Guild Wars 2

PVE
Premise I want to build a more tank/supportive guardian, but I feel very useless without a bit of damage. Healing Power is needful with so big pool of health ?

So which of these two build is better and/or how I can improve them ?

If I need Healing Power due to the high vitality /(and it’s not so useless in PVE/Dungeon) I think i’ll opt for this:

Soldier/Cleric
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWlsApWotCxfH8DNRChkVRs/EK11BucA-TBSDABOcJAOS5XqKBhR9no2foAzfhoLAgnAAA-e

Otherwise if I need Power/Critz over Healing Power I opt for this:

Solider/Knight
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWlsApWotCxfH8DNRChkVRs/EK11BucA-TRCBABQtgQOq/MrSQlU+tg5PAeCA0sfgK6Co4SAAA-e

Thank you for the advices !
(Sorry for my English, I’m italian)

Healing power is a wasted stat since it scales so poorly. People usually run a mix of tank armor like knight/soldier/celestial and berserker trinkets to get a decent balance of survival and damage. Running a hammer build will make you tanky since will get permanent protection and you will be bring something beneficial to the group. Here is a common build though you can take 2 points out of radiance for strength in numbers or absolute resolution http://intothemists.com/guides/3793-max_utility_dps_hammer_guardian

The support a guardian brings is to mitigate damage dealt to your group by using wall of reflection and shield of the avenger when there are projectiles, stand your ground when stability is needed (hallowed ground or indomitable courage as well if need be), ageis from your virtue and retreat, and spam virtue of justice to keep up blinds. Weak party heals won’t do nearly as much or save someone from getting one shotted like using the right utility will. Hammer will add even more damage mitigation from the protection it gives. You will want to use purging flames or absolute resolution for condition removal. You usually should only have 1 shout on your bar depending what you are doing which is mostly just retreat or stand your ground when stability is needed so a full shout bar and pure of voice is a waste.

obal.3218:

You will want to use purging flames or absolute resolution for condition removal.

Great advise obal. I’m currently running this build as well – Hammer/GS.
Just wanna add that GS#2 also does condition removal on a light field.

obal.3218
I have to disagree with 2 things in your post.
1) “Healing power is a wasted stat since it scales so poorly.”
-Healing Power is one of the only stats in the game that scales linear with the amount of points placed within the stat. I run full Cleric gear (focusing on healing) and notice a strong difference in the group survivability rate than when I run a different class.

2) “…so a full shout bar and pure of voice is a waste.”
-I focus on altruistic healing (which provides healing to myself each time I cast a shout)… I load 3 shouts “Stand your Ground” , “Hold the Line” , and “Retreat”.
Hold the Line Regeneration to the entire team which is bolstered by the increased healing power. Stand your Ground for stability as well as “block the next incoming attack”… Retreat for the speed boost and I also think it blocks the next incoming attack.

Shield Healing / Staff Healing / the Virtue Healing … this build allows me to run as close of a true “healing class” in GW2.

Lodius.5392:

obal.3218
I have to disagree with 2 things in your post.
1) “Healing power is a wasted stat since it scales so poorly.”
-Healing Power is one of the only stats in the game that scales linear with the amount of points placed within the stat. I run full Cleric gear (focusing on healing) and notice a strong difference in the group survivability rate than when I run a different class.

2) “…so a full shout bar and pure of voice is a waste.”
-I focus on altruistic healing (which provides healing to myself each time I cast a shout)… I load 3 shouts “Stand your Ground” , “Hold the Line” , and “Retreat”.
Hold the Line Regeneration to the entire team which is bolstered by the increased healing power. Stand your Ground for stability as well as “block the next incoming attack”… Retreat for the speed boost and I also think it blocks the next incoming attack.

Shield Healing / Staff Healing / the Virtue Healing … this build allows me to run as close of a true “healing class” in GW2.

And all of that would be unnecessary if your group would learn to dodge correctly and wore zerker gear to end fights sooner instead of making it a battle of attrition.

Basically if your group plays at a high level, all of those things go unused.

And even with all those skills for healing, you’re not going to be able to burst me up after a failed dodge of a high damage attack more than once or maybe twice before everything is on recharge. And god forbid I take a one shot as the fight goes longer I have more to dodge , fights like icebrood wolf in COE you let spire take the first one shot, then you burn before the next one happens because there’s really no tell for the attack.

A Mix of berserker with berserker sounds good to me.

Lodius.5392:

obal.3218
I have to disagree with 2 things in your post.
1) “Healing power is a wasted stat since it scales so poorly.”
-Healing Power is one of the only stats in the game that scales linear with the amount of points placed within the stat. I run full Cleric gear (focusing on healing) and notice a strong difference in the group survivability rate than when I run a different class.

2) “…so a full shout bar and pure of voice is a waste.”
-I focus on altruistic healing (which provides healing to myself each time I cast a shout)… I load 3 shouts “Stand your Ground” , “Hold the Line” , and “Retreat”.
Hold the Line Regeneration to the entire team which is bolstered by the increased healing power. Stand your Ground for stability as well as “block the next incoming attack”… Retreat for the speed boost and I also think it blocks the next incoming attack.

Shield Healing / Staff Healing / the Virtue Healing … this build allows me to run as close of a true “healing class” in GW2.

Sorry man. Your 16 months late on that. The build that you talk about (minus the healing power) is an old meta build when the game started. Since then, the community figure out that it wasn’t the right direction to go and the build was use less and less by players.
1) Ya healing power as a linear scaling. But only add so little advantage compare to the base healing you get from skills. Take AH for example. The formula is 69 + 0.01 X healing power. So 1000 healing power will give you 10 more healing compare to the 69 basic healing from the trait. Compare that to 1000 power. Lest take someone with 1500 power compare to 2500 power for a GS auto-attack. 1050 * 1500 * 0.8/2600 = 485 dmg compare to 1050 * 2500 * 0.8/2600 = 808 dmg. You almost double your damage output with that, while you give yourself a 15% increase in healing only. That’s the same things with all healing skill. Anet didn’t want to approach the concept of healer even with a 12 foot pole, so they make it almost useless. Of course you have more group survivability if you heal them man, who gonna die more when you heal them???? But at the same time, you’ll automatically see a decrease in killing speed. The question is what will give you the bang for your buck and for that healing power is a really inefficient way of spending your stats points.

2) GW2 meta build are all about group synergy. You must ask you, does that trait, skill, stats will help me? But also will it help my team? Most of what you say is either completely selfish, (you heal a lot yourself, but not that much the group) and inefficient. Why inefficient? The Guardian have access to a lot of support. Aegis (Retreat, F3), Reflect (Wall), Blind (F1, GS 3, Sw 2, F 4), Absorb (Shield), Protection (hammer, etc). Those will save yourself and your party from a couple hundred to several hundred thousand of incoming damage, while your healing stuff will heal your of about 10-20k max before you run out of heal. Ya of course, healing will be better against small but rapid attack, but the game is based around more big slow attack where damage mitigation work better than heal after the damage is done.

Lodius.5392:

obal.3218
I have to disagree with 2 things in your post.
1) “Healing power is a wasted stat since it scales so poorly.”
-Healing Power is one of the only stats in the game that scales linear with the amount of points placed within the stat. I run full Cleric gear (focusing on healing) and notice a strong difference in the group survivability rate than when I run a different class.

2) “…so a full shout bar and pure of voice is a waste.”
-I focus on altruistic healing (which provides healing to myself each time I cast a shout)… I load 3 shouts “Stand your Ground” , “Hold the Line” , and “Retreat”.
Hold the Line Regeneration to the entire team which is bolstered by the increased healing power. Stand your Ground for stability as well as “block the next incoming attack”… Retreat for the speed boost and I also think it blocks the next incoming attack.

Shield Healing / Staff Healing / the Virtue Healing … this build allows me to run as close of a true “healing class” in GW2.

Running the right utilities for the occasion and keeping blinds and blocks up means that you shouldn’t need to spam weak heals if your doing your job. The goal of a guardian is to bring the right utilities for the right occasion to mitigate damage rather than watch your group get slaughtered by attacks that could have been nullified. You don’t have to completely kitten your damage to do that either. Just spamming hammer auto and giving 33% reduction while running a dps build behind a wall of reflection and spamming F1 will do much more support than doing barely any dps and trying to get someone back up by 33% with weak heals which could probably have been avoided from using your utilities. There are no healers in guild wars 2.

Full shout builds are awful. Hold the line is a bad shout. Stand your ground is only good if stability is needed. Retreat is pretty much always good. That leaves 1-2 free slots for better utilities. Wall of reflection is one of the most useful utilities there is in the game. Conditions in this game aren’t really a problem for most of the content and you can just run purging flames + absolute resolution when they are and still have room for more useful things to use strategically like retreat, wall, shield, stand your ground, etc or bane signet if nothing is needed. If your spamming shouts to cleanse conditions it’s not good and if your spamming them to keep yourself alive from AH then that isn’t good for your group either.

obal.3218:

There are no healers in guild wars 2.

Embrace the trinity!

Necro = coondition tank, warrior = dps, me= healer

The rest=off tank-dps

My motto: Play how you want, but keep your group in mind too.

If you’re group is okay with your gear choices, play whatever you feel is best. If they want a speed run, you need to have a DPS build going.

Pve?

Zerker. /thread. GG No Re.