Guild Wars 2

I had just posted earlier about a WvW build, so I am going to post about my PVE build = D I just came back after about 5 months of not playing. I already had full ascended zerker armor and trinkets as well as 2 ascended greatswords and 2 ascended words (one for night one for day) My 2 focus were exotic. Anyway I know that sword got nerfed a little by not having that 10%sword damage trait and that mace is the new meta. I run mostly PUG groups and after testing the meta build I find that I don’t have as much survivability. I decided to tweak the meta so here goes:\

Greatsword & S/F (Force+Night) & (Force + Superior Sigil of Strength)(Zerk)
Full ascended armor & trinkets (Zerk) (Superior Rune of Strength)
Radiance: Right Hand Strength, Retribution, Amplified Wrath
Valor: Focus Mastry, Communal Defenses, Retributive Armor
Virtues: Unscathed Contender, Absolute Resolution, Indomitable Courage

I really like Valor because of focus mastery get more protection and quicker cooldown on focus skills giving me more survivability. Also get more aegis and thus more things happening off of blocks ie Amplified Wrath, Communal Defenses, Might of the Protector, and Retributive Armor. I went with the strength runes because in PUG groups there isn’t always someone stacking might so this way I keep good a mount of might. My questions are what do you guys think of this build? I use for dungeons and fractals. If I keep valor would I be better off switching radiance to zeal and swapping my sword for mace? I am not very found of torch thus far but would be open to switching.

Thanks in advance!

The mace actually higher survivability, but is far less mobile. If thats not incorporated into your strategy, then the mace is really hard to use. I had that problem at first as well…. but then I started developing the habit winding up the symbol on approach (or blink with JI half way through wind up) to have the symbol down and my AA free at the moment of engagement. But the mace gets a huge chunk of its DPS from the 3 skill, so you also need to work in the block timing to double duty defense and DPS in one move. Being full zerks, the margin for error is small, which is probably why the mace’s slow skills don’t mesh with your tendency to dodge over block.

But on your question….

Radiance is for condi and/or DPS maxing for pure offensive builds, so you still see it in meta builds. Zeal is taken almost exclusively for symbol damage bonus, but without symbol uptime it tends to go to waste.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Meditation_DPS_Variant

This build might lend some insight on how to improve your own build. Since sword wave counts as 3 attacks, it synergizes well with Justice passive for burn application. If you want stronger burning, you can use radiance’s Justice recycle for burning uptime, or use Zeal’s “vs burning” bonus extra raw damage. (As a note, Firey Wrath and Symbols work great together as pulses proc Justice passive, and one big reason it made its way into mace meta).
You also didn’t mention what utilities you run on….. so I’m assuming Medi guard.

Starlinvg. OP is talking about a PvE build.

What do you want us to tell you OP. You sacrificed DPS and Support for personal surviability. You’ll never get good feed back from that in here. But here my opinion

- Rune of Stength : You’ll pay alot for a small return. Yep you can probably maintain 10-15 might in the right situation, but you sacrifice a lot to be able to do that. Guardian is just no good to grant might to his team.

- Protection : If you want more surviability and like protection, why don’t you use a Zeal/Radiance/Honor Hammer build. It’s 3-4% less dps than the meta, while keeping perma protection on the whole team. More support and more dps than your current build. If you want to give more support, then you can try a Zeal/Honor/Virtue Hammer build.

- Indomitable Courage : Do you really need the stability? Stability is a really niche boons in PvE. Really good in the right situation, but pretty useless most of the time. Battle Presence would be a better support for your team, especially with Absolute Resolution.

Thaddeus.4891:

Starlinvg. OP is talking about a PvE build.

Because I don’t blindly follow the meta, and understood the nature of the question? I never said it was a good PvE build, only that its design falls in line with with the functional desire for a sword.