Guild Wars 2

… But with the new Braham’s skins, I really want to make a build that works extremely well with this weapon combo. I am talking for fotm 48 runs as the only guard in the team.

I’ve been thinking on it and I’m not sure how I can do this. I’m really looking for synergy between the weapon set, a gear set and a trait set that makes me contribute the best possible to the group through support.

Atm of course I’m running a variation of AH/EM and alternating weapons dependant on the situation. GS for aoe pull, Hammer for ring /prot spam, staff for line/empower, Sceptre/focus for ranged and the 3 blocks blast finisher.

I suppose I’m looking for a way to fit the mace shield set in somehow, while still being just as useful or even more so if possible.

Anyone got any builds for fotm 48 with that wep set? ;O

You can use mace with any AH build, but you won’t do damage like your current weapon set. Use staff as your second weapon, because what you’ll really be good at with mace is support

I use a 0/5/30/30/5 build right now that uses AH/EM and Symbol heals. I use Knights with Beserker trinkets, and Runes of Altruism. Hammer and GS or Mace/Shield. It’s really tanky, but the damage isn’t awful, either.

Mace/Shield is one of my favorite combos.

I’ll second and third and whatever else number that mace/shield in use means you are support and won’t kill jack But…let me also say that I run a 0/10/30/30/0 build that is all clerics too. So low health (14,800) but high healing power (1,400).

Solo running in WvW I go sword/focus with GS or Staff (depends if I’m in a zerg or not). However, since they added the commadation for guild runs the tower shield looks really good with T3 armor. So….back to mace and shield.

Scepter/shield also works well honestly. Goofing around I’ll use shield 5 and punt people off interesting places. I’ll later target them, party, and remind them that stability is your friend

Mace is best used with 30 in Radiance for Right-Hand Strength. With the higher crit rate, your auto-attack actually deals more in aggregate than the greatsword’s, so you can run something like 10/30/0/30/0 with Writ of Persistence and Empowering Might. This allows you to “burst” damage with the greatsword (WW > Symbol of Wrath > Binding Blade) then swap to Mace for ten seconds for the stronger auto-attack (with a free extra two Symbols of Faith), then swap back right as your WW and SoW recharge for another burst of damage. So your rotation should look like:

(Battle starts):
Symbol of Wrath > Whirling Wrath > Binding Blade

Swap to mace
Symbol of Faith > Auto-attack > Symbol of Faith
Swap to GS
Whirling Wrath > Symbol of Wrath > Binding Blade (if available) > Auto-attack > Whirling Wrath
Repeat

This rotation actually does more damage than just being in GS all the time, and you get all the benefits of Mace/Shield to boot.

Not sure if this is capable of dealing with that high of Fractals but 10/30/30/0/0 puts out some good damage with Mace/Shield and gives you the healing and high crit dmg of Valor. 5% Mace dmg also there. Gonna try this out tonight in the 20’s.

GL
Blood~

I hear you. Those skins are awesome. I’m going to think of a mace/sheild build myself, though I’m still uncertain if I like how it will play out.

people will argue that mace is STRICTLY support. to a certain extent yes. but if you were to pidgeonhole and say mace can ONLY do support, i beg to differ. perhaps sure, mace with focus is a more DPS-focused set, but even with mace+shield, you can still be effective in combat and put massive pressure on enemies.

i’ve run a 10/30/30/0/0 build with mace focus and mace auto hits for 1-2k and my symbols crit for 1k+. and my gear stats weren’t even that focused on crit, so you can imagine what it IS capable of. then here comes the shield. given the trait setup, you are argubly more “squishy”, though not entirely.. but protection never hurts anyone, so having shield 4 which is also AoE, plus does dmg it’s nto bad. then shield 5? another heal if you need. but best use? to interupt people’s heals, or big moves. the best thing about this is, there’s no “tell” so your opponents can’t readily avoid it since it’s more or less an instant knockback. i’ve even successfuly used the shield 5 to knockdown enemies that were running from me.

Guanglai’s suggested build seems awesome as well. buff up the symbols on the mace and it’s hard to not play mace. you get mace #2 so often it’s lovely. know that approx 2 symbols of faith = 1 symbol of wrath in terms of CD’s on the GS so you can plan accordingly. drop symbol of wrath, then double up with symbol of faith on top, and with the higher crit rating from Right Hand Strength, watch the crits fly. may take some getting used to not having AH, and i’d miss the crit damage, but it hink would still be workable.

or if you want to go “tanky”, i’ve successfully played hammer + mace/shield as well. i know many will say it lacks mobility, etc but it was extremely fun to play. again, buff symbols.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Mace is best used with 30 in Radiance for Right-Hand Strength. With the higher crit rate, your auto-attack actually deals more in aggregate than the greatsword’s, so you can run something like 10/30/0/30/0 with Writ of Persistence and Empowering Might. This allows you to “burst” damage with the greatsword (WW > Symbol of Wrath > Binding Blade) then swap to Mace for ten seconds for the stronger auto-attack (with a free extra two Symbols of Faith), then swap back right as your WW and SoW recharge for another burst of damage. So your rotation should look like:

(Battle starts):
Symbol of Wrath > Whirling Wrath > Binding Blade

Swap to mace
Symbol of Faith > Auto-attack > Symbol of Faith
Swap to GS
Whirling Wrath > Symbol of Wrath > Binding Blade (if available) > Auto-attack > Whirling Wrath
Repeat

This rotation actually does more damage than just being in GS all the time, and you get all the benefits of Mace/Shield to boot.

This sounds promising, are you running this with a certain set of gear? atm I alternate between knight’s(soldier rune) and zerkers (ruby orb), but I have every stat set available so I do mind switching to whatever is going to be most optimal.

Oh and my biggest hesitation with shield is it’s use in pve. It’s quite situational, and most of the time I really don’t want to push mobs apart in fractals as its better they stick together for aoe. It’s going to be hard for me to switch out my focus for it but I really want to give this a go XD, although there’s some spots I can think of this would be good, eg. on bloomhunger if there’s a gap between SoA and WoR, the shield bubble can fill in for a moment.

i put this together super quick for a decent stat spread. Guanglai or others, feel free to help improve. i didn’t use any ascended gear for the sake of “simplicity” but there is a lot more room to improve. i went with larger and healing symbols as well, personal preference. persistence argubly can serve better purposes since most mobs don’t know how to dodge out of your symbols. also, since armor is a bit low in this build, i opted for healing symbols to help with the survivability a bit.

and on that note, with what i’m linking below, i feel armor could be higher. and the low critical damage is not making full use of the high crit chance. :///

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|9.1g.h17.e.1g.h2|1.1g.h17|1n.a7.1p.a7.1n.a7.1p.a7.1n.a7.1p.a7|1c.67.1n.61.1n.61.1n.61.1n.61.1c.67|a2.u26b.0.u3a8.0|39.7|v.18.19.16.1i|e

i’d wanna say having bloodlust on your weapons to get 25 stacks of power as well for “maximized” dmg. but if in fractals, i guess the maps change so much, so unsure if the stacks will last / worth it.

agree what you’re saying with shield in PvE.. i like using it to push foes into walls – so you get the interupt, while they remain “in place”. focus is definitely more suited in PvE with the mace, but hey, i picked up the shield and mace as well and looks >> practicality at times lol XDDD

Well, here’s what I’m using:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|1.1g.h1j|9.1n.h1j.e.1n.h8|1k.71g.1k.71g.1k.b1g.1k.b1g.1k.71h.1k.71h|41l.0.211.0.311.0.1k.0.1k.0.2u.0|0.5.u69b.u29b.5|39.7|w.16.18.19.1i|e

Loving it so far. Lo … ving … it !!

Mace/shield is awesome in pvp. Take larger symbols and some healing power and boom. Your whole group survives ALOT longer.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

This rotation actually does more damage than just being in GS all the time, and you get all the benefits of Mace/Shield to boot.

The auto attack chain for mace hits harder but it’s also slower. 2.5sec for GSword chain and 3.2sec for Mace chain. Wouldn’t this result in less damage output than GSword? Tried to math it but the coffee hasn’t set in yet. Also, make sure you use Protectors Strike as a dps tool, it’ll hit from 6K to 8K normally.

Blood~

Thanks for all this guys, I will certainly give the new build a try, my only qualm being that my sacred AH is missing! It’s been quite a while since I ran without it, but perhaps the mace will make up for this :o

To those who are talking pvp, this build I’m after is only for pve, and in particular high lvl fractals :P

Bloodgruve.6038:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

This rotation actually does more damage than just being in GS all the time, and you get all the benefits of Mace/Shield to boot.

The auto attack chain for mace hits harder but it’s also slower. 2.5sec for GSword chain and 3.2sec for Mace chain. Wouldn’t this result in less damage output than GSword? Tried to math it but the coffee hasn’t set in yet. Also, make sure you use Protectors Strike as a dps tool, it’ll hit from 6K to 8K normally.

Blood~

I already accounted for all that. It’s still more than the GS auto by a pretty sizeable margin.

good luck swiftpaw! let us know how it goes. : )) just by way of background, i used to strictly run AH. and i still do depending on the build.. but the Guard has a lot of built-in damage mitigation already so you’ll just be playing that up a bit more and even mroe pro-actively without the steady stream of healing that you might be used to.

again, i’m no expert at high level fractals but i was just running mace shield last night (testnig out the new skins) and even in PvE it’s been quite fun. definitely very effective, still hits hard and you’ll be able to provide some sustenance, like you said, with the mace and shield. you have access to regen / heals / knockbacks / block / protection from just that weapon set all of which actually help deal dmg as well (apart from shield push i guess).

i guess one thing to note, if you have a group you’re running with and if you DO use VOiP, let peolpe know when you’re using the AoE knockback, since you did mention in PvE, you generally want to keep mobs tied together.

but even then, you can use the knockback to ur advantage. so last night for e.g. i was just doing the Braham living story (given this is pretty easy stuff), so we were two manning it up. if some mobs were after Braham, some after me and they were scattered, i’d position myself so i would knock those around me to where Braham’s was (line them up so they get pushed back together in the same general direction).. and in essence, grouping the mobs together. then you drop symbols, protector’s strike, smash away. i felt it was quite effective actually.

just thinking off top my head, if you need a bit of breathing room for you and party, drop symbol of faith, hit shield 5 twice, so you get the AoE knockback + interupts + a heal.. then hit Esc to cancel the rooted animation (of course, given you don’t need projectile protection), then switch so GS, binding blade, drop symbol of wrath, let GS 5 tick once or twice more, pull them in (so essentialyl two interupts in short succession), GS leap if u want for more retal and AoE blind is always nice + it’ll add a ton of vuln to them if you have a bunch of mobs aorund you, whirl and watch the number tickD

[edited some grammar and for clarity in last paragraph]