Guild Wars 2

I have a minor neurological condition that makes managing a bunch of buttons difficult. Is there a guardian build that doesn’t have to swap weapons to be effective? I mainly play PVE. Thank you!

If it is PvE you are after, then having a Greatsword or Hammer would be sufficient. I don’t recall having the need to use ranged attack (scepter) for any PvE (except maybe in dungeons kiting boss). Greatsword will give good DPS while hammer provide some protection. So the AH build will probably meet your needs.

Is Altruistic Healing an active or passive healing build?

Passive you just need to trait empowering might and have a reasonable crit rate of 40% or more.

Victros.8154:

Is Altruistic Healing an active or passive healing build?

Its an active build, you need to hit and crit for it to be superstrong. And its not a healing build, AH only heal yourself so its basically a survivability build.

If you have issues with a bunch of buttons i would suggest hammer in pve, basically its just two buttons to use on the weapon. Personally i find the hammer to be a huge bore in pve but superfun and demanding in pvp.

If you really want to facilitate gameplay in pve choose the hammer with larger and longer lasting symbols and gear with runes that increases protectionuptime.

Something like this maybe and you would have 40% more uptime on protection and 20% on all boons.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS7dlYgyCXEyvDfIFRuAbBYPwoH141DHSRGC;TkAqdM7I2x6lbHpXLMGYMFB

Loaf of Omnomberry Bread would/could be a nice addition as well.

Use it with a full knights gear, accessories and weapons, to max toughness.
Copy and paste the link if it aint working.

Think this might be the “easiest” pve setup you can get. But be prepared to have aggro 90% of the time in dungeons with this setup.

The Hammer autoattack #1 skill grants the protection boon on the third strike in the chain. This is a 33% damage reduction.

If you trait correctly in boon extension, and maybe get some boon duration runes, you could have almost continual protection just by clicking on a mob once to start the autoattack.

The #1 skill 3rd attack also lays down a light field, which you can combo periodically with the #2 skill for a Blast Finisher, creating Area Might for you. The rest of the skills on the Hammer are CC and wouldn’t have to be used that much. Get the 2h cooldown reduction trait, and you can spam #1 and #2 over and over again.

You might also want to look into retaliation if you are not going to be dodging hits. Boon duration runes will extend it, as will some traits in the Virtue line. Retaliation will inflict damage on mobs when they hit you.

Thrumdi.9216:

The #1 skill 3rd attack also lays down a light field, which you can combo periodically with the #2 skill for a Blast Finisher, creating Area Might for you.

Area Retaliation, you need a fire field to procc area might.

What is might btw? I mean unsure what the french word is so if someone can explain. Same as power?
You can have the fire field with a fire utility.

hithlain.4385:

What is might btw? I mean unsure what the french word is so if someone can explain. Same as power?
You can have the fire field with a fire utility.

spot on.

So an AH build heals automatically as you fight? Thanks for all the help!

Not quite, but yes. An Altruistic Healing Build heals you for each Boon you give.

So with Hammer, each time your number 1 ability (3rd hit in the chain) lands, you will get healed for every person that recieves ‘Protection’ from the Symbol that it puts on the ground.

EDIT: If I could only have 1 weapon for PvE, in Dungeons w/ a grp of people, I would choose the Hammer.

I would have Cleric Gear and Sapphire Jewelry.

I would run something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS5dlYgyC33xOEfIFRugaBYP04H341DK6QGC;

You’re not really going to die.

Obviously, you’d switch out utlities based on the event.

Total noob question: How do you trigger the 3rd hit? Do you press 1 three times, or does it happen automatically?

Victros.8154:

Total noob question: How do you trigger the 3rd hit? Do you press 1 three times, or does it happen automatically?

The #1 skills are auto-skills, meaning when you have targeted a mob, pressing 1 once will automatically hitting the mob continuously with #1, until you use another skill, target another mob, or the mob dies. So yeah, press once, and the skill will cycle through first hit to 3rd hit.

However, I have experienced when the #1 skill stop hitting mid-way … probably because the mob moved away from range (which melee range) or you moved away from range. So I basically just spam #1 just in case.

Amins.3710:

Not quite, but yes. An Altruistic Healing Build heals you for each Boon you give.

So with Hammer, each time your number 1 ability (3rd hit in the chain) lands, you will get healed for every person that recieves ‘Protection’ from the Symbol that it puts on the ground.

Apart from the hammer strike (which grant the protection boon to allies), you should utilize Shouts, which gives multiple boons to allies. So with a full party, you are giving out lots of boons, and consequently, receiving lots of heals. And of course, select traits that gives boons to allies, such as Empowering Might, as someone mentioned.

Note that however, and this is from my playing experience, the AH build is great for partying in dungeon and WvW, but not as spectacular when you solo PvE. The more people you apply boons, the better the heal. But the people must be in your party (except symbols such as the 3rd hit of #1 skill, where anyone within range will get the protection boon).

Are you sure? Boons from utilities are not applied to every allies in vicinity, including NPC?

Regarding the autoattack and hammer, i wouldnt set it autoattack so it hits in vincinty. If you do that you wont be able to place the symbol, last step, without a target in range.

Imo taking full advantage of the hammer as a support weapon and also to max dps you shouldnt use autoattack but press the button three times. I dont know how to explain it in a better way but if you test on mobs with both auto and non auto on #1 you will realize that autoattack isnt as effective and diverse as manually hit #1

boons are applied to MOST friendly npcs ad they are considered allies and triggers AH. There are exceptions though and one of the exceptions i found is some “questgivers”.

They also applies to necro and ranger pets which makes a pet necro great for a AH build.

Not sure if this will help or not (you didn’t say how or why managing the keys were hard) but I’d like to add that you might like to look into a razer naga because except for typing you can play this whole game by remapping keys and using only 1 hand