Guild Wars 2

So I just reached lvl 80 and want to go support build with staff – mace/shield. What are your recommended build and armor/weapons? Im talking about PvE here, but are also welcome to WvWvW support builds!

5 points in virtues to get the best out of the virtues. There you have a a semi decent support guardian!

3*Superior rune of the monk, 3*Superior rune water to have good uptime on your boons. Now he turned into a rather alright support guardian

Shouts with short cd (stability and protection being the most valued ones) and consecrations for stability and ofc wall of reflection. And now its a a top notch support guardian

Btw being set on playing mace and staff will gimp you, you need to swap weapon depending on encounter and considering staff i havent done one single encounter in pve where other weapons/classes dont do the job better then the staff.

Sometimes its gs/hammer thats the best support, sometimes its scepter/focus and sometimes its hammer/mace.

Personally i wouldnt use staff at all in pve other then tagging mobs when i use a high dps setup and for moving around in the world.

Trait larger symbols and healing on symbols and empowering might.

Gear, berserker/knights/soldier, the one you feel skilled enough to use, all of them offer the same support.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeRlYgqCHGyLEf4ERWBRi9Qjw/jXPcIFZIA;TIBA2ynEOJdS9kyJqsMZJyymlLLZWLMGYcEZLyTkpIA
With the above this one has either 100% uptime on regen, mace when you have aggro, and 100% uptime on protection with the hammer when someone else has aggro. Now its a world class support guardian

I would go for a full knights set to max toughness and crit and either use sharpning stones to increase power or maintenance oil for max crit.

The second foodbuff i would use omnomberry pie. With this setup you will be extremely sturdy and superstrong in boon generation to your team and its boons that matters. Protection, regeneration, 600-700 heals per dodge roll every 5 seconds, 130 extr hps per second from the symbols, high toughness to generate aggro which removes damage from the team and on to you which you handle thru toughness and amazing incoming selfheals, we are talking about 1,5 k per chain on the hammer and slightly more on the mace.

Support isnt about hitting like a wet noodle, its about making the team have less incoming damage and in my experience this set up is absolutely amazing in that department.

Throw the staff away, if you want to have might on the team there are other more efficient ways, fire fields, if you want to heal water fields are also much better then what we can do. And eles/rangers dont have to be wet noodles to serve us those fields, just be prepared to trigger them with the hammer/mace/GS.

Protection and stability on the team are the best support available in the game and stability is the area where we excel compared to other classes.

Cant click that link, it says “bad link”. Also why GS as support? I dont see much healing with that, nor hammer. Im still a noob tho

Zariuss.2357:

Cant click that link, it says “bad link”. Also why GS as support? I dont see much healing with that, nor hammer. Im still a noob tho

try coy paste. the ‘;’ is what mess up the coding.

as a guardian you should take advantage of your high armour value. so trying to take aggro somewhat more than what other proffssion do will probably provide them with the best support you can give them. so in order to take aggro u need to be close to them have high toughness and deal deacent dps. this can be done with hammer / gs. you will also be critting more because you hit more foes and this will grant you more healing via AH.

How does the aggro system work in this game? Im used to that the one who deals the most dmg takes aggro, or the tank but there is no tank in this game :P

it’s complicated and we will most likely never know how it truly works. but a few things that we know for sure is;

• vicinity (the closer the higher chance to aggro)
• toughness (the more toughness the more aggro you get)
• dps, ( more dps = higher threat = more aggro)
• current hp (less % hp = more aggro)
• reviving ( trying to revive = you get aggro)

how heavy each part accounts for we dont really know. but the more you get of everything the better i suppose

Zariuss.2357:

Also why GS as support? I dont see much healing with that, nor hammer. Im still a noob tho

GS is the best dps weapon we have for single targets with an occasinally aoe fight and it also delivers a rather nice amount o boons which heals you and make you able to stay close for longer periods of time while doing damage.

In pure aoe fights i would go for Hammer, sustained aoe damage is its absolute strength.

In this game damage, toughness and vicinity (melee) is a very powerful supporttool in pve and also in pvp ofc..

Zariuss.2357:

Zariuss.2357:

I dont see much healing with that, nor hammer. Im still a noob tho

as a guardian you should take advantage of your high armour value. so trying to take aggro somewhat more than what other proffssion do will probably provide them with the best support you can give them. so in order to take aggro u need to be close to them have high toughness and deal deacent dps. this can be done with hammer / gs. you will also be critting more because you hit more foes and this will grant you more healing via AH.

As he wrote, being able to prevent aggro is a better choice when it comes to support. its the absolute best mitigation method and heals being one of the worst.

Healing is the worst kind of support you could bring, toughness and dps are much better imo and actually prevents more damage on the team then any healing in this game.

with that said, if you want to play a healer then its alright, you play the gamethe way you like but asking for a support build is a bit misleading.

I can tell you that the only measure for of being a support guardian is if the encounter was facilitated and the times i play with stacked toughness and crit in pve are the times when my team get a very easy ride, ofc according to them, in fact i find the setup to be OP in PvE, making it silly easy.

• vicinity (the closer the higher chance to aggro)
• toughness (the more toughness the more aggro you get)
• dps, ( more dps = higher threat = more aggro)
• current hp (less % hp = more aggro)
• reviving ( trying to revive = you get aggro)

In all these areas a knights geared guardian score extremely high and in most it really shines. Frankly i have aggro 90% of the time, sure there are aoe but thats secondary to the main damage and aggro also often let you direct the aoe away from the team by positioning the mob

- Hammer/gs/mace, closest to the enemy at all times, check!
- Stacked knights and 30 traitpoints in toughness, check!
- >50% crit rating and 40% critdamage, dps, check!
- Current HP, around 14k, check!
- Last one standing, always reviving the team, check!

Can’t wait for AH/EM + crit food to get the bat so that there will finally be some reasonable alternative builds.

Worst thing about this game is that when it boils right down to it there’s not much point in having alternative gear sets as there is only one role in the game, DPS. “Tanking” is just whoever happens to be in melee. “Healing” is just using your personal heal ability and dodging the big 1-shot hits.

Yaki.9563:

Can’t wait for AH/EM + crit food to get the bat so that there will finally be some reasonable alternative builds.

I do agree, but instead of nerfing it, make AH innate, that way the traitlines would “open up” for more and varied builds.

Virtue of Altruism, after all Anet recently stated they want us to be a in your face boon soldier, so AH when passive and why not 10 sec of fury to the team when active. 26s cool down.

AH/EM is always nice.
Standard shouts, cleaning.
Keeping the front line going.

you want a full support, offensewise and defense wise combined and staying true to the word “support”?

Staff-> spam empower on the right locations. (2 handed mastery is a must)
full clerics with water/monk runes

trait and skill appropriately

you can give your whole team 500+ power and 500+ condition damage X 5 that lasts for ~10-12 seconds (you don’t need to claim that your guardian is doing awesome dps coz its still subpar compared to the obvious dps classes) and have the top notch healing power to make your team alive, still with utilities like protection and stability.

and if you get bored with this kind of setup, you can do the healway build, which is more on offense, without spending gold on a new gear.

how about that?

alcopaul.2156:

you want a full support, offensewise and defense wise combined and staying true to the word “support”?

Staff-> spam empower on the right locations. (2 handed mastery is a must)
full clerics with water/monk runes

trait and skill appropriately

you can give your whole team 500+ power and 500+ condition damage X 5 that lasts for ~10-12 seconds (you don’t need to claim that your guardian is doing awesome dps coz its still subpar compared to the obvious dps classes) and have the top notch healing power to make your team alive, still with utilities like protection and stability.

and if you get bored with this kind of setup, you can do the healway build, which is more on offense, without spending gold on a new gear.

how about that?

If you’re going for this kind of build you’re better off with Pre/Vit/Heal because you want the extra crits for procs and vitality > toughness especially if you aren’t “tanking” in melee.

Seems kind of worthless to me though, since you can a) do good damage while b) providing the same utility buffs and c) giving about half as many might stacks and d) soaking some damage by going the standard AH/EM 2H sword or 2H hammer Knights setup. You may think your healing is useful but really, it’s not all that great. DPS is king in this game because way damage works (avoidance via dodge) and the huge sacrifice for marginal increases in healing.

Yaki.9563:

alcopaul.2156:

you want a full support, offensewise and defense wise combined and staying true to the word “support”?

Staff-> spam empower on the right locations. (2 handed mastery is a must)
full clerics with water/monk runes

trait and skill appropriately

you can give your whole team 500+ power and 500+ condition damage X 5 that lasts for ~10-12 seconds (you don’t need to claim that your guardian is doing awesome dps coz its still subpar compared to the obvious dps classes) and have the top notch healing power to make your team alive, still with utilities like protection and stability.

and if you get bored with this kind of setup, you can do the healway build, which is more on offense, without spending gold on a new gear.

how about that?

If you’re going for this kind of build you’re better off with Pre/Vit/Heal because you want the extra crits for procs and vitality > toughness especially if you aren’t “tanking” in melee.

Seems kind of worthless to me though, since you can a) do good damage while b) providing the same utility buffs and c) giving about half as many might stacks and d) soaking some damage by going the standard AH/EM 2H sword or 2H hammer Knights setup. You may think your healing is useful but really, it’s not all that great. DPS is king in this game because way damage works (avoidance via dodge) and the huge sacrifice for marginal increases in healing.

yeah, i for one believes that offense is the best defense but we need a little bit of defense or healing since we won’t be 3 shotting everything that comes along. what’s good with support is that you give your team mates the ability to soak AI hate/damage by giving them prot and healing them. i might not be aware of proper getting the aggro and stuff but i’m used to messy action so i got used to distributing defense to all other team mates.

one can do what you’re suggesting. but we have different preferences so we will still have different school of thoughts depending on the playstyle.

you can argue that team builds and team roles like support+dps are moot since one can solo arah path 2 with a glass cannon warrior.