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Posted by: The Lionheart.3726

The Lionheart.3726

Hello, fellow guardians! Long time player, first time poster here.

This thing is this; I’m currently looking for a reliable, efficient dungeon build that isn’t a berserker build. I know a rapid dps output is a big help, but I’ve got 3 other characters that already have a (semi) zerker build and I want to mix things up.
It’s also important to keep in mind that I want to use this build to ‘support’ pugs completely new or inexperienced with dungeons. So as to guide them through it and not finish the dungeon for them.
I myself was leaning towards a Zealot or Cleric build, but I would like to know if there already was a viable build out there. Something people would recommend to me. Or am I just in the wrong here and get myself another zerker build?

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Posted by: KSIBBQ.8123

KSIBBQ.8123

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Posted by: oxtred.7658

oxtred.7658

You’re in the wrong. Support also comes from dps. IF you really insist though, play 4/5/0/0/5 in zealots.

If you’re on EU and need help to get into dungeons, pm me.

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Posted by: Fashion Mage.3712

Fashion Mage.3712

You’re in the wrong. Support also comes from dps.

If you mean direct DPS, then in that case, don’t misdefine support. If you mean offensive support like the things that Tome of Wrath offers, then nevermind.

Edit: Lionheart, if you wanna use healing in dungeons, consider using something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNArdWl8ApQolCxXIEENR8QlbK+iVGATAuPRUA-TRCBABVcGAs4BAMomgzUCyqyPs2fAgDBgqq/kneAA-e
Switch out Zealot’s for Zerker’s as you see fit.

(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)

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Posted by: oxtred.7658

oxtred.7658

You’re in the wrong. Support also comes from dps.

If you mean direct DPS, then in that case, don’t misdefine support. If you mean offensive support like the things that Tome of Wrath offers, then nevermind.

That was a shortcut to say the support is stronger as the fight shortens and going with an offensive gear helps your team more than any healing power. But I wasn’t going for a wall of text explaining that.

If you’re on EU and need help to get into dungeons, pm me.

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Posted by: Dahkeus.8243

Dahkeus.8243

If you want a build that brings good support for a pug, look at the Fractal Hammer build:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Fractal_Hammer

If you don’t feel comfortable in zerker armor, use Knights or Soldiers if you reeeaaaally want to be super tanky.

But I would very, very strongly recommend against something like Clerics or Zealot. The DPS loss is really massive and healing scales very badly, so you’ll go from supporting a pug to being the side of the pug that needs to be supported.

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Posted by: oxtred.7658

oxtred.7658

Zealot is the third dps set after berserker and assassin.

If you’re on EU and need help to get into dungeons, pm me.

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

If your going for a healing support then zealots will be your best bet. Youl still deal decent damage (Which you can make up for with depending on how you play your character. Most zerk dungeon/fractal runners ive met dont really know how to bring hte best out of there chars as there simply bandwaggoning.) If you intend to take the support playstyle seriously your gonna have ALOT more things to watch (which will definitely help in increasing your situational awareness)

Learning what can be blocked entirely by a blind or aegis and what attacks come in multiple parts (Requiring some healing to deal with) can actually let you help your grp alot. If people aren’t using there water/blast combos or there internal heals until there spiked there more likely to survive becuase theyl have htere personal heal off cooldown. This is more true for high level fractals however. Because there really arn’t many places elsewhere in the game where there are mobs that can power through a groups accidental healing.

Ghost Yak

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Posted by: Fashion Mage.3712

Fashion Mage.3712

But I would very, very strongly recommend against something like Clerics or Zealot. The DPS loss is really massive and healing scales very badly

I wouldn’t really call the DPS loss “massive” with Zealot’s gear.
With about 800 healing power, healing skills can scale anywhere from a 40% to 80% increase in healing value. Not really bad scaling either in my opinion, especially considering that all allied healing is AoE in GW2, and in PvE people tend to group closely.

Without the ferocity that Berserker gear offers, Zealot gear deals about 20~% less damage. So it’s 20~% less DPS in exchange for 40%-80% stronger healing.

(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)

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Posted by: Thaddeus.4891

Thaddeus.4891

But I would very, very strongly recommend against something like Clerics or Zealot. The DPS loss is really massive and healing scales very badly

I wouldn’t really call the DPS loss “massive” with Zealot’s gear.
With about 800 healing power, healing skills can scale anywhere from a 40% to 80% increase in healing value. Not really bad scaling either in my opinion, especially considering that all allied healing is AoE in GW2, and in PvE people tend to group closely.

Without the ferocity that Berserker gear offers, Zealot gear deals about 20~% less damage. So it’s 20~% less DPS in exchange for 40%-80% stronger healing.

Its 745 (for a full ascended set) ferocity that’s transfer to healing power.

That’s 50% critical dmg less, with dps build you usually have around 80% critical chance with fury. That mean about 40% less dps, not 20%. Or 30% less dps if you don’t want to count fury (since pugs don’t always give fury).

The healing power on the other hand
Passive F2 : +53%
Active F2 : + 34%
Shelter : + 11%
Empower : + 50%
Sanctuary : + 14%
AH : + 10%
Monk’s Focus : + 15%
Writ of the Merciful : + 52%

I don’t know where you get that 40 to 80% stronger heal. Keep in mind that all these percentage were calculated with only 745 healing power. You will probably already have some healing power from another source than your gear, making the increase even less.

So ya, a 30-40% decrease in dps in exchange for a 10-53% increase in healing.

For the OP. Zealot won’t give you a lot of support by itself. Most of your healing skill are personal so you won’t gonna help your team much, its gonna be mostly yourself alone that you gonna help.

But guardian are really good at other source of support. Blind, Aegis, Protection, Reflection are all great support skill that’s gonna keep you team alive.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQBgi4BJrx2+5VdBw85WA This give you the usual trait for a support guardian. Hammer give constant protection to your team (33% less incoming dm) for about a 5% dps lost compare to a full dps build. The protection symbol is annoying to your team if they try to blast might, but since you mostly want to help you ppl, that won’t be an issue.

You want to spam F1 to blind the enemies. You want to use retreat and F3 to block incoming attack with aegis. You wan to use WoR to block projectile, you want to use purging flames to remove condition from your team.

All that with Zerker gear and runes of scholar. But if you really want to use something else as gear, do as you please. Zealot will increase your own surviablity, but not really your support capability. Hammer have good dps by itself, so you can bring a staff with you if you want. Ideally, stack might before a fight then keep your hammer for the duration of the engagement. Then return to staff for the beginning of the next fight.

Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD

(edited by Thaddeus.4891)

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Posted by: Fashion Mage.3712

Fashion Mage.3712

I forgot to mention that I was mainly referring to allied healing abilities, self-healing abilities almost always have bad scaling. Some of my calculations were off though since I did them in somewhat of a hurry.
Regeneration roughly gets an 80% increase in effectiveness.
Orb of Light (with detonation) gets a 57% increase (something which scales particularly well with healing power, considering its CD).
Tome of Courage’s Heal Area scales well with healing power as well, although that’s situational.

Berserker gear alone only provides 39% crit chance, with 206% crit damage. With fury that’s 59%. If you’re going to include traits and runes in your comparison, then you should do the same for when you’re talking about healing.

For the OP. Zealot won’t give you a lot of support by itself. Most of your healing skill are personal so you won’t gonna help your team much, its gonna be mostly yourself alone that you gonna help.

Not true, at all. The guardian has two healing skills which only affect themselves, shelter and signet of resolve, which both scale badly with healing power. Their self-healing traits also scale horribly with healing power (as you’ve already shown).
Healing power isn’t used for self-survivability, it’s used for group survivability.

(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)

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Posted by: Thaddeus.4891

Thaddeus.4891

Berserker gear alone only provides 39% crit chance, with 206% crit damage. With fury that’s 59%. If you’re going to include traits and runes in your comparison, then you should do the same for when you’re talking about healing..

I talked about the critical damage only from gear not from trait. 745 Ferocity is equal to 49.6% critical damage and that’s what I use. I took the precision of a full build because zealot of zerker will give you the same amount anyway, and using just the precision of the gear don’t make any sense, its the ferocity that we were talking about not precision.

If I take into account all the healing power and not just the healing power from the gear, then the % of increase would be less. Remember, its the not the increase of a full build compare to zero healing power. Its the comparasion of the healing power that the gear give you compare to the healing with zerker gear instead. To be totally fair, I should have compare the healing capability of a full build in zerker versus the healing capability of a the build with zealot, but this would take a bit longer and will give lower percentage of increase.

For the OP. Zealot won’t give you a lot of support by itself. Most of your healing skill are personal so you won’t gonna help your team much, its gonna be mostly yourself alone that you gonna help.

Not true, at all. The guardian has two healing skills which only affect themselves, shelter and signet of resolve, which both scale badly with healing power. Their self-healing traits also scale horribly with healing power (as you’ve already shown).
Healing power isn’t used for self-survivability, it’s used for group survivability.

Did I said that ALL your healing skill are personal? Did i say that healing power is only for self-survivability? If you take a good build for the guardian and you put zealot gear on it, then you will have limited amount of group healing. You will have no source of regen, you shouldn’t have a staff, your passive F2 will only be for you, you probably will rarely use the active F2, etc.

Now, if you want to use zealot gear and change your trait to get more group healing skill then we change the discussion entirely. Then its not a good build with support, its a bad healing build. I won’t gonna go that road again, hundred of tread over the years where new player get into the game and think that they gonna be a healing paladin that support his group (I was one of them 2 years ago). GW2 is just not that game, you do whatever you want and OP can go full healing if he want. He will be of limited help for most ppl, and will drag down most group. Of course, he’s not alone and a lot of ppl like to play like that. As long as he try to find group that like that, he should be fine. But if he join random group with a full healing power in PvE, he should be ready to receive some comments on his build.

Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD

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Posted by: Svenghali.4716

Svenghali.4716

Well, there is always another way to skin the cat: Medi builds are not always the only DPS option.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Videos-High-DPS-WVW/first#post4606035

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Posted by: Fashion Mage.3712

Fashion Mage.3712

I wasn’t aware medi builds were the norm in the first place in PvE.

Did I said that ALL your healing skill are personal? Did i say that healing power is only for self-survivability? If you take a good build for the guardian and you put zealot gear on it, then you will have limited amount of group healing. You will have no source of regen, you shouldn’t have a staff, your passive F2 will only be for you, you probably will rarely use the active F2, etc.

You said “Most of your healing skill are personal”, which simply isn’t true unless you’re specifically talking about #6 skills. You also said “so you won’t gonna help your team much, its gonna be mostly yourself alone that you gonna help”, which also isn’t true because scaling on self-healing is terrible, which you appear to acknowledge.
Focus #4, VoR active provide regen (which can be activated more frequently with RF), and I don’t see why one wouldn’t activate VoR (unless they haven’t specced into Virtues at all, which is not the norm).

Now, if you want to use zealot gear and change your trait to get more group healing skill then we change the discussion entirely. Then its not a good build with support, its a bad healing build.

Traiting for healing usually isn’t necessary for being able to heal decently. Healing Breeze (with a staff, if a moderate amount of healing power is used) already provides a lot of group healing, and if burst healing is really needed then Tome of Courage can be used.
About the staff’s DPS, I believe it’s about the same as a sword?

(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)

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Posted by: Thaddeus.4891

Thaddeus.4891

Traiting for healing usually isn’t necessary for being able to heal decently. Healing Breeze (with a staff, if a moderate amount of healing power is used) already provides a lot of group healing, and if burst healing is really needed then Tome of Courage can be used.
About the staff’s DPS, I believe it’s about the same as a sword?

Ok i’ll be more clear, but I think we agree in the end.

1) When I said those thing I was talking about a meta build that you just switch zerker to zealot. In that particular situation, you don’t have much group healing.

2) If he use healing breeze you are totally right. But Staff is a terrible weapons in pve. So its not only zealot gear that drop its dps, its also the use of a staff. Staff can be ok if you play hammer build (hammer have the best standalone dps), but then you want to use staff only before a fight, but during when the heal would be useful, but the dps soooooo bad. Tome of courage does heal, but again you heal not for that much, you don’t dps at all while doing that and you don’t have renewed focus for a additional aegis and blind which will probably block more dmg that you gonna heal with tome of courage.

So ya, if you change zealot to have healing power, and you change to a non meta build to have the healing skill to take advantage of your healing power then ya you gonna be able to heal your group. But your build will be terrible for your team. Heal is far less powerful than dmg mitigation (which is the MAIN strength of the guardian btw). You gonna end up in one of those situation.

- Good meta group will have no use for you. They will carry you and you heal won’t help them at all.
- Bad meta group will need all the dps possible or they will die. You will end up rezzing everybody, ppl will be upset, they will blame you even if its also their fault.
- Casual group will like you tho. You gonna be able to keep them alive, but any content will take so much time.

Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD