Guild Wars 2

the mainreason to specc empowering might isnt due to the stacks you build on your self, in soloplay there are better traits in honor for 2h gameplay.

Its whats happen when you are in a group it gets interesting, and give those stacks to all your teammates and get the heals from altruistic healing in return.

Hm…how much healing does altruistic healing give? Haven’t really experimented with it.

70-78, at least, 78 is the most i gotten out of it but im unsure if i maxed healstats then. It scales really bad but its also why it works so well with high crit aoe builds like GS and hammer in particular.

My pve-setup hits for 73 hp per crit.

One crit with empowering might also triggers vigorous precision. with 4 teammates in radius, in a dungeon, that is approx 350 in heals per second. Then add in the protection/retaliation from 2h symbols which renews altruistic healing for each tick and you get 70 more per person/tick inside the symbol and ofc retaliation when triggering it with the hammer.

Assume three allies inside the symbol and my build.

A hammer chain+symbol hits in total 6 times on a single target. Thats 3 crits (50% crit) generating 3*73. Total of 219hp from vigorous precision.

You get in average 3 hits from empowering might as well but those also hit the teammates and give you 219*3=657

The symbol generates 3 ticks of protection, with 3 allies inside that is 9*73 which in total is 657 hp.

And when you trigger retal you apply retal to 3 people once, which gives you 3*72=219

219+657+657+219=1752 heals to you.

With two allies:
219+438+438+146=1241

Soloplaying:
219+219+219+73=730

Sorry for any miscalculation, doing it on my iphone and adding in my head but the math shows that the more targets and allies the stronger altruistic healing becomes..

Im not saying those figures are 100% accurate, i have 700-1400 hp as a safe bet and then i know im well inside what the hammer actually produces. A parser would be really nice in these kinds of discussions but as of right now we have to settle for looking at clips to determine stuff.

The fact is that the slow third hit in the chain actually is an asset since it gives a lengthy delay to trigger empowering might. Ofc if hit 1 and 3 crits in the chain, there is also “room” for four hits of empowering might with in the chain+mb combo.

All while dealing the best aoe we have (yeah its more dps in mighty blow then ww) and applying tons of boons to the team.

Thank god the hammer is difficult to play and hit with!!!

Holy crap. it gives healing based on number of allies buffed? I was under the impression it was similar to the grandmaster zeal trait for greatsword.

Also, looking at your calculations, the game also counts the number of stacks given separately, even if the stacks were applied at once? Also, I assume that buffed applied to yourself procs this effect as well?

For example: Symbol of wrath gives 5 stacks of retaliation at 1sec each. This would in turn apply 5*72=360 points of healing? and if allies stand in it, the effect is compounded?

You are absolutely right in your assumptions/questions. That is how i perceived how vigorous precision, empowering might and altruistic healing works. Its kind of difficult to determine without proper logs, once again it is what i can tell from watching my ingame clips.

take the staff and use empower (skill 4) when you lost 3k health and are standing in a crowd in wvw and see what happens ;-). That experiment fully supports the above calculation.

As i said, there is a reason why the hammer (which just spews out boons) is slow.

Personally i see more and more people play with hammer, people catch up slow, that weapon is beyond great in crowded situations.

EDIT Empowering might isnt that bad is it? ;-) Or add in two shouts, soldiers runes wich removes conditions and pure of voice which turns on condition into a boon when you use a shout.

The cool thing is that pure of voice is applied before the runes so you get one extra boon (heals from both the shout and from a condition transformed into a boon) and removes two conditions on the team.

If going for pure of voice i wouldnt trait empowering might, just 2h mastery and/or superior aria/writ of exaltation and still have close to 46% crit and 5 points into virtues.

Have fun.

Hm…currently, I’ve been using a 0/30/30/10/0 monk’s focus build. It definitely lets me survive a hell of a long time even on the front lines.

Taking a look at incorporating empowering might and altruistic healing, i assume your build looks something like 0/15/30/20/5, and leaning more towards a shout build?

Do you happen to have any video clips uploaded so I can take a closer look at it in action?

I use two different builds and one you have mentioned, which i use a knights gear with, the other one is 0/5/30/30/5 and then with a full exotic berserker setup beside some accessories with healstats on them. Dodge heal scales 1 to 1 with heal stats. so 100 extra heals and energy sigils makes wonders for survivability.

No i havent anything uploaded, i never uploaded anything on the Internet, havent even got a facebook account. There will be clips out there, more and more people realize that altruistic healing is a great alternative to meditationheals since it takes no utility skills (meditations being kind of selfcentric) away and you can focus you utility on supporting the team.

And if you arent playing solo you will also get more heals out of it. Soloplaying meditations is much better and you dont have to rely on your teammates to use their brains (nor you) since they like spirit weapons are pretty foolproof.

Very good point. in terms of your 0/5/30/30/5 build. I assume you equip a mix of Knights and Berserker’s gear to maintain a higher crit%? This build has definitely gotten me excited to try it out. I treat my guardian as a pusher, diving into the fray along with the warriors. I’ve been looking for a good way to support them while dealing lots of damage, and this may just turn out to be the one:)

Edit: Thanks for the insight:)))

you get more crits out of pure knights gear/accessories but lower crit damage. Berserker and knights have the same critstats.

Retributive armor actually makes it better since knights gear has tons of toughness. This also allows for having one or two pieces from clerics or pow/vit/tough and still have the same crit chance as a full berserker gear.

To clarify, i use soldiers runes and still maintain critchance, or close to, im at 49% with knights set and soldier runes and at 51% with a full berserker with crit orbs in the upgrade slots. but the difference is survivability is huge.

1,6k more health and like 300 more toughness.

Ah, makes a lot of sense. Time to take another look at what stats I should allocate. Thanks again!

The difference in survivability between full knight’s accessories and full berserker? If so, I’m sure that’s because of the enormous amount of toughness you get from knights

Not just survivability, ofc about 200 power and around 15% crit damage as well. But frankly, yesterday i hit my mighty blow for 4.8k on a ranger in wvw and he had no conditions on him. So knights gear is enough :-)

Ah. Now i REALLY have to try this out. I ended up hitting a thief yesterday for 8.6k with my whirling wrath, but I’m running a rare Knight’s/Valkyrie mix for gear, and an exotic Valkyrie/Berserker mix for my accessories. I definitely don’t have as much crit% as you though (hovering around 40%). very curious as to what a full exotic set of armor will do for me.

Well then note that mighty blow is/has:

- half the cd of WW
- Higher total damage, two mighty blows deals more raw damage then one ww. read the tooltip.
- Much shorter executiontime which means less time to next action and higher dps within a given timeframe.
- Harder to avoid, its fast
- You are not forced to stand still when placing the symbol and use mb as finisher
- Gapcloser, so its almost 600 in real range with the aoe.
- Not as sensitive to retaliation and confusion due to fewer actions/hits pers second.

I take that slow third step in the chain every day of the weak for that.

i know, but…but…aesthetics!

on a more serious note, with this build, it definitely looks like hammer will be the weapon of choice, due to the healing gained from all the buffs. again, thanks for all the tips and advice! I just need to find a good looking hammer now…

Voltric.6920:

I just need to find a good looking hammer now…

One last tip, Vigil hammer, the rare faction weapon, great skin, bought one and applied it to my exotic hammer and wont ever change skin.

Same goes for the focus (candles lol), staff and scepter. All of them are great. not overly flashy and grotesque (spelling might be ……. up).

I have 12.8k hp as a guardian in full level 80 +vitality exotics (carrion)

That is an atrociously low HP total for a tanky melee class.

Warriors with the same gear have about 20k hp.

People will routinely say that you need about 15k hp to avoid getting insta killed in various dungeon encounters.

I don’t see how you can get there without being a dedicated ‘tank spec’ – but GW2 supposedly gets rid of the holy trinity idea.

Vorpal.4683:

I have 12.8k hp as a guardian in full level 80 +vitality exotics (carrion)

That is an atrociously low HP total for a tanky melee class.

Warriors with the same gear have about 20k hp.

People will routinely say that you need about 15k hp to avoid getting insta killed in various dungeon encounters.

I don’t see how you can get there without being a dedicated ‘tank spec’ – but GW2 supposedly gets rid of the holy trinity idea.

I play all dungeons with less then then 14k and not a single shread of toughness in my gear. Why should i have toughness/more hp? its about avoiding damage, not soaking it up.

Why not a knights gear, with a couple of vitality earrings and amulets if you want to be on the safe side. Still not a tank imo since it has better melee dps then most other classes.

I’m sitting at 16.5k hp with only 10 traits into Honor and running a mix of Knights, Valkyrie, and Berserker. I’m also at 3k+ attack, 39% crit, and 2.7k armor. It doesn’t make any sense to me that you have 12.8k hp in full carrion exotics, unless you’re not using carrion trinkets…would you mind elaborating what else you use?

So in all likelyhood. DEs and world PvE, you’d rock ‘Save Yourselves’, ‘Retreat’, and ‘Hold the Line’.

For dungeons I’m thinking swap out ‘Retreat’ for ‘Stand Your Ground’

EDIT: Whoa…didn’t realize there was a full second page >_>

Congrats on the thread, Brutaly! I’m VERY new to the game, but you made my day with this discussion. Back in my WoW days (TBC) I played a really kitten Enhancement Shammie (when nobody wanted them, using rogue gear) and had a very similar philosophy: I’m not a mediocre healer. I’m a front-of-the-line BMF (read: really, really face-bashing) by myself, it just happened that when people were around me they got some of my incredible kittenery sticked to them. It was a role I enjoyed immensely and I never had any trouble finding people to dungeon or raid with. Never ever got asked to respec either.

It is just brilliant that you found a way to bring back those mechanics I loved (I mainly used infinite mana and ‘always on’ crits to fuel the buffs and turn into a never-stopping flurry of attacks!) to do what I enjoyed the most: kicking kitten WHILE helping my group and keeping them alive. You, sir, made my day and I cannot wait to get to 80 to try this build. GW2 just turned from awesome to head-exploding exciting!

At this point I cannot contribute anything to the discussion due to my lack of experience, but I will definitely give this build a long good try and see if it can be made even better. I salute you!

Edit: Awesome kitten filter is awesome XD

I gave this build a shot yesterday, and it was completely mind blowingly awesome.

One does not simply die easily in dungeons while using Guardian profession.