Opinions on AH?
Its good for learning your role in wvw, but its a crutch that needs to be outgrown.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
Its good for learning your role in wvw, but its a crutch that needs to be outgrown.
In my opinion its a must in wvw.
i don’t really think that is “a crutch that needs to be outgrown”, as long as you don’t wan’t full damage.
Using the meta build, i can’t even use hammer properly, which is my favorite guardian weapon. I realise that it is something that could be skipped and spend the trait points elsewhere, but it feels good to me knowing that i do good damage, and give constant support to my group(and using hammer, which i love).
Im sure there must be some other way i could do that(maybe better, maybe worse) but i just like the way i play now, and i wanted to know if it would be good enough in a pug group.
Its good for learning your role in wvw, but its a crutch that needs to be outgrown.
Survivability is only a “crutch” in PvE because of bad content design. It is NOT a crutch in any PvP format – especially WvW.
Its a crutch because its selfish and doesnt benefit your team.
All of that AH survivability isnt needed when you can find and follow a good driver.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
If you think AH is a crutch in PvP and WvW, then you’re extremely wrong. I agree in PvE it’s not needed.
Show me one viable build for PvP and WvW that doesn’t involve. AH, MF, or AR.
Guardian WvW Guide!
Heavens Rage
Heavens Rage
i somewhat agree with what you guys said,
but im asking if you would find ok such build in pug groups.
i somewhat agree with what you guys said,
but im asking if you would find ok such build in pug groups.
There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m pretty sure you know there are better builds out there for pve, since you stated you’re sick of the dps meta.
Guardian WvW Guide!
Heavens Rage
Heavens Rage
(edited by Harbinger.8637)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlUgqCnFSMEf4ES2DRCBTQsHYUGtRXFSIA-TMAisGNsYA
meant for wvw zerg bustin but i dont feel like ading in all the details
yeah ah is awesome for learning the class like i said. youre in a pug group it doesnt matter what you play as long as you have fun. but when you want to get serious there are some criteria that must be followed in order to be effective.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
(edited by Stand The Wall.6987)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlUgqCnFSMEf4ES2DRCBTQsHYUGtRXFSIA-TMAisGNsYA
meant for wvw but i dont feel like ading in all the detailsyeah ah is awesome for learning the class like i said. youre in a pug group it doesnt matter what you play as long as you have fun. but when you want to get serious there are some criteria that must be followed in order to be effective.
All you did was link a 0/0/10/30/30 build. Even though I said show me a build without AR. Try running a DPS build with that, you can’t.
My point is for guards to be competitive in WvW and PvP they need sustain. This comes from AH,MF, or AR. Try running a dps build without AH or MF and see how it plays out.
Guardian WvW Guide!
Heavens Rage
Heavens Rage
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlUgqCnFSMEf4ES2DRCBTQsHYUGtRXFSIA-TMAisGNsYA
meant for wvw zerg bustin but i dont feel like ading in all the detailsyeah ah is awesome for learning the class like i said. youre in a pug group it doesnt matter what you play as long as you have fun. but when you want to get serious there are some criteria that must be followed in order to be effective.
yeah i agree that if you want to be serious there are some thing that need to be followed, but since we’re talking about pug groups, its just gonna be casual.
im going off of what the OP said. i dont know why youre getting up in my face. maybe youre bored?
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
im going off of what the OP said. i dont know why youre getting up in my face. maybe youre bored?
No I just don’t like people spreading false and inaccurate information.
Guardian WvW Guide!
Heavens Rage
Heavens Rage
Its good for learning your role in wvw, but its a crutch that needs to be outgrown.
Sorry I’ll refrain from stating false and redundant opinions from now on.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
Altruistic Healing has it’s place. It works best in small sPvP and WvW groups for a balanced damage and support build.
In dungeons, ideally you want to max out damage and rely on blocks, blinds, and dodges to live, with scattered small heals. Although AH is great at keeping yourself alive, the trait line is a huge investment for little return that isn’t often required in PvE when CC and high damage is used heavily for trash
Builds for large WvW groups and sPvP bunkers rely more on a mid to high healing power stat fueling regeneration, Selfless Daring, and in WvW water fields and blast finishers. These builds are for CC and group support. Because of the reliance on healing power and the trait selection, the damage is limited.
AH and the Valor trait line give you access to a wealth personal survivability without having to sacrifice too much damage. At the same time, AH caters to boon application, so you aren’t fully disadvantaged by running group support. AH works best with staff to run Empower (each might application procs AH) and shouts. You won’t have amazing burst, but you also won’t fall over when focused.
Kirrena Rosenkreutz
You can run a full zerker setup and still retain 90% of the survivability a PTV AH bunker build would have just by traiting correctly.
People tend to attribute AH to full PTV bunker which is NOT the same thing. its true you will do about 15-20% less THEORITICAL DPS compared to a DPS meta setup but you will have a ton more DPS uptime.
Also remember that AH synergises with boon spamming which people tend to attribute to party support. So if someone tells you AH a “selfish” build, that’s a strait up lie,
AH IS selfish. You can provide useful boons in a full dps spec while obviously not being a DPS burden on the team.
And no, full DPS builds don’t have “less DPS uptime” unless you’re terrible at the game. Even so you could run zerk hammer 15/25/0/20/10 which provides more support than a useless AH dungeon build while also providing much more DPS. The 200 extra vitality and permanent protection will help to keep you alive.
There is no reason to run AH in a dungeon. If you were sick of the DPS meta you would benefit the team more by running a condition removal heavy spec (which most AH builds aren’t since the best condi removal trait guardians have is 20 virtues) rather than a build that serves little purpose other than to keep you alive.
AH IS selfish. You can provide useful boons in a full dps spec while obviously not being a DPS burden on the team.
And no, full DPS builds don’t have “less DPS uptime” unless you’re terrible at the game. Even so you could run zerk hammer 15/25/0/20/10 which provides more support than a useless AH dungeon build while also providing much more DPS. The 200 extra vitality and permanent protection will help to keep you alive.
There is no reason to run AH in a dungeon. If you were sick of the DPS meta you would benefit the team more by running a condition removal heavy spec (which most AH builds aren’t since the best condi removal trait guardians have is 20 virtues) rather than a build that serves little purpose other than to keep you alive.
0/0/30/20/20 With hammer and longer lasting symbols.
Perma prot, 2x AoE party removal. STG for stability, WoR shield and purging flames as necessary. 5x more survivability than your typical glass cannon build.
Explain to me how this build is selfish?
AH IS selfish. You can provide useful boons in a full dps spec while obviously not being a DPS burden on the team.
And no, full DPS builds don’t have “less DPS uptime” unless you’re terrible at the game. Even so you could run zerk hammer 15/25/0/20/10 which provides more support than a useless AH dungeon build while also providing much more DPS. The 200 extra vitality and permanent protection will help to keep you alive.
There is no reason to run AH in a dungeon. If you were sick of the DPS meta you would benefit the team more by running a condition removal heavy spec (which most AH builds aren’t since the best condi removal trait guardians have is 20 virtues) rather than a build that serves little purpose other than to keep you alive.
0/0/30/20/20 With hammer and longer lasting symbols.
Perma prot, 2x AoE party removal. STG for stability, WoR shield and purging flames as necessary. 5x more survivability than your typical glass cannon build.
Explain to me how this build is selfish?
Taking out the 30 points in valor means you can put 15 in zeal for maintaining 5-6 vuln from auto attacking and 15 in radiance for blind and vuln spam. With that you will be negating damage to your group instead of absorbing it for just yourself and stuff will drop faster with all the vuln you stack on foes. That’s why it is selfish and a lot of points better spent. There is also the DPS gain from the 10% trait and the stat points. Valor stops being useful to your group at 10 points for strength in numbers. It is pretty underwhelming past that.
Hello,
so for the past couple of weeks I’ve been running with the following build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARSlUgCC3FSKEf4ESmCRCBxUgRe01jEiiYIA-jwxAY/ARRAoCQJvioxWcLiGruGT5SEVLDQ+WA-e(the skills are situational, i usually work with consecrations more, but i also put the signet for more power in easy fights)
cause honestly i got bored of the dps meta build, and its more fun for me to play like this, the green numbers add a little variety…
I usually play with friends casually, doing dungeons, not really trying to do any perfect times and 3 minute dung runs, just having fun, but there are time where i pug so this is for those times.
(i’m not that good of a player so i was having trouble staying alive and keeping my health above 90% for enough time, but now its seems a lot easier)But I ’ve been reading a lot of stuff about how much AH sucks and stuff like that.
What I’m asking basically is this:
If in a pug group you encountered someone with this build, would you feel like he’s not contributing to the party, or that its dragging the group down?I’m not asking if you would prefer a dps meta build or this, I’m just asking if you think that this kind of thing is ok too.
note: english not first language, please excuse any mistakes.
I can’t run a full out DPS zerker build either so don’t feel so bad.
An AH build will be fine to run in a dungeon party IF speed clearing is not your party’s goal. That being said, some PUGs will be fine with you being spec’ed like that, but don’t expect to be accepted in everyone, especially in Arah.
“Be like water” – Bruce Lee
The build is bad but the gear is good
The pro’s and cons listed ^ are all true enough in some way or another. AH flits between being invaluable and useless based on content (you seem focussed on PvE so I’ll stay with that) and group.
It can help prop up a more fragile Guardian or cement a stalwart Guardians role. There’s probably less room in most pugs for the latter. I find it works very well with any Hammer build, particularly with WoP traited, because the AA#3 has such a long wind-up so you won’t always be willing to dodge and interrupt that, so the Symbol-generated AH heals can offset the damage you’re not avoiding while casting that. With other mainhand weapons, it makes less sense (except Mace, probably).
Going GS or S/x, MF or AR might be better, unless you’re far into the Virtues line and using Shouts.
(edited by dace.8019)
Generally in pve you just want to run full berserker with a dps build (15,15,0,20,20) for hammer. I don’t see why players struggle using full dps builds?
i somewhat agree with what you guys said,
but im asking if you would find ok such build in pug groups.
The key word here is PUG groups.
Pugs are pugs, they will join your level 80 party when they are level 35, they will also join your 3k+ AP party with 924 AP, they will even join your Exp party for their first time through the dungeon, they will open and go into Story mode even though you said P1. AH is fine for pugs, but never for advanced teams.
What you need to know about pugs and AH:
1. You run anything you want when you pug unless otherwise specified.
Anything you want, really anything. Pugs do not usually care what you run as long as the run gets finished, I doubt anyone is looking at how much DPS you are doing in a pug unless you are blatantly running “Sigil of Life”, then you might get a few comments. Even then, most people do not check, they only see 25 stacks and assume Bloodlust. Most often, people can notice a team has low DPS but cannot really tell who in the team has low DPS. If there is only 1 person with low DPS, it is rarely even noticeable.
There are 2 things that will make pugs rage quit, and your build is definitely not one of them. Pugs rage quit if most of your party wipes multiple times, specially if someone keeps doing something incorrectly(such as stacking at AC Spider Queen), or if people cannot perform a certain task of the dungeon path(such as getting across rolling rocks in CoF P1).
2. AH is extremely selfish and useless.
AH is a trait that relies on surrounding allies for you to get healed for more, but does absolutely nothing to help your allies survive. If many of your allies die, AH becomes useless. Therefore it is a bit of a contradictory trait in itself.
Most people will tell you to go with good party support instead of selfish AH. But you have to realize that if some pugs can go with 5 full zerkers and DPS the boss to death with practically no support(other than self heal and traits), then I doubt they ever needed your support in the first place. Again this is opinion, some people will swear they save their teams from wiping by going support, but i believe that if your team is wiping, then there is something else that’s wrong with it in the first place as every class is already self-sufficient without a Guardian’s support.
(Note: The point here is that DPS rules everything, therefore going AH is equivalently bad as going for unneeded support. Useless vs useless ends in a draw)
Another small point you need to consider is that for many mob encounters(even some bosses), if you have AH you are essentially invincible, therefore you do not need to dodge. If dodging takes 1 second, and other people need to dodge every 5 seconds, then I landed kittens in 5 seconds while they landed 4. Depending on gear setups, I might actually have more DPS than them due to that 1 extra hit. Of course, you clearly cannot compare an AH build against a full zerker DPS build, but AH build might actually have more DPS than some hybrid builds, or at least a little more DPS than you expected. The exceptions are 1-hit bosses where AH is clearly useless.
3. Pugs do not blame you for being 0% support with AH if they die.
When somebody dies, they are usually on the defensive to find an explanation for why they died in case people start blaming them for dying, rather than blaming you for lack of support. This is only because of GW2, in other games the healer gets all the blame. If they do blame you, then you can simply reply “I am not your healer and you died because you are bad” and be done with them. It works every time. The exception is if you were expected to do something and they wiped because you did not do it, such as stacking at AC Spider Queen or using reflects against the 3 golems in SE P1. Because this has absolutely nothing to do with AH, feel free to run AH with 0% support in pugs.
(edited by Turtle Dragon.9241)
In a pvp setting AH gives guardians staying power that allows them to continue to support surrounding team mates through supportive skills while remaining active. Like Harbinger said there are no viable pvp builds that do not include AH, MF or AR.
Amd Ryzen 1800x – Amd Fury X -64GB of ram
Windows 10
Windows 10
A dead guardian has 0 dps and 0 support. AH keeps you alive (supposed to). But guess what, you don’t need it. The fact that you can speed run dungeons with a full DPS group is the problem.
Its only a problem if you want to role play dungeons and youre constantly joining zerk only pug dungeon groups.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
Again, you can run full zerker gear as AH and retain 90% of the DPS while boosting your survivability by 5×.
Its a good deal when u are pugging fractal 49
you’re 8% over hte crit damage limit, drop it and get some pvt… you’ll need it with that 13k HP 2500 armor… first AC on the horrizon and I hope you have enough dodges in your pocket to get the hell out of range.
excuses for not being able to stay alive in a dps build me thinks
you’re 8% over hte crit damage limit, drop it and get some pvt… you’ll need it with that 13k HP 2500 armor… first AC on the horrizon and I hope you have enough dodges in your pocket to get the hell out of range.
limit?? there’s a limit? haven’t heard of this before.. is it really true?
excuses for not being able to stay alive in a dps build me thinks
meh, not really, it worked just fine.
sure i had some problems here and there, but more than 80-90% of the content i play, i was able to do great.
As i mentioned, its more fun for me to play this way.
Extrictly for WvW: AH works great.
The most supportive builds in WvW raids usually run with Pure of Voice/Battle Pressence and Absolute Resolution + Indomitable Courage. From these ones I find Battle Pressence an absolute waste due the intensity of the effect is meaningless: heals in raids happens mostly in the reagroups, when the water fields are used, or along the charges while some Guardians unleash the Tome of Courage. Must also be noted that in order to provide some degree of effective healing through Battle Presence you need to gear up with Cleric stats, which will have a hit in your HP pool. Personaly I think that those kind of healway builds only works well in small roaming groups, and for raids I`ll chose Pure of Voice + Absolute Resolution + Indomitable Courage in order to retain a superb level of support in cleansing condition.
Now, about Altruistic Healing, this trait can be absolutely fine in WvW raids, but demands a very different approach. If the number of Guardians in a raid is high enough (fairly common in most guilds) then some of them can be tailored in a more offensive way. I was using sometimes a 0/15/30/20/5 build, with Blind Exposure, Strenght in Numbers, Retributive Armor, Altruistic Healing, Superior Aria and Empowering Might traits. This build is mean to use Soldier Runes and still to retain a 40% crit chance before boons or food. The basic mechanic is simple: you spam Staff 1, which hits at range in a broad area, which in large fights means a lot of hits and tons of crits; those crits provide stacks of might for you and your allies enhancing your offensive capabilities and giving you extra heals. Also, in the team reagroups Empower can refill your whole health (3 times each minute). You can also blind foes and apply vulnerability and being able to spam those conditions each time a foe dies. You support is still strong (Soldier runes + the usual shouts + Inspired Virtue). You aren’t as oriented towards condition cleansing as the Pure of Voice + Absolute Resolution but you still provide strong boon support, decent coindition cleansing and your survability is better due the constant streaming of critical hits and the semi-spammable blindness. You also hit harder.
For PvP: AH can work wonders in some bunker builds. Staff + AH + Two Handed Mastery means an extra heal each 16 seconds, which is huge.
For PvE: almost any build is viable for PvE, no big problem here.
I love the amount of reading comprehension skills in this thread.
Anyways, OP, I think you’ve gotten your answer.
“Be like water” – Bruce Lee
AH is good for pug zergs and sometimes smallman play in wvw.
Healway is better for more organized zerging.
Basic [BS] NSP/Mag
Some say AH is not the meta because the meta is DPS. But that’s not right. There is only one meta in GW2 and that is HAVE FUN. And AH can be much fun.
But one thing about AH or using hammer auto attack in a group. As already mentioned in this forum or in the elementalist forum the almost continual light field can overwrite other combo fields.
That means if your hammer auto attack creates it’s light field before you or an other player creates a fire field and places a blast finisher on it only the light combo effect is triggered. You will get only get Area Retaliation but no Area Might. And maybe that’s not what you want. So better carry always a great sword with you.
(edited by Sturmrose.3514)
That is the build I use.
Except I switch master trait of Honor with Empowering Might and Two Handed Mastery. You seriously don’t need to make symbols last longer. You actually want more fire fields (might/PvE) or lightning fields(swiftness)/poison fields (weakness/WvW).
The only reason I took it is because it’s versatile. It can be used in WvW and PvE equally well. In pug groups it’s absolutely great. You are the anchor of the party in PvE pug teams because there will be ton of bad players that need healing/buffs and for you to tank the majority of the hits.
Conclusion: play with this build. It’s perfectly fine.
SBI – Thief and the occasional Guardian & Warrior.
for pve even if pugs AH is bad, very bad, don’t use it, low damage not as much support as a dps build basically for those who are just learning the game
for pve even if pugs AH is bad, very bad, don’t use it, low damage not as much support as a dps build basically for those who are just learning the game
I don’t see how it is that bad, would it be better if I played full cleric? how can damage be SO bad when it is basically a damage focused build (gear is all zerker, no matter how bad the traits, it still does a decent job),
also i never said it is a dps build, it is a build i like to play and have fun with.
it provides less blind potential and has less damage than a 10,30,0,5,25 build, AH does nothing to help your group, requires 30 points in valor, encourages bad play
the green numbers add a little variety…
I usually play with friends casually, doing dungeons, not really trying to do any perfect times and 3 minute dung runs, just having fun, but there are time where i pug so this is for those times.
(i’m not that good of a player so i was having trouble staying alive and keeping my health above 90% for enough time, but now its seems a lot easier)
If you like green numbers and you play casually you might want to consider taking those 10 points away from Valor (and remove AH) and put them in Honor and get either Writ of Merciful (if you use hammer) or Battle Presence. This way you still get green numbers flying around and you’ll be a lot more helpful to your friends in dungeons.
What I’m asking basically is this:
If in a pug group you encountered someone with this build, would you feel like he’s not contributing to the party, or that its dragging the group down?I’m not asking if you would prefer a dps meta build or this, I’m just asking if you think that this kind of thing is ok too.
AH is a crutch trait for PvE. If you feel insecure and are inexperienced with beating certain content it is fine to use AH and more defensive gear. But eventually you should consider dropping any type of defense and replace them with what is needed in order to get the most out of your party. Here’s a weird analogy to think about; at one point you should feel safe to play outside without holding your mom’s hand.
i use this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYgKCXFyvDf4ESmiVCBxegRZUHdpIhoIA-j0BBofBK7sIaslhht6KIlXRTNjIqWnETIgbbBA-w WvW zerg only.
(edited by Knox.3748)
Turtle Dragon basically summed it all up in a lovely fashion, but I thought it nice to share this thread about the current meta builds and their damage outputs:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-dps-numbers-for-various-builds/first
The chart fadeaway.2807 made (as found in that thread):
http://s27.postimg.org/nf571pco3/guarddps.jpg
If you check the chart and zoom in, you can find what’s essentially the OP’s build. It’s somewhere just above the middle bracket for damage. Slightly higher with a Sigil of Night in certain instances.
With minor alterations, it easily takes a hop to a higher damage bracket, without sacrificing much self-sustain. I think that might be worth looking into, as several people here already suggested. As much as you are comfortable with that, of course.
All in all, I think the chart more or less indicates this is a solid hybrid build which likely suffices in the majority of pugs. The damage should be high enough to pull through most content, without being too brittle (or inexperienced/clumsy) to jeopardise your party.
So to give you an answer:
I’d take someone with this build who plays it right, over the large amounts of clumsy DPS meta Guardians and Cleric staff spammers any day.
(edited by Auruan.2837)
So ive heard a lot of people talking about ah guards being a dps burden and not being able to do good damage but this build is not in any way a dps burden and it still uses lots of heals and such. Whats the issue with using AH if youre not burdening youre group?
[Teef] Dragonbrand Thief and Engi main www.twitch.tv/ariodoesgaming and Ario Does Gaming on Youtube!
So ive heard a lot of people talking about ah guards being a dps burden and not being able to do good damage but this build is not in any way a dps burden and it still uses lots of heals and such. Whats the issue with using AH if youre not burdening youre group?
because you are burdening your group, the damage is low and less support than a 15,15,0,20,20 build, less damage and less support means its worse, before you say ooh more sustain if you need defensive gear the general idea is run full dps gear and get better
GW2 is designed with casuals in mind. It is why they have the most uninformative combat log in the history of MMOs and no ability to inspect gear. Nobody will be able to tell what you are running for the most part. Just learn how to finish whatever you are running and you’ll be fine.
AH is fine in disorganized play and a couple of other specific cases. If your primary concern is keeping yourself alive, it works pretty well. If you want to be the best PvE guardian you can be, learn to run 20/25/0/0/25 or 15/15/0/20/20. In organized WvW I almost always end up running 0/0/10/30/30.
The biggest problem with running AH is that it’s a 30 point talent in the valor line, which is arguably our weakest overall trait line, and getting to it requires trading huge amounts of support for your party that is available in the other lines. Part of me wishes they would move it to grandmaster virtues and move or get rid of permeating wrath so at least people going for it would have the nice group support from that line.
AH is fine in disorganized play and a couple of other specific cases. If your primary concern is keeping yourself alive, it works pretty well. If you want to be the best PvE guardian you can be, learn to run 20/25/0/0/25 or 15/15/0/20/20. In organized WvW I almost always end up running 0/0/10/30/30.
The biggest problem with running AH is that it’s a 30 point talent in the valor line, which is arguably our weakest overall trait line, and getting to it requires trading huge amounts of support for your party that is available in the other lines. Part of me wishes they would move it to grandmaster virtues and move or get rid of permeating wrath so at least people going for it would have the nice group support from that line.
If it was in virtues I would never die again.
Basic [BS] NSP/Mag
The only problem if they did that is there would be nothing attractive about the valor line (except arguably str in numbers). But yeah if they moved it to virtues you could run 10,30,0,0,30
10/30/0/0/30 is pretty good as an alternative to 20/25/0/0/25. it lacks the 5% gs modifier but it’s convenient in that 30 virtues allows you to have all of MoC, absolute resolution and UC at any given time. you can also take traits like stability on f3/longer spirit weapon duration situationally.