Guild Wars 2

Guys and gals, this is my first post on the forums. Been playing for a few months now so I am slightly less than a noob but not far from being the New Guy. I have played WvW almost exclusively and have no plans to change that. I love building and breaking down forts!

I wanted to share my Mace/Shield + Staff WvW Healer/Support Build with you guys. This write-up shows the talents and skill choices but gear is more or less up to you. The overall strategy and specific tactics are what this this guide is about.

=Build Link=

Longer Build Duration build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApeWl8ApWo9CxUI8DNRCRl9MEgnJ2jwK0CXFAA-TFSDABO8EAMUJ4vq/klyvAOBAQt/AAHCg/0HQEAzYA-w

Tankier Altruistic Healing Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApeWl8ApWotCxUI8DRRCRkjNYPu2edQzBA-TFSDABO8EAMUJ4vq/klyvAOBAQt/AAHCg/0HQEAzYA-w

=Basic Setup=
Weapons: Mace/Shield and Staff

Skills: Healing Breeze (6), Hold the Line (7), Wall of Reflection (8), Retreat (9), Renewed Focus Elite

Traits: (0/0/2/6/6) (Tank variant has different traits; See build link)
Valor (100 Toughness): Strength in Numbers (150 Toughness to nearby allies)
Honor (300 Vitality/Healing Power): Writ of Exaltation, Writ of Persistence, Writ of the Merciful (symbols are bigger, last longer and heal over time)
Virtues (+30% Boon Duration): Master of Consecrations (Wall of Reflection on fast cool down and long duration), Indomitable Courage (Virtue of Courage grants Stability), Purity of Body (Endurance Regeneration +15% = more Selfless Daring healing rolls)

Gear: Nomad Armor (Toughness/Healing Power/Vitality), Sentinel Staff and Sentinel Mace/Shield (Vitality/Power/Toughness), Cleric’s Trinkets (Healing Power/Toughness/Power)

Runes and Sigils: Superior Rune of the Water (+15 Boon Duration; chance to heal allies when struck; plus Healing Power). Mace: Superior Sigil of Energy (50% Endurance On Swap = +1 Selfless Daring Roll) Shield: Superior Sigil of Water (30% chance on hit to heal nearby allies). Staff: Superior Sigil of Water (30% chance on hit to heal nearby allies; on the Staff this heal occurs at range) and Superior Sigil of Life (Stacks up to 25 Healing Power Stacks)

Food: Chocolate Omnomberry Creams (+20% Boon Duration) … but I am looking for the new Loaf of Candy Cactus Cornbread which give +70 Toughness and 20% Boon Duration.

=Key Stats= 1.2k Healing Power, 3k Toughness, 18k Health, Boon Duration +70%

=Overall Strategy=
This is a support build that works well in zergs (defense and offense) and small man havoc squads. It does not work well for solo roaming but (1) you can usually last and run away if your enemy gets bored; and (2) with NPCs, this build really shines to augment guards + mercenary mobs with healing and boons.
The basic strategy is follow the commander or small-man havoc squad leader and keep them alive. This is a Boon Duration healing/support build so loading up on boons like Protection, Stability, Retaliation, Aegis, Swiftness while moving into combat and then LAYERING area heals from many sources is its primary benefit. With great Boon Duration and also large, long lasting and healing symbols, this build can help: Keep a zerg rolling with Swiftness from the Staff, set down the Mace symbol that regens and heals, set down the Staff symbol which also heals, add Aegis, Retaliation, Stability and 15 stacks of Might while dropping 20 seconds of Protection on five allies. The No. 6 healing ability Healing Breeze ticks very for high heals in a cone you can points.

=Skill Discussion=
As you read this, keep in mind that Mace 2 (Symbol of Faith), Staff 3 (Symbol of Swiftness), Shield 5 (Shield of Absorption), Staff 5 (Line of Warding) and Wall of Reflection are all LIGHT FIELDS that can grant Area Retaliation to allies (with Blast Finisher) and cure Conditions (if shooting through it with Projectiles). Mace 2 (Symbol of Faith) and Staff 3 (Symbol of Swiftness) will heal and damage through WvW gates. Additionally, keep in mind that Strength in Numbers, you add 150 Toughness to nearby allies.

MACE/SHIELD
Mace 1: Your melee attack; Drops an area heal on the third hit and with the Sigil of Water has a 30% chance per-hit to do another area heal.
Mace 2: Symbol of Faith; a large, long-lasting symbol that heals and provides Regeneration. With +70% Boon Duration, Symbol of Faith can keep Regeneration up continuously in an area. If you are wailing with our Mace or Staff, those attacks add more area heals in the area. Remember the symbol itself heals too apart from the Regeneration stacking. It’s nice too for when the zerg drops off an edge in an ambush: Put it down and have them regen/heal up that falling damage.
Mace 3: This either proves a Block (not bad) or if you can cast it for 3 seconds provides 4.5 seconds of Protection on five allies (awesome!).
Shield 4: Provides 8.5 seconds of Protection to five allies
Shield 5: Blocks Projectiles around you, Knocks back enemies and has a strong instant area heal.

STAFF
Staff 1: Area attack tagging for bags + the chance to stack Healing Power with each kill (+1 for mobs; + 5 stacks for enemy player kills) and 30% chance for an area heal on hit. This AOE can HIT THROUGH GATES; perfect for hitting enemies at the gates! Its area heal is also occurs at range.
Staff 2: Great self- or area-heal. This is also your only ranged attack. Fire it at enemies or siege on top of walls you are attacking but do not explode it for additional damage so you can spam it at range.
Staff 3: Symbol of Swiftness is a large, long-lasting and healing symbol. Stacks VERY well right on top of Symbol of Faith (Shield 2). This skill alone can keep a zerg or small man group moving with perma Swiftness.
Staff _4: Empower. Healing Power scales 1 for 1 here for a massive area heal. Combine with Virtue of Justice for a total of 15 stacks of Might to allies around you!
_Staff 5: Line of Warding is great to control escaping enemies, blunt the advance or divide enemy zergs, prevent enemies from getting past you into keeps and towers if you are sieging and to drop on your rear as you try to escape. Yes, it’s a Light Field too.

HEALING, UTILITY AND ELITE SKILLS
Heal Skill 6: Healing Breeze; with 1.2k Healing Power, this is an AMAZING area heal especially in corridors and tight fighting blobs. I use it to top-off recently revived friends, to heal the commander, to keep siegers topped off, and so on.
Hold the Line 7: Grants 6.75 seconds of Protection and 9 seconds of Regeneration
Wall of Reflection 8: This skill is amazing in WvW. Put it across corridors and chokeholds, to cover your zerg rear or flank as your zerg maneuvers, to blunt the attack of an enemy zerg. With traits, it lasts 12 seconds on a 32 second cooldown. That’s a lot of uptime for a skill that grants Area Retaliation, clears conditions from Projectiles and REFLECTS back all enemy Projectiles with no damage to your team. Remember: With Retaliation, you reflect damage but you also take damage. With Wall of Reflection, ALL Projectiles are reflected with no damage to you or your team. Does not block siege damage, sadly.
Retreat 9: Grants 30 seconds of Swiftness + Aegis. Essential for Zerg Herding.
Elite Skill: Renewed Focus. This is your get-out-of-jail skill. Helps when crossing overlapping red circles, to push through a zerg and heal on the other side, to avoid enemy siege knockdowns, to get past enemy siegers and into a tower, and so on.

=WvW Tactics and Skill Rotations=
I covered the main strategy above. This build is about spamming heals (large/persistent/healing symbols, Selfless Daring, Empower, etc), spamming LONG LASTING boons like Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness and Retaliation. Keeping people alive, mitigating damage, buffing them and keeping them moving is what you are trying to do. But here are some pretty cool specific tactics you can pull off.

STACKING PROTECTION
The Protection boon reduces ALL damage by 33%. When you are at the tip of the zerg or rolling in with a small man group, as you roll in to the Lord’s room or to the enemy zerg, starting casting Mace 3 (4.5 seconds of Protection), then hit Shield 4 (8.5 seconds of Protection), Hold the Line (6.75 seconds of Protection) and Virtue of Courage (8.5 seconds of Protection). Thanks to 70% Boon Duration, you can stack long-lasting Protection on your zerg vanguard or entire small man group. In addition, Hold the Line grants Regeneration and Virtue of Courage gives Stability, Retaliation and Aegis. Using this rotation, you and your havoc or tip of the zerg can roll in with 20+ seconds of Protection in addition to Regeneration, Stability, Retaliation and Aegis. This also works well when you are rolling in solo to a camp with some mercs at your back. It also synergizes with any Guardians that may be running hammer Protection builds by pre-loading Protection.

To review: Mace 3 until it casts, then Shield 4, Hold the Line and then Virtue of Courage.

STACKING AREA HEALS
After I have rushed in with the above Protection-stacking rotation, and when the right moment presents itself, the last Mace/Shield skill I use is Mace 2 (Symbol of Faith). Mace 2 has a short cast time but once the symbol is down I immediately switch to Staff and drop Symbol of Swiftness on top of the Symbol of Faith. Now you have two large, persistent, healing symbols layered on top of each other. Yes, they overlap for a bit. And Symbol of Faith grants perma-Regeneration with +70% Boon Duration if you stay in one spot. Selfless Daring or your other area heals, including Healing Breeze, are great to keep people topped off. This technique works for the tip of the zerg but it also can shore up your squishy ranged DPS backline. I like to use it when my zerg has pushed through the enemy zerg and is pausing for the next move. Any time your zerg will be still or a moment or fighting in one location, these two healing symbols plus other heals are great support.

To review: Mace 2 symbol, then Staff 3 symbol directly on top followed by other area heals if needed.

Disclaimer: Because Light Fields can block Water Fields, if the commander or havoc squad leader calls for “water fields” I usually DO NOT use this rotation and instead go straight to Healing Breeze and other non-Light Field heals. Water Fields with Blast Finishers by other classes (burst heals) are preferred to our heals over time. That said, it’s not uncommon for a commander to cry out “WATER ON ME” and there is no one else around to heal. At that point, drop all your symbols and heals on the commander’s location. He or she will thank you later.

STACKING MIGHT
Pretty easy: Staff 4 (Empower) plus Virtue of Justice stack 15 Might. Use this when the commander calls for Might or any time you want to buff your allies and NPC mobs.

COMPLETE “OPENNER” ROTATION
Under ideal circumstances (rolling into a Lord’s room or with enough time rolling into another the enemy zerg), I like to:
1. Stack Protection with Mace 3 until it casts, then Shield 4, Hold the Line and then Virtue of Courage. 20+ seconds of Protection, plus Regeneration, Stability and Aegis.
2. Stacking healing and Regeneration in the middle of the fight with Mace 2 symbol, then layering Staff 3 symbol followed by other heals if needed.
3. Hit Staff 4 (Empower) for area heals and to stack Might followed by Virtue of Justice.

SCRUFFY LOOKING ZERG HERDER
As mentioned, Staff 3 (Symbol of Swiftness) can keep your whole zerg on the move. Keep in mind Swiftness stacks for duration; it is best put on a zerg or havoc squad at rest because each tick stacks additional duration. The skill Retreat has a long cooldown but together with Symbol of Swiftness you can keep perma-Swiftness on yourself and others.

Everyone knows to do this at the tip of the zerg spear but if the commander doesn’t think to stop and collect a long tail, I like to fall back and put that large, persistent Swiftness symbol, plus Retreat, on stragglers. Support actions like these are the essence of this support build. Herd that zerg! Don’t be afraid to call out for team Swiftness expressly while on the move!

GATE SMASHING
When you roll up with a zerg to take down a gate or wall, back up the Flame Ram or Catapult operators by: Using Mace 2 (Symbol of Faith) to keep perma-Regeneration and heals on them; using Mace 1 to spam area heals on gates, stack Staff 3 (Symbol of Swiftness) for additional heals and use your other heals as needed. Wall of Reflection helps to cover siege or block gates. Flame Ram masters will have 50% damage reduction which is better than the 33% damage reduction Protection that you can give but Cata operators and others defending siege will not.

WALL OF REFLECTION
Wow. This is one of your best abilities. It reflects ALL enemy Projectiles. Blast Finishers on it grant Area Retaliation. Friendly Projectiles shot through it cure Conditions. It lasts for 12 seconds on a 32 second cooldown; that means you are using it A LOT. Obvious uses are in choke points. I like to run out ahead of the two zergs crashing and place it in between the bad guys and my friends. If your commander is flanking around to grab the enemy backline, place it on the flank that your enemy will turn back on. It can block ranged attacks against your siege and block Projectiles through gates. I even like to use in right in the middle of a melee. Keep in mind, IF YOU STAND IN IT, WALL OF REFLECTION REFLECTS ALL PROJECTILES FROM ALL DIRECTIONS.

=A Word Gear and Healing Power=
I always welcome feedback but I am not too interested in debating Healing Power. No, this is not a duelist build. No, this is not a roamer build. So what? It shines best in a small man havoc squad or in a large zerg. Yes, I know how Healing Power scales across all the skills in this guide. In my own WvW experience, full Cleric’s gear was too squishy in zerg fights, some PvT gear helped but Nomad’s armor plus Cleric’s mace/shield/trinkets and a Sentinel’s Staff is my personal sweet pot between surviving and supporting. I have enough health and armor to survive and plenty of Healing Power to support my zerg. This is a support build that shines with other players around. It’s not exclusively about heals. Stacking long-lasting boons is a big part of it (and you can presumably do that without Healing Power gear). But with Healing Power, stacking heals over heals makes it a tremendous support build. I am usually the last member of the zerg to die, or I die second to the last before the commander. Still tinkering with the gear but I would just recommend that you try it for yourself before dismissing Healing Power.

Thanks for your writeup. I am currently considering creating some nomad gear for wvw so this is useful.

Why no battle presence though? Wouldn’t the ticks from that be higher than healing symbols and also be guaranteed to hit 5 people? Especially with absolute resolution, that makes it insane.

Shame you can’t fit in the 250 healing power mace trait.

Soooo i saw this thread and i had to post on it.

Mace + Shield is not a good combo for wvw. You are much better off with hammer and CCing other players. I also play a similar build, same 0/0/2/6/6 however the traits are way different. Remember poison beats healing and you dont have a lot of condi clear.

Wall of reflection is only useful in edge of the mists, where as in WvW there are barely any projectiles. Consider using purging flames instead.

I run a similar concept on one of my guards. Notable changes are 0/0/4/6/4, which nets me that Mace trait, and I have healing symbols, battle presence, and absolute resolution.

I also gear more towards Healing Power, going above 2k generally, and using Magi armor with Clerics everything else (this was before Nomads, but I don’t think I’ll change)

Playstyle is pretty much the same though. I enjoy it, especially being able to honey badger under AC fire and giving 5 lucky souls 1khps, and everyone else a bit less.

I’ve done an Absolute Resolution/Battle Presence variant and had tons of fun. It’s like a healing hose everywhere you go. So that’s a legit way to do it. I favor being able to drop symbols down on gates, in the lord’s room and in the middle of a melee and NOT have to stand right on top to drop heals so I favor the symbol build. I try to avoid standing in circles and with the symbols I can keep heals going on my team without standing right on them.

Hammer is cool. I’ve tried that. I carry one with me. But I like the additional heals of Mace/Shield. Symbol of Faith is just tremendous with additional symbol heals. It stacks Regeneration duration so if you put it on a gate or, say, your friendly siegers, you can stack a good duration before the next move. Also, good management of cooldowns can give lots of Protection from Mace/Shield even though the Hammer gives perma-Protection with this build. But I often run with Protection/Hammer Guardians so it doesn’t have to be either/or in terms of builds.

I also tried 0/0/4/6/4. It’s pretty good though I prefer the faster cooldown on the Shield skills for more Protection, heals and blocking instead of the Mace damage and Healing Power bonus. Thing is though, I really did not like the loss of the Boon Duration for that. Like you said, honey badgering with Protection and heals is fun. I pop long-lasting Protection as we go into an encounter and then switch to sustain heals. It’s totally fun.

As for Wall of Reflection not working in WvW, here is a list of Projectile Finishers that I am pretty sure it blocks. It’s an intelligent reflect by the way. If you move from the spot where you were the reflect targets you to where you move.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Projectile_finisher

My guild is big on siege and defense so when I am not zerging, Iike to switch to a yack slapping build.

YAK SLAPPING
When I do that, I switch to Superior Aria and Two-Handed Mastery. This allows me to use Retreat and Symbol of Swiftness from the Staff more often. With 70% Boon Duration, I can keep the Yaks running supply while I build siege its.

Lucente.5071:

Soooo i saw this thread and i had to post on it.

Mace + Shield is not a good combo for wvw. You are much better off with hammer and CCing other players. I also play a similar build, same 0/0/2/6/6 however the traits are way different. Remember poison beats healing and you dont have a lot of condi clear.

It has its uses. Yes, hammer is better for frontlining due to its CC, but this isn’t a frontline build. OP wants to play the type of guardian that follows a little behind and delivers boons and heals to the meatshield in front of him. He keeps them alive a bit longer and thus stays alive as well. Though IMO, there needs to be a bit more damage for stuff like this.

Anyhow…

Well the thing here is that light fields I feel are too disruptive. The thing is symbol of faith is persistent so there’s a bigger chance you’ll pop a lousy light field instead. The most reliable heals you have are from Mace AA and dodge heals. Both of which benefit greatly from healing power. I think you can make good use of light fields, however I actually think making the symbols are disadvantageous for this reason.

Also, you’re using only light fields to cure conditions? If you’re talking about those cleansing bolts, those things are incredibly unreliable. Poison will ruin your healing, and that hurts your overall contribution. You’re also lacking Stand your ground, so you have no stun break and reliant completely on courage for stability.

I usually run with more damage and also prefer focus for my own reasons, but if I wanted to focus on healing, here’s how I’d approach it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApeWlsApVo9CxZI0ENRCRk1M2frlXHscA-TVSDABO8EAMUJ4n6Dga/BYU/JLleAcIAk4EAMqyAA-w

I prefer to give more balanced support but ultimately I think AH allows you to survive even longer so you’ll give out more healing in the longrun— AH empower heal is just too much for me to consider giving up on this sort of build, also the pulsing healing from symbol of faith would be pretty strong too.

Anyhow, I’m glad people are trying other builds rather than the typical stuff. Thanks for putting the effort in to write your thoughts in instead of just going “Omg this doesn’t work”.

Thank you!

I tried an AH build. Love it since I am always a tank in the trinity-style tank-healer-DPS MMO games but I found the AH build was more about my survival than group support. AH is a legit playstyle but not the one I prefer.

Also: Yes, this is not a Condi Cure build. There’s just too much of that stuff in WvW/Blob.vs.Blob, even assuming full shouts and cleanses on shouts. I often run with Condi Clearing Guardians, so again, it’s not either/or. You can have both. And they synergize well.

You make a very good point about the Light Fields. As I said in my initial write-up, I DON’T drop any of my Light Fields when I am running with a coordinated raid on voice chat. When the commander calls for “Water on me!” I use the Healing Breeze area heal skill on the commander, then do Selfless Daring rolls. On the other hand, I run pretty tight to the commander and I can see with my own eyes when he/she calls for Water and there is none. Most people run DPS so there are not a lot of full support players. In that case, Selfless Daring > Healing Breeze > Shield (5) burst heal > Symbol of Faith > Symbol of Swiftness > Empower > etc is pretty good. But, yes, I do avoid spoiling Water Fields whenever I can.

You certainly can rely on others to give you what you need. I think a lot of people do think too selfishly (including myself) since no single player wins big fights but IMO a guardian would be wasting a lot of their talents with stability and condition removal. The thing here is that people can’t break you out of stun unless they have shielded mind.

Unlike some people around here, I do believe you can cover a particular niche with this build if you run with people you trust or just play with a lot. You’ll also need to position yourself properly (no don’t run first in). On the other hand, you can also retrait at any time out of combat so it’s also possible for people to just use this build for a fight or two.

As of late, as I’ve posted elsewhere, it’s getting harder for me to go deep into virtues because the valor tree just gives so much raw stats and abilities that one can’t really get elsewhere. The traits that rely on courage/resolve have rather long cooldowns and yes, Renewed focus does bypass these problems but it can be rather rough in extended fights. The thing is mace doesn’t have much mobility or control so you need to be more durable because you take more hits to the face— hammer has protect and gs has leaps and pulls.

But that’s just how I feel. If you’ve gone around trying these builds and find that you are keeping people up while staying alive, then it obviously can work fine. And healing power is great with dodge rolls/mace/heal sigils so you definitely have my approval over there.

Can you tell us more about your sigil and rune choices?
How much does water sigil heal and how often ? How much does water rune heal and how often?
Are there any other runes you’d consider? Dolyak would scale incredibly but it’s a bit selfish. I suppose you’re the last to die anyway?

Thank you for asking. I will break down the numbers I get for different healing actions and then my rune and sigil choices.

HEAL NUMBERS (Healing Power 1,201 (no stacks of Healing Power)
Staff:
—Sigil of Water: 583 AOE heals (30% chance per hit from Staff 1 attack)
—Symbol of Swiftness: 209 AOE heals each tick from healing symbols trait

Mace:
Faithful Strike (3rd hit from Mace 1 attack): 619 AOE heals
Sigil of Water: 483 to 619 AOE heals per second (30% chance per hit from Mace 1 attack)
Symbol of Faith: 224 AOE heals per second from healing symbols trait plus 321 per Regeneration tick

Virtual of Resolve: passive 165 self heal per tick
Healing Breeze: AOE heal 1,600+ per tick

As you can see, these numbers are small individually but they can add up. And they are almost all AOE heals! Symbol of Faith (Mace 2) gives 224 AOE heals per second from healing symbols trait plus 321 per Regeneration tick. Now drop Symbol of Swiftness (Staff 3) right on it for 209 AOE heals each tick from healing symbols trait. Wailing with either Mace 1 or Staff 1 will give AOE heals, Mace 1 especially will give 619 from the third attack and up to 600 from Sigil of Water. It adds up.

I didn’t feature the numbers for the big heals — Selfless Daring and Empower — because those scale well with Healing Power and I wanted to highlight the other heals. If you are doing it right, those little heals stack and add up to a hose of heals; then you still have your rolls and Empower.

RUNES AND SIGILS

Superior Rune of the Water
—15% Boon Duration;
—Chance to remove condition upon being hit
—175 Healing Power).

Mace: Superior Sigil of Energy
—50% Endurance Regained On Swap

Shield: Superior Sigil of Water (30% chance on hit to heal nearby allies).

Staff:
—Superior Sigil of Water (30% chance on hit to heal nearby allies)
—Superior Sigil of Life (Stacks up to 25 Healing Power Stacks. 250 Healing Power total)

I am not convinced that Sigil of Energy works. I heard there is an internal cooldown so that if another ability is proc’d, the Endurance regain won’t happen. I used to have it on both weapons but I could never see it working. I might get rid of it.

Other stuff I considered but did not take:
—Rune of the Dwayna: Love the 20% increase in Regeneration duration but it’s not better than the 15% increase to ALL BOONS from Rune of the Water. It’s cool to get 10 seconds of Regeneration when hit (17 seconds with 70% Boon Duration, I presume) but that’s on a 45 second cool down. The Regeneration on the heal skill is good but I can already perma-Regeneration with Mace 2 (Symbol of Faith).
—Same comment for Rune of the Grove; not sure this one was available for purchase either.
—Rune of the Dolyak is great. I used to run it on my tank engie with the backpack regeneration trait to stack to heals over time. This one would be good with an Absolute Resolution build or AH build. I could see peeps being into this but the trickle of heals, again, does not outweigh the 15% Boon Duration from Rune of the Water.

The sigil of energy issue was truth in the past, but sigils of different types no longer share cooldowns. Swap away and dodge heal even more.

And yea, since you have so much regeneration via symbol of faith. Runes of the Water are the best choice by adding more flat heals, of which you can use more.

All and all, I have to admit I wasn’t that impressed at first, thinking it was just a bunker build but then again your build synergizes with itself and accomplishes its goal and you seemed to have considered the more standard alternatives when designing your build. So you seem to have put a lot of time optimizing it, and that I think is what makes a good build. A “true” healing guardian build.

The other point of excitement is healing breeze. I can’t part with shelter because of its blocking ability, but then since your healing is spread out instead of centralized, you actually can afford to use it. If it fails, well, it is just not as critical of a loss.

ArchonWing.9480:

The sigil of energy issue was truth in the past, but sigils of different types no longer share cooldowns. Swap away and dodge heal even more.

And yea, since you have so much regeneration via symbol of faith. Runes of the Water are the best choice by adding more flat heals, of which you can use more.

All and all, I have to admit I wasn’t that impressed at first, thinking it was just a bunker build but then again your build synergizes with itself and accomplishes its goal and you seemed to have considered the more standard alternatives when designing your build. So you seem to have put a lot of time optimizing it, and that I think is what makes a good build. A “true” healing guardian build.

The other point of excitement is healing breeze. I can’t part with shelter because of its blocking ability, but then since your healing is spread out instead of centralized, you actually can afford to use it. If it fails, well, it is just not as critical of a loss.

Thank for “getting it.” Not saying this build is better than other approaches but I like it and it works well in WvW for its stated goals. Thanks also for the heads up on the Sigil of Energy. It’s hard to research these things because some of the info is dated.

Healing Breeze can be TREMENDOUS. With this much Healing Power, plus the fact that it’s directional, it can make a big difference in small and large group fights. The easy uses are to heal oneself or quickly heal up an ally. But I use it in tight engagements where allies are bunched up at the tip of the zerg or especially in corridors. When pushing into SMC or fighting in places like the entry way to the lord’s room in Gari, Healing Breeze sets of an avalanche of heals. I often pop it right behind the commander as my zerg is pushing through a zerg to keep peeps topped off. It’s direction so you can control it. I will sometimes use it to scan for allies low on health by panning over the zerg and looking for green numbers. When I find them, I follow up with other heals.

Usually I see people who want to run healing breeze, run with focus for the block. Focus also works well when trying to secure stomps though I generally think shield is better for stomping. I think shield is great and works well with mace, but have you tried focus? You also get a condi clear, another peeling mechanic (via blind) and some direct regen for the team. You lose out on another source of protection, an easy blind clear on one weapon set, and a super awesome don’t touch me bubble.

Also yeah, signet of energy works. It’s common to see support guards in spvp run two signet of energies on both weapon sets.

Been using this with full ventari/cleric gear for a while now in WvW and FotM49 and have some comments.

Battle presence heals for more than Writ of Mercy does and is automated, it’s also smart-cast meaning it will target injured people, and also has a higher uptime. Comparatively the symbols heal whoever is given the boon, and the boon does not prioritise people who are injured.. so Battle Presence gets the grandmaster trait pick imo as the most efficient healing output trait we have.

For the adept trait I think you’re crazy not to have Superior Aria. SYG, Retreat and Hold the Line are all incredible with this build both in wvw and pve even if you only end up taking 1-2 of them.. there’s even an argument for SY if you lack vigor. If it was between Superior Aria and Writ of the Merciful then maybe we have a discussion, but the radius increase just isn’t good enough. I might even prefer Protective Reviver over the radius increase. You’re almost always going to hit 5 ppl per tick in wvw zergs anyway, and in pve people will either be static and stacking, or mobile and not in your symbols for long anyway even with the radius trait. In both cases the radius trait doesn’t add much value. Radius is helpful only when not stacking in pve and adds maybe 1 more tick as people run through it, and almost never in wvw. Aria is useful all the time.

That leaves us with the master trait. You can still take Writ of the Merciful , I don’t think there’s anything better. I think it’s better than the duration extension because although 2 more ticks of regen vs 5 ticks of symbol heal is roughly equal in terms of total hp healed, the increase in healing in value per tick makes the healing symbols more important than the duration when people are mobile. From here if I have ~50% uptime on a ~650hp/sec symbol tick including the regen I don’t really see the point of upping that to 70% uptime through the duration increase, because even if every single additional tick hits it still won’t be as much as battle presence, solidifying my choice of battle presence earlier. In short I’d say the strong point of the symbols are the regeneration ticks. Adding another ~50% healing on top via Writ of Mercy is decent, but it all falls apart when people are mobile anyway, and it’s certainly not guaranteed enough to spend 2 or even 3 trait slots on.

I don’t like Purity of Body because as far as I know it doesn’t stack with Vigor, and even if it did.. 250 healing power from Mace of Justice will output more healing than 15% more selfless darings. The evade is a non point, you’re not gonna die anyway, it’s your allies you need to worry about.

fadeaway.2807:

Been using this with full ventari/cleric gear for a while now in WvW and FotM49 and have some comments.

Thanks for the feedback. As fate would have it, after posting my initial write-up, all the talk about Battle Presence in this thread really got me thinking about trying that again. At the same time, one of the guilds I run with in WvW needed more stability which calls for the Stand Your Ground skill. So I actually had a chance to test Superior Area + Battle Presence + something else. I still prefer the symbol build.

Here’s why:

—First, at least with my gear, Battle Presence ticks for 166 while each heal of a symbol ticks for 209 (Symbol of Faith) and 224 (Symbol of Swiftness). Remember those two symbols stack for a while if you layer them…. not so with Battle Presence and its static 166 tick.

—Positioning is a HUGE factor. Battle Presence requires me to be right up in the action. With large, persistent symbol heals, I can drop Symbol of Swiftness (Staff 3) any place I need heals: through gates, down below onto parties fighting when I am up on a wall, on top of players standing in red circles, when the commander gets to far ahead and so on. Not so with Battle Presence, I need to be right up there. In rolling zerg fights, back and forth across a bridge, I can help my zerg advance forward or withdraw back with large, persistent symbol heals, especially Symbol of Faith (Mace 2), without having to be right on the front line. In this role, large healing symbols help with area denial and area heals as you advance or retreat. I can drop symbols on the front line and get back out of range since I only have 18k life with this build.

—Size matters at gates. When I went back to large, persistent symbol heals, I noticed that the symbols cover the entire gate when attacking towers so I can cover all rams with heals and Regeneration. SMC has wider gates but I can usually cover two of three rams with a symbol and then do rolls or other heals on the third ram. Large symbols also help with DPS across the gate. When there are bad guys on the other side of the gate, I drop symbols on the gate to DPS through to the other side and follow up with Staff 1 for even more range. Meanwhile, the symbol is healing allies on both sides. I’ve ducked into towers with low healthy during a fight while still healing allies on the OTHER side of the gate.

—Size matters for “Tail Slappin’”. At the tip of the spear, small symbols are wide enough to grant Swiftness but it’s not unusual for me to fall back to the rear of the zerg to watch out for stragglers and keep them going with Swiftness. Like a comet’s tail, the tail of the zerg is wider than the tip and wide symbols help with that. With small symbols, stragglers might need to adjust course to get on top of the symbol. Peristence helps here too: longer lasting symbols give stragglers a chance to get some Swiftness.

—Persistent symbols stack duration. With persistent symbols, plus 70% Boon Duration, Symbol of Swiftness stacks for 41 seconds if you stand in it for the duration. It only stacks for 29 without persistent symbols. Symbol of Faith gives perma-Regeneration if you are standing in it and if you cast it successively three times, you can stack up to 10 seconds of Regeneration. Without persistence, Symbol of Faith only stacks for four seconds. I know what you’re thinking: WvW is highly mobile. Yes and no. Zergs routinely stop in places for tactical reasons, to catch a tail, to break down gates and so on. With persistent symbols, I like to PvD with Symbol of Faith and Mace 1 to keep my ram operators alive if they are being DPS’d. In the final push before the gate crashes down, I can stack 10 seconds of Regeneration. It helps when opposition is waiting on the other side.

So that’s why I prefer the symbol build. But the Battle Presence/Superior Aria and some other talent works great. It’s one of the variants that I run for greater mobility and to stack Swiftness on Yaks. For my playstyle though (and keep in mind that I never PvE and exclusively play WvW, I prefer the large persistent healing symbols.

Thanks for your thoughts DroidDreamer, they obviously come from having a lot of experience in the field. I think the healing this build can put out is incredible. Yes the damage is lower than pvt gear but tbh everyone has low damage anyway and there are other classes who can put out better damage while still maintaining tankiness and group support anyway, so I am a fan of guardians doing what they do best while warriors do what they do best. I’d rather have damage orientated warriors and healing guards than damage guards and healing warriors! Gotta maximise what you’re good at!

I really hope that anet merge some of the many symbol traits together. Possibly the radius and duration traits info one improved symbol trait.
Mace 3 and shield 5 I also think could use a buff.

Kraljevo.2801:

Wall of reflection is only useful in edge of the mists, where as in WvW there are barely any projectiles. Consider using purging flames instead.

wrong WoR eats Omegas, ill just want to WoR Omegas with damage increase now, in fact guardian is pretty good defending several omegas spamming against gate, all u gona see it the missiles getting reflected.

Aeolus.3615:

Kraljevo.2801:

Wall of reflection is only useful in edge of the mists, where as in WvW there are barely any projectiles. Consider using purging flames instead.

wrong WoR eats Omegas, ill just want to WoR Omegas with damage increase now, in fact guardian is pretty good defending several omegas spamming against gate, all u gona see it the missiles getting reflected.

What? I have not seen that! I’ve used Wall of Reflection on all other siege and it does not block it. You have tested it against Omegas? Maybe their attacks are treated like character attacks and projectiles instead of siege…

DroidDreamer.2861:

Aeolus.3615:

Kraljevo.2801:

Wall of reflection is only useful in edge of the mists, where as in WvW there are barely any projectiles. Consider using purging flames instead.

wrong WoR eats Omegas, ill just want to WoR Omegas with damage increase now, in fact guardian is pretty good defending several omegas spamming against gate, all u gona see it the missiles getting reflected.

What? I have not seen that! I’ve used Wall of Reflection on all other siege and it does not block it. You have tested it against Omegas? Maybe their attacks are treated like character attacks and projectiles instead of siege…

its more than tested, several times just 2 guardians and 1 mesmer with feedback at gate making spammers(several omegas) killing themselves.

Guardian is excellent against omegas, stability + wall.

imo i guess all guardian domes also “block” destroy omega projectiles, i dont remember well, any skills that implies the destruction of projectiles works against omega.

Not to mention retaliation kills them rather quick as well too.

our groups been running a similar build but a lot of different changes to make it better than it already is. I’ve already PM’d the author but if anyone is in JQ and interested in a similar build for WvW. PM in game.

Cheers for the writeup and effort, i too main a healway guard.

The mace has its uses, i just dont see it scaling well with larger numbers, in a 5man, sure it’s good, 10 man, hmmm debatable depending on classes you have, 15man+ not sure it is worthwhile.

In those larger encounters you will be calling for water fields to blast with the hammer as you will need that burst heal rather than the small regen ticks the maces sigil gives when u run over it or the 3chain attack which may or may not come off. Plus all the other fields you will be looking to blast, smoke for stealth, fire for might, etc etc. Hammer also has an immob which in the world of stability trains is invaluable, it’s also why warriors flurry is so so good. Also too many light fields are disruptive(mace 2), you want to be blasting water and fire, you are already getting light fields from symbol of swiftness and the line/ring of wardings

The shield if not traited I feel is just too long on the cooldowns, every 30 seconds for shield of judgement and every 40 seconds a knockback and small burst heal that scales really poorly with healing power. tbh it could use some love(discussion for another thread)

The staff is godlike for a support build guardian.

Healing breeze, good to see, you are not the main bunker/point Guard so you can get away with running something a bit more group support oriented.

Not sold on retreat over SYG, stability is vitally important on engage, unless you want to spend ur time falling over rings/lines of wardings on engagement or being CC’d out in the battle over the 1st downed player because if it’s yours you will certainly be having a tough time getting him up without stability against any kind of organised play. Generally swiftness will come from warrior warhorn, eles lightning field(blast) or symbol of swiftness.

SY’s, take this, put it on your bar, the ability to pull all condis from your group to yourself is amazing, and what makes this ability so good. And as a kicker you get every boon for 10seconds(except stability). The only caveat to this is if you are already stacked on condi clear in your group, then you could argue that the boons for 10 seconds on yourself isnt worthwhile compared to a wall of reflection or some other slot skill.

Vigorous precision, this is key(with energy on both weapon sets) to keep those dodge roll heals ticking over that scale nicely with healing power, it is why you see a lot of people opt for some magi gear in the template and you just need a little to push your crit up to about 20% to farm a crit with the staff auto attack.

Lastly because you are playing a more sit and heal rather than point/bunker guard you could look to run tome of courage, dont discount protective spirit that will be 15seconds for everyone it hits with your boon duration, the 2k heals in a 240 radius every second from heal area and the group full heal.

As stated above I main a healway Guard for our havoc group on SoS and have the same concept as you, with a differing implementation, i run shouts(SY, SYG, HTL) with superior aria, staff, scepter/shield, although i swap this out for something else depending on what we have in group i will swap it up to hammer or GS.

Guys, I updated the original post to add a tankier variant on this build. I dropped three points from Virtues (the Boon Duration tree) to Valor (the Toughness tree). I picked up: Mace of Justice for the extra 250 Healing Power and Altruistic Healing.

The result is more healing output and much more survivability. The Boon Duration build is better for back line heals and the AH build is suitable for following the commander anywhere. The tankier version is absolutely beast mode! Yes, I lost some Boon Duration but I can still put 20+ seconds of Protection on the commander and his/her vanguard of heavies.

Large persistent healing symbols are still the cornerstone of the build and after much experimentation (including checking out the suggestions by others on this thread), the full symbols approach works great in either small man or large zergs. Lately my group has been coordinating Light Fields. That eliminates one of the biggest downsides of the symbol build: interfering with Water Fields. Now when the commander calls for Light Fields, the TWO that I drop layer heals, Regeneration and Swiftness.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Usually I see people who want to run healing breeze, run with focus for the block. Focus also works well when trying to secure stomps though I generally think shield is better for stomping. I think shield is great and works well with mace, but have you tried focus? You also get a condi clear, another peeling mechanic (via blind) and some direct regen for the team. You lose out on another source of protection, an easy blind clear on one weapon set, and a super awesome don’t touch me bubble.

Also yeah, signet of energy works. It’s common to see support guards in spvp run two signet of energies on both weapon sets.

I run a 00464 build in a similar vein to this, and I used to use mace/focus for those reasons. I feel it’s overall more useful than the shield, especially since it allows you to access a blast finisher on top of everything else.

I did eventually switch to shield because I wanted to try it out. It’s still useful, just in different ways. The protection cast is especially good when you need it for a push, though it’s sometimes a bit hard to find effective uses for the bubble in large scale scenarios. The condi clear on the focus is also a bit unreliable in zerg situations because it’ll just bounce where it wants to, and not necessarily where you need it. For small scale stuff, I’d definitely say the focus wins out, although this sort of build might not be a good choice for small scale stuff anyways.

Updated both build links in the original post to reflect final gear and food choices: Sentinel’s weapons (for extra health), Nomad’s armor, Cleric’s trinkets, and I added Sigil of Restoration to the Shield in both builds.