Guild Wars 2

Your build will work, and with damage gear, you’ll deal quite a bit of damage. However, with your setup, your concerns about being kited are quite valid. You have a ton of condition removal, and just under 23% uptime on Stability, which will help you out, but you don’t have much swiftness, and hammer is not a particularly mobile weapon.

Also, if you’re not going to run with a zerg or at least a 5-man, I would highly recommend dropping Altruistic Healing—if the only person you’re giving boons to is yourself, the healing you’ll get from it isn’t worth the 30 trait points. And, if you do drop it, I’d actually recommend dropping all 30 points in the line, as the other traits in Valor aren’t particularly spectacular.

The question becomes, what do you replace it with? The Virtues line offers some excellent benefits. 10% extra damage against burning foes is great, especially if you trait Supreme Justice. If you go with Virtues and take boon duration runes (2 Sup. Water, 2 Sup. Monk, 2 Major Sanctuary) you can get permanent swiftness if you bring Retreat or a staff, which is definitely worth some consideration.

Guards not dealing damage is definitely a misconception. My 0/15/0/30/25 Guardian build regularly bursts for over 16k damage (boosted to 18k if I’m around another source of might) with greatsword/sword+focus. Even if a target is fairly mobile they’re still going to take the majority of that damage. I’m by no means a glass cannon either, with Celestial trinkets and a mix of P/T/V and power/precision/crit damage armor and weaponry.

Kharel Arhew.1437:

Your build will work, and with damage gear, you’ll deal quite a bit of damage. However, with your setup, your concerns about being kited are quite valid. You have a ton of condition removal, and just under 23% uptime on Stability, which will help you out, but you don’t have much swiftness, and hammer is not a particularly mobile weapon.

Also, if you’re not going to run with a zerg or at least a 5-man, I would highly recommend dropping Altruistic Healing—if the only person you’re giving boons to is yourself, the healing you’ll get from it isn’t worth the 30 trait points. And, if you do drop it, I’d actually recommend dropping all 30 points in the line, as the other traits in Valor aren’t particularly spectacular.

The question becomes, what do you replace it with? The Virtues line offers some excellent benefits. 10% extra damage against burning foes is great, especially if you trait Supreme Justice. If you go with Virtues and take boon duration runes (2 Sup. Water, 2 Sup. Monk, 2 Major Sanctuary) you can get permanent swiftness if you bring Retreat or a staff, which is definitely worth some consideration.

Guards not dealing damage is definitely a misconception. My 0/15/0/30/25 Guardian build regularly bursts for over 16k damage (boosted to 18k if I’m around another source of might) with greatsword/sword+focus. Even if a target is fairly mobile they’re still going to take the majority of that damage. I’m by no means a glass cannon either, with Celestial trinkets and a mix of P/T/V and power/precision/crit damage armor and weaponry.

Jsut so you know when you do use whirling wrath all the numbers you see=total damage you’ve done, and not damage per hit.

Lucentfir.7430:

Jsut so you know when you do use whirling wrath all the numbers you see=total damage you’ve done, and not damage per hit.

Yes, I am aware of that. 6.5k Whirling Wrath, 6.5k Zealot’s Defense, and 5.5k from Shield of Wrath is fairly common, and can be performed over the course of about 4.5 seconds.

Kharel Arhew.1437:

Lucentfir.7430:

Jsut so you know when you do use whirling wrath all the numbers you see=total damage you’ve done, and not damage per hit.

Yes, I am aware of that. 6.5k Whirling Wrath, 6.5k Zealot’s Defense, and 5.5k from Shield of Wrath is fairly common, and can be performed over the course of about 4.5 seconds.

Ah alright, just making sure, and I’ve seen those numbers before on my guardian. Just got to make sure all your hits, hit, and aren’t dodged and such.

Lucentfir.7430:

Ah alright, just making sure, and I’ve seen those numbers before on my guardian. Just got to make sure all your hits, hit, and aren’t dodged and such.

Yeah, therein lies the trick. It’s no easy trick, either, but even landing 75% of that kind of burst is going to leave a serious dent in someone’s healthbar.

Kharel Arhew.1437:

Your build will work, and with damage gear, you’ll deal quite a bit of damage. However, with your setup, your concerns about being kited are quite valid. You have a ton of condition removal, and just under 23% uptime on Stability, which will help you out, but you don’t have much swiftness, and hammer is not a particularly mobile weapon.

Also, if you’re not going to run with a zerg or at least a 5-man, I would highly recommend dropping Altruistic Healing—if the only person you’re giving boons to is yourself, the healing you’ll get from it isn’t worth the 30 trait points. And, if you do drop it, I’d actually recommend dropping all 30 points in the line, as the other traits in Valor aren’t particularly spectacular.

The question becomes, what do you replace it with? The Virtues line offers some excellent benefits. 10% extra damage against burning foes is great, especially if you trait Supreme Justice. If you go with Virtues and take boon duration runes (2 Sup. Water, 2 Sup. Monk, 2 Major Sanctuary) you can get permanent swiftness if you bring Retreat or a staff, which is definitely worth some consideration.

Guards not dealing damage is definitely a misconception. My 0/15/0/30/25 Guardian build regularly bursts for over 16k damage (boosted to 18k if I’m around another source of might) with greatsword/sword+focus. Even if a target is fairly mobile they’re still going to take the majority of that damage. I’m by no means a glass cannon either, with Celestial trinkets and a mix of P/T/V and power/precision/crit damage armor and weaponry.

This post…-_-

Let’s clear some stuff up. You invest the 30 points in valor because of the toughness and the critical damage. The trait line is both defensive and offensive, and contains our best grandmaster traits. That is why it is considered the best trait line to invest in. Dropping all 30 points from valor is a bad idea because

1) It’s going to cripple your damage potential
2) You lose out on what is effectively 10-20% damage reduction.

The radiance line… investing in all 30 points, will give you 300 precision and 300 condition damage, which is the equivalent of 15% extra critical rate and marginally more burning. Less than that, actually. Consider now the retributive armor trait that’s available in Valor; that’s 100 extra precision for 2000 toughness, that’s 1/3 of the critical rate you lost on right there, not to mention the extra 300 toughness and 30% critical damage you’re doing to get.

Honestly if you are trying to get damage there is practically no reason to not invest in Valor. There’s a reason it’s considered our best line.

Second, 10% vs burning is in the zeal line, not the virtues line. And Zeal is absokittenlutey terrible. I would advise against that line as much as I would advise against a burn build for a guardian. They’re both just awful options.

Third, boon duration is nice, yes, however the boon duration is not used for swiftness as much as it is used to prolong the boons we get from our shouts and other supportive abilities. If you are dueling, there is nothing more powerful than an 18 second save yourselves. Permanent swiftness is available without having to invest in boon duration, yes, with the staff. Although I’m not sure why you would need permanent swiftness to begin with.

Lastly…18k whirling wrath is…no…even people who build full glass cannon guardian, and I mean the 10k health 2k armor type, have trouble whirling for that much. Like someone else in the thread said, the damage you see is accumulated damage, not per hit damage.

Teamkiller.4315:

Lastly…18k whirling wrath is…no…even people who build full glass cannon guardian, and I mean the 10k health 2k armor type, have trouble whirling for that much.

Kharel Arhew.1437:

6.5k Whirling Wrath, 6.5k Zealot’s Defense, and 5.5k from Shield of Wrath is fairly common, and can be performed over the course of about 4.5 seconds.

…

Teamkiller.4315:

Third, boon duration is nice, yes, however the boon duration is not used for swiftness as much as it is used to prolong the boons we get from our shouts and other supportive abilities. If you are dueling, there is nothing more powerful than an 18 second save yourselves. Permanent swiftness is available without having to invest in boon duration, yes, with the staff. Although I’m not sure why you would need permanent swiftness to begin with.

Swiftness is one of the main boons granted by shouts, yes. I’m not exactly sure of your point. And yes, 18-second boons from Save Yourselves rocks. Permanent swiftness is completely impossible with only the staff and no boon duration. The best you can get is 66% uptime, laying symbols every time it’s off cooldown and taking 2-handed mastery instead of empowering might.

Permanent swiftness has a ton of uses. Off the top of my head…

• Walking out of red circles quickly when out of endurance
• Escaping enemies, both in WvW and PvE
• Moving quickly between critical points, such as supply camps, in WvW
• Scouting in WvW (what commander doesn’t love a good scout?)
• Running from point A to point B without taking damage from mobs
• Chasing down an opponent in WvW
• Maintaining consistent DPS on an enemy using a runspeed signet or trait

There are more, but enough for now.

Teamkiller.4315:

Second, 10% vs burning is in the zeal line, not the virtues line. And Zeal is absokittenlutey terrible. I would advise against that line as much as I would advise against a burn build for a guardian. They’re both just awful options.

Ok, you got me—I typo’d and wrote Virtues when I was thinking of Zeal in regards to that trait. While burn builds are suboptimal given the way burning stacks in PvE, some people enjoy them, and they can still do significant damage while being hard to kill. Regardless, you don’t need to be in a burn build to take advantage of that trait; Guardians maintain so much burning on enemies naturally that you’ll end up getting that 10% damage bonus as often as not. Also, why exactly is Zeal a horrible traitline? Is it because of the 10% damage while burning trait? Perhaps the extra power? The extra blind/burn duration? It’s not like we’re ever going to put more than 10 points into it; I think we can all agree the rest of the traits in that line are pretty bad—but then I never mentioned anything deeper than a 10-point trait, did I?

Teamkiller.4315:

The radiance line… investing in all 30 points, will give you 300 precision and 300 condition damage, which is the equivalent of 15% extra critical rate and marginally more burning. Less than that, actually. Consider now the retributive armor trait that’s available in Valor; that’s 100 extra precision for 2000 toughness, that’s 1/3 of the critical rate you lost on right there, not to mention the extra 300 toughness and 30% critical damage you’re doing to get.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that you trait for stats. Traits are for bonus effects, not for stats—the stats can be made up to whatever you want them to be with gear, given that you have the effects you want.

14% extra crit chance is nothing to sneeze at. For that matter, neither are the grandmaster Radiance traits. The master Radiance traits are pretty good too, in fact. As are the Adept ones. And hey, look, we can take right-handed strength for another 15% crit chance, which is worth another 300 points of precision while wielding a 1-handed weapon. I’m going to say that 300 points of precision available trumps the 100 points available through Valor, if you’re wanting to run a one-handed build.

Teamkiller.4315:

Honestly if you are trying to get damage there is practically no reason to not invest in Valor. There’s a reason it’s considered our best line.

If I want damage, there are far better ways of acquiring it than by forcing myself to run a staff in order to keep up with my enemy and/or losing out on controllable condition removal, which also prevents me from keeping up with enemies. The traits in Valor are subpar compared to many of the other lines, with the exception of Altruistic Healing, or the Meditation traits if you decide take Meditations.

Anyway, enough of this. I’m not going to convince you, because you’re not going to allow yourself to be convinced, but there’s absolutely no reason to sneer at the other traitlines; many of them contain extremely powerful traits.

i want to say Valor IS a very strong line. and i often come back to if time and again when comnig up with new builds. but i have done with builds that didn’t go even 1 point into Valor and did very well also. of course, like mentioned, gear up to make up for toughness or crit dmg if it is what you’re missing. though i won’t go as far as saying you’re going down certain lines, ONLY for the traits. there’s a fine balance between the stats and there are some stats that you won’t be able to achieve with just gear. so it entirely depends on what stats you’re comfortable with.. and ultimately, it’s how those stats translate into direct performance on the field.

i will agree though that the valor traits aren’t the best out of all the trait lines. but the 30% crit dmg is not bad if you’re going for a crit build.

at OP, if you do decide to stick with 30 in Valor, it’s easy to switch between MF and AH and consequently your shouts and meditations depending on if you’re running in a small group or in a zerg. though with full meditations, i feel even that has worked in a zerg. sure, my allies might not be getting as many boons, but you’re still there in the fight making a difference. GS / Sword + Focus is a decent combo for a meditation build imo. you can have up to 2 teleports, 1 leap, 1 pull.. i don’t always feel i’m being kited THAT much. sometimes if i happen to come across a 1v1 and it’s a ranger going pewpew from afar. i’ll pretend to retreat, then they chase, time your shield of wrath on the focus, switch to GS and JI back into them, they’ll be caught off surprise and then do you combo and burst them down. can be pretty fun : ))

i will say though, i run a similar build sometimes in WvW and depending on how your gear is set up, you can still hit like a truck, even with the hammer. a bunch of control, i.e. many ways to make sure your big hits land, ton of access to retaliation through greatsword and hammer. two of our biggest hitters and one one an extremely short CD… though if you’re running solo, the lack of options for swiftness can be a downer at times.

• Walking out of red circles quickly when out of endurance

It’s not exactly difficult to walk out without swiftness?

• Escaping enemies, both in WvW and PvE

As a guardian if you’re being owned in the open world by mobs you’re doing something wrong. There are no silver mobs and the only champion + enemies you’ll face you will be facing likely with a zerg. In dungeons if you run away you’re abandoning your party.

• Moving quickly between critical points, such as supply camps, in WvW

You can keep recasting staff 3, it really really isn’t that huge of a difference. I get 75% uptime on swiftness with JUST staff 3, with 10% boon duration.

• Scouting in WvW (what commander doesn’t love a good scout?)

A commander that relies on a guardian to scout is a commander who is desperate for scouts. Thieves are 100x better at it.

• Running from point A to point B without taking damage from mobs

If you’re doing nothing but running at some point you will lose aggro and regen all the health anyways, what’s the point again? The only one I can think of is running parts of dungeons you don’t want to fight in, such as TA, but you don’t need 100% swiftness to run those.

• Chasing down an opponent in WvW

Guardians are bad at chasing. Not saying you can’t do it, just that other classes are far better at it.

• Maintaining consistent DPS on an enemy using a runspeed signet or trait

afaik there aren’t any runspeed traits or signets…apart from deal more damage with each boon on you, and it’s 1% extra damage per boon? OK perma-swiftness gives you +1% damage for a bit more of the time?

While burn builds are suboptimal given the way burning stacks in PvE, some people enjoy them, and they can still do significant damage while being hard to kill.

Look, you can run any kind of build you want. The bottom line is, some builds are better than others. If I tried to run a burn build in spvp I’d be laughed at, same as if I tried to use a warrior in tpvp. Guess why: it’s not because people are just plain mean.

Guardians maintain so much burning…

You yourself just admitted zeal is never worth investing more than 10 points into, do I really need to explain why it’s bad when you just kinda sorta outright admitted it’s bad? And you’d be surprised how often our enemy ISN’T burning. Especially when you’re fighting more than one opponent, the trait is absolutely abysmal compared to our other +10% damage traits. Like for example, the low endurance or just simply condition one.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that you trait for stats. Traits are for bonus effects, not for stats—the stats can be made up to whatever you want them to be with gear, given that you have the effects you want.

*Misconception?

They are a bonus (the stats). However, not investing in Valor, like I said, makes you miss out on a ton of critical damage. Depending on how much precision you have, and the more you have the worse it is, you are SERIOUSLY crippling your own damage. If you have 60% critical rate investing vs not investing would equal about an 18% difference in base damage.

You absolutely cannot make up that drop in critical damage. The max you will reach is max-30% and that’s in full berserker gear. Meanwhile the guardian that invests in valor can reach 80% critical damage while sporting 3k+ armor and 17k+ hp. I mean, really, you decide. You also have to deal with the useless 300 in condition damage.

14% extra crit chance is nothing to sneeze at.

It is if you see the secondary stat that goes with it. What was that, condition damage? Possibly the most useless trait of all as most of our conditions don’t even damage.

For that matter, neither are the grandmaster Radiance traits. The master Radiance traits…

Congratulations? You just proved to me how Radiance, an offensive trait line, is more offensive than Valor, a hybrid trait line. I mean…yeah that’s kinda obvious?

If I want damage…

I never said you even HAD to run a staff. I said it gives you effectively 66% uptime on swiftness without boon duration. As for keeping up with enemies, you realize that unless you are playing a pvp mode, you should have no trouble because NPC mobs almost always fight to the death.

What you suggested is for him to use retreat, a shout that is on a long cooldown and apart from blocking one attack only gives swiftness. It is in short, somewhat of a waste of a utility slot, why would you not run hold the line instead? There isn’t even a question of whether or not you should run SyS or SyG, the latter largely considered the best guardian utility in the game.

As for worse traits, are you joking? What trait line gives you 5% extra critical chance period? No conditional, you don’t have to wield a 1h weapon. What trait line gives you free periodic cleanses? Oh, that would be valor, my bad. There’s also the issue of it containing toughness and critical damage, which are very sought after stats. 30% critical damage is nothing to sneeze at, remember.

You don’t want staff? Fine, ask your neighborhood friendly ele to throw down some lightning fields and start blasting. Stack swiftness.

Anyway, enough of this. I’m not going to convince you, because you’re not going to allow yourself to be convinced, but there’s absolutely no reason to sneer at the other traitlines; many of them contain extremely powerful traits.

I didn’t sneer at them, you said that he should drop 30 points in valor because he’s not going AH. I was like, wtf?

Also I lol’d because you thought you whirl for 18k.

to be fair, he said he bursted for 18k, and then showed the break down of whirling wrath, zealot’s defense and timing shield of wrath (focus 5, i never remember the name) : ))

and on that note.. i want to then propose, can we meet at a 10/30/30/0/0 build? which is great offense, with both huge boosts to crit chance AND damage in terms of trait lines. also high toughness. either or of our two best grandmaster traits for healing (other than our actual heal)… and you can still spec for even more crit chance, crit dmg if you’d like. OR opt for more toughness off a decent base, or add some vit (valkyrie gear is a decent choice here) just to add a little buffer.

and extremely fun build imo : )) so for the OP, if you’re eve so inclined.. you can give this a shot as well. though you do have to be more mindful of everything a lot more, since less room for error in term sof taking big hits.

akamon.2769:

i want to then propose, can we meet at a 10/30/30/0/0 build?

I run this a lot, great build imho. Just gotta keep track of your health whilst destroying those glass cannons.