last 2 big WvW stretches(close to 10 hours total) I died all of once where it wasn’t a full zerg wipe =). And the full zerg wipes, I was one of the guys running half way back to our keep with a healthy portion of their zerg chasing hehe.

But, I’d imagine you can do that with most of the tankier builds for guardian so /shrug, again, is what I do best, heck if I know, but it works =), and I’ll say I love the passive tanky-ness, living through the times that you get stuck is nice =).