Guild Wars 2

Hey everybody. I’ve been looking at the sticky at the top of the page and experimenting with my build for a while and am really liking greatsword/mace,shield combo (yes, I also carry a scepter and focus with me) Here’s what I’ve got so far:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|1.0.0|9.0.0.e.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|f2.p62.0.u32b.0|0.0|v.z.19.15.1i|e

Sometimes I switch out Superior Aria for Empowering Might. As you can see, the gear section is almost non-exsistant. I’d like some help in selectiong which gear to use, which runes to get, etc. Currently, My crit rate is about 30% and health is about 17k, and I can’t remember the rest of my stats but I know my armor is kinda low (2.4k)

Also, any suggestions on the traits themselves are welcome. Here are some things for you to keep in mind: I mainly focus on PvE and dungeons (would like to do some FotM in the future). I also do some WvW from time to time. My playstyle is rather aggressive. I like to be on the frontlines dealing a decent amount of damage but I don’t want to skimp on the support side either. (I am playing a guardian and not a warrior, after all) and lastly, I’m trying to stay away from the typical AH builds.

Sorry for the noobness of this post and thanks!

30% crit chance is way too low for such a build. 50+ is a good amount for that, so discard the PVT junk you are probably using and take Knight’s (for the defense) mixed with zerker or even better full zerker.

Regarding the traits, the general setup seems almost ok. You should just move 5 points from zeal to either radiance or virtues, since 15 zeal is useless. Either just 10 or 20 for greatsword power, but that would cost you the honor grandmaster trait. However, the honor traits are badly chosen. Just one shout, but sup aria and pure of voice? And no empowering might? That doesnt fit. You should swap in another shout instead of smite condition and definitely take the EM trait, probably at the expense of the larger symbols.

Hmm… Ok, do I need any vitality at all? Or do I just dodge and use damage mitigations? And what second shout would you recommend? I’m thinking hold the line or retreat.

Edit: I’m also thinking about dropping Zeal altogether. Any thoughts on that?

10 points in Zeal is quite nice for Fiery Wrath, so you should definitely keep that in a DPS build. Besides, there are not many places where these 10 points would be very useful.

Regarding vita, base health + vita from the Honor line is usually enough. If you feel way too squishy with that, you may add one or two Soldier/Valkyrie items, but they should not be necessary. Dodge, intelligent positioning/movement, protection and aegis are sufficient as defense, especially if you already wear some knight stuff. Remember that many people play full zerker without any defensive items and still have no problems with survival.

As a second shout, both of them are quite good. In fact, you should constantly switch your utilities anyways. Purging Flames is also quite a weak utility, so you could drop it and take three shouts or use Wall of Reflection in rather projectile-heavy encounters.

Awesome, thanks for the tips, man. I’ll try it out when I have an opportunity to do so. I’m still open to more advice and suggestions so advise away, forum!

Don’t overlook signets. If you’re feeling squishy, Judgement is worth 300 armor, and if you’re feeling like you aren’t at risk of dropping use Bane for the extra power.

foofad.5162:

Don’t overlook signets. If you’re feeling squishy, Judgement is worth 300 armor, and if you’re feeling like you aren’t at risk of dropping use Bane for the extra power.

I’ve considered using signets. Reallocating the five points from zeal into radiance would make signets quite powerful. Good condition removal on a short cooldown (with judgement at least) and good passives.

I wouldn’t even use them for the actives unless you’re WvWing and need that bane knockdown to catch something. Also, if you’re going to go 30 Radiance, you should pick up RHS even if you only have one one-handed weapon. It’s a pretty huge DPS boost.

I’d try to stay away from the signets as much as possible (except the healing slot signet, since that’s pretty good). They just block slots for group support and are not strong enough to compensate for that loss.

On the contrary, on a lot of builds Bane signet will give you 5-10% more damage depending on how many multipliers you’re running and what your critical damage looks like. That’s a massive increase from a utility. Nowadays, if you are at all interested in dealing damage, post-buff Bane is awesome. Obviously for certain fights in dungeons you’ll want to replace it with something specific to that fight, but that applies to your shouts as well. In general though, Bane’s great.

It’s something like 4-6 % if you are running a DPS build with decent offensive gear and support. For trivial content or soloing, that’s fine, but for the rest, there are better alternatives. It’s not all about pure DPS.

In a dungeon group with 10/30/0/30/0 Zerker it’s worth 5% with modest might and vuln, 10% with full might and vuln (as in a boss fight).

There’s not much to fight about here: If you don’t need to bring a reflect to a fight, don’t use Wall of Reflection. Use something that will contribute… like Bane.

K, what about weapon prefixes?

Berserker, basically. Stick Force sigil on your shield, and an on-crit or kill stacking sigil on your greatsword and mace.

Great, thanks for the advice, both of you

foofad.5162:

In a dungeon group with 10/30/0/30/0 Zerker it’s worth 5% with modest might and vuln, 10% with full might and vuln (as in a boss fight).

‘sigh’ No, get your numbers right. Bane does not yield a higher relative DPS increase if you have higher multipliers like vuln or whatever. In that case, the relative increase always remains the same.

For might, on the contrary, Bane scales inversely – the more might you have, the smaller is the relative DPS increase by Bane since the base values are already higher. If you don’t believe me, play around with the gw2buildcraft calculator and look at the effective power. By the way, that requires me to revise the numbers I’ve stated above. If you have the absolutely optimal gear, bufffood, offensive support etc., Bane gives you a mere 2.5 % DPS increase. With only gear, it’s rather something like 4 % – far, far away from the 10 % you claim.

€: Argh, the kitten calculator has not been updated with the signet buff. Hence, the numbers need to be doubled, which makes Bane stronger than I estimated, though it will still yield an increase of 5-7 % instead of 10 % under realistic conditions.

Now that you know to add 90 manually in Buildcraft, I think you’ll find that the difference between Bane and no Bane with and without full Might and Vuln stacks is indeed quite large. I consider full Might and Vuln stacks to be realistic against bosses, but not against trash. Hence… 5-10%, depending.