Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone
I don’t know about you but this happens to me a lot, I’ll try out numerous high damage builds and while the damage is great, something just doesn’t sit well with me, I think it’s because I really like seeing lots of heals flying everywhere and that I like being some kind of stubborn, unbeatable fortress whilst fighting many foes at once. So while I’ve tried out numerous zerker builds, knight builds and whatever, I always find myself landing back on my trusty old (mostly) cleric’s gear and build.

Here’s a link to the build
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|9.1k.h1f.e.1k.h10.0.0.0|1.1g.h4.0.0.0|1k.71h.1k.71h.1k.71c.1k.71c.1k.71c.1k.71c|31l.e15.1k.9a.1k.9a.1k.9a.1k.9a.1a.9a|0.0.u56b.u3ab.a6|69.1|w.z.16.19.1j|e

It’s a fairly standard 0/0/30/30/10 build however, I feel I need to explain a few things:
- I use UK spelling.
- The idea is to stack up power a little via consumables, bloodlust and might here and there. It’s not maximum power/might stacking by any means.
- I don’t know if BuildCraft is taking into account 25 bloodlust stacks.
- You can use ascended gear if you like, I don’t have much yet because I couldn’t be bothered so I’ve run with what I’ve got. You may find it hard to get the same stat spread anyway (see next point).
- I’ve mixed some Magi’s gear/crests in there to sneak my precision up just a little, full Cleric’s just didn’t crit often enough for me to get a good uptime on Vigourous Precision but I didn’t want to skimp on healing power cause I like it I feel the very small drop in power was worth it.
- If you want less healing power, more damage and don’t mind losing a bit of health, you could always put rubies in the jewellery.
- The real kicker is in the runes, I used two water runes for the boon duration but the four rage runes plus all the boon duration bonuses gives me a 45 second fury pretty much on cooldown in pve, taking my crit chance to around 32% which isn’t bad for mostly Cleric’s.
- Dodge all the time, preferably into allies. Selfless Daring is amazing and Elusive Power has great synergy with it.

Traits
- The traits are, of course, quite flexible. If you’re happy with less crits, grab any other adept or master trait you like instead of Retributive Armour. Strength in Numbers, Mace of Justice or Honourable Shield are good choices. Be aware that you’ll have less vigour up time if you do so.
- Purity is a solid choice but if you wanted to play a more “I’ma blow Shelter just for the blocking” style, you could throw in Defender’s Flame instead.
- You don’t need Writ of Exaltation, you could take Superior Aria if you wanted faster shouts. Big symbols are great though
- Alternatively, if you prefer to play mostly with two handers, you could drop Writ of the Merciful for Two Handed Mastery but as this build is more about getting big heals, it’s probably best to keep Writ of the Merciful.

Weapons
- Aesthetically, I would love to use a sword on all my builds but the trait and gear synergy just isn’t there.
- I, personally, would keep mace/shield on one set and any two hander you like, I chose the greatsword because I like swords but the retaliation is a good source of supplemental damage when you have a good amount of bloodlust and might stacks running, which you will, especially if you leap through Purging Flames often.
- If you bring a staff, it might be better to also bring a greatsword or hammer.
- The water sigil on mace is optional, mace already heals a lot, change it to whatever suits your fancy, sigil of purity would do ok.
- The speed sigil on the shield is mostly to make up for mace’s lack of mobility, it’s actually quite nice having around 1.5 minutes of swiftness often (pve) but, again, change it to whatever you’re comfortable with, sigil of energy would be a good choice.

Utilities
- I was originally skeptical about Purging Flames but it’s turned out to be quite useful, leaping through it to get might on getting hit pretty much sold it but the extra burns and aoe condition removal are quite nice.
- If projectiles are a problem, swap Purging Flames out for Wall of Reflection.
- If CC is a problem, swap Hold the Line or Purging Flames out for Hallowed Ground.
- If you didn’t want to run any consecrations, you could run Signet of Judgement and then change Master of Consecrations to Vengeful. I’d stick with the consecrations though.

Consumables
- I think the Plate of Truffle Steak Dinner or those dragon pie things fit the bill nicely but an alternative could be Truffle Steak.
- You can swap out the sharpening stones for a slaying potion if that’s how you roll.

General Play
- You want to get your bloodlust stacks up, obviously.
- Try to leap through Purging Flames or other fire fields whenever possible.
- It’s ok to save Shelter for when you know you’re going to take a lot of hits, timing that with leaping through fire fields will net you a good amount of might which will, in turn, increase your base damage, burns damage and retaliation damage.
- While I said dodge all the time, don’t waste dodges either.
- Swap weapons often, a double symbol drop in a group of allies is a lot of heals all around.
- Don’t be afraid to pop Shield of Absorption for emergency heals.
- It’s a very flexible build that you can/should be changing traits and weapons around to suit whatever situation you’re in.

Cons
- There isn’t as much condition removal as there could be, it might be a problem in WvW/sPvP at the moment, I run a variant of this build in sPvP that does well.
- While this build does what I’d say is a fair bit more damage than a full Cleric’s set, it still isn’t a damage build. It certainly excels at keeping your damage dealing buddies alive though!
- It’s a heals/support build in a game that doesn’t quite reward healing as much as damage.
- Players could probably be crawling and still get away from you.

I guess that’s all, really. If you’ve read this far, I love you.
I don’t really know why I’m putting this up here, I’ve found myself quite fond of this set up as it’s pretty much dead on my preferred playstyle so hopefully you’ll enjoy it too.

I’ve tweaked the build a little bit to where I’m comfortable with it.
I’ve replaced the sigil on the mace with a sigil of fire for a nice boost to the damage it puts out.
Since it’s a high healing power build, (I felt strange doing this) I’ve been running Battle Presence over Pure of Voice, since Purging Flames has been buffed and Pure of Voice was fixed, I kinda like the extra green numbers and the condition removal kinda sits in the same place as it was (still room for improvement there).
I’ve switched from 4 runes of rage to 4 runes of the citadel. It works out to be a whole 1.5 seconds less fury and 5% less critical damage but it does have more effective power on paper so I’m running with that for now. Your mileage may vary, change it to however you roll.

Here’s an updated link with it all:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|9.1k.h17.e.1k.h10.0.0.0|1.1g.h4.0.0.0|1k.71h.1k.71h.1k.74.1k.74.1k.74.1k.74|31l.e15.1k.9a.1k.9a.1k.9a.1k.9a.1a.9a|0.0.u56b.u3ab.a6|69.1|w.z.16.19.1j|e[/url]

If you go over to the boons section and add about 11 stacks of might and 70% fury uptime, it’ll roughly reflect the numbers I usually see. I’m pretty sure it’s also not taking Bloodlust into account. I’ve left Altruistic Healing in the traits section in the link there but I’m currently trying out replacing AH with Mace of Justice, not sure how I feel about it but so far, so good.

I hope someone out there enjoys this build, it seemed to have gone by largely unnoticed before.

If you have any questions or comments, let me know. Once again, thanks for reading!