Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApfWlUgqCXGyLEf4ESmCRCBxUgRf01DH6hYIA-jACB4gCik0g0HBK/sIasl1FRjVPjIqWfEzcrIa1SBAxyK-e

Taking a stab at the condition guard as that conversation has popped up again.

I’m under firm confidence that a guardian will never have useful, offensive condition damage. Additionally burning alone will do nothing. So we are left with runes and sigils to help fill the gap, but many of those are only available in PvE/WvW and not sPvP.

Conditions in PvE are not optimal by any means, especially for the guardian, so we are left with WvW.

Damage:

Perplexity is probably the best fit with the guardian condition defense, as it causes attackers to gain 3 stacks of confusion every 15 seconds (20% chance).

Torch will allow the guardian to reliably apply burning, regardless of virtue usage (but only limited to 3 targets in melee range).

Sigils of Geomancy are a third option for condition damage (3 bleeding for 7 seconds on swap), but I opted for more survival with Energy Sigils.

At best conditions with burning and 3 confusion on attackers, you can do 1273 damage a second, or more if they spam attacks through confusion (627 burning, 464 confusion).

If you add in Geomancy you can add on 307 a sec from bleeding (1580 dmg a sec)

Defense:

As far as defense, its a classic bunker build with AH, dodge heals, and symbol heals.
With mace up, you will heal approximately 945 health a second (symbol 218, regeneration, 304, VoR 211, faithful strike per attack rotation average 212).

I couldn’t figure a great weapon swap, so just took staff for some mobility, minor symbol healing, and group utility/burst heal with AH.

Utility slots, were a toss up, put in wall of reflection to continue with the idea of “stop hitting yourself” style of fighting, purging flames for condition removal, and stand your ground for retal/stability.

All around this build theoretically can outlast most opponents, while still offering offensive pressure…BUT it is limited to if the enemy decides to attack you in the first place, and is at most optimal versus 1 or 2 opponents (cooldown on sigil/runes only apply to 1 target at a time).

Very niche, but it might work?

Go head, tear it up. I know conditions are bad on guards

If you aren’t going to bring any interrupts, there’s really no reason to bring the 6 slot bonus with Perplexity. Go ahead and drop that. You can probably come up with something better for the 5 slot too, even though you’d lose some condition damage.

Normally I don’t like giving up Power for Condi, but this is a neat build. Try it out.

eta: I really dislike Purity and it’s pretty unnecessary if you carry both PF and AR. Consider replacing it with Strength in Numbers, or since you’re running Shelter, even Defender’s Flame.

Good input, thank you.

I kept the 6 slot perplexity for the increased duration and also toyed around with the idea of interrupts via wards or even interrupts with hammer or shield. I think hammer would fit the interrupt role best, but was wanting “some” mobility so went with staff as a next best thing.

Alternate runes may be 2 slot 10% condition duration, or -10% condition duration.
For extra healing power can use Exuberance for a little bit of vitality and 3% of vit converted to healing.

I agree though, those last 2 do seem optional.

Purity is a nice little passive bonus, and works between cooldowns, there are a lot of conditions out there. I did highly consider Defender’s Flame, and it is still a good choice if need be.

I don’t think strength in numbers is worth anything honestly, so I pass that by more often than not.

Again, great input and thanks for feedback. Now I need a rich guinea pig to test it out and make a video….

If you’re looking for more interrupts I would consider a Greatsword over Staff. Binding Blade is a lot easier to land than the often easily avoided Line. About the best you can hope for with Line is catching zergs as they run through breaches. It’s not very useful in duels unless you get really lucky or you’re fighting someone pretty new.

You’ll keep some mobility, gain a blind, retain a symbol for healing, and an easily controllable interrupt.

You can always keep a hammer in your inventory to swap to when you don’t need to move much.

Because I “heart” you guys, I dished out money for the runes. I had all the rest of the gear already from a previous build test.

I’ll report back in a few days with my feelings on it in actual play.

AAAnnd I goofed, had “apothecary” gear in bank and put the perplexity runes on it…oh well testing with that instead of shaman. :p

This is what I had laying about to test it out with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApfWlUgqCXGyLEf4ESmCRCBxUgRf01DH6hYIA-jACBoMCik0g0HBKPqIasl1FRjVrjIqWfEzrgIqWKAIWWB-e

Not optimal but should be close enough.

Initial reactions are a surprise, tanky yes…but need more work on execution.

The surprise for me is that confusion applies on your attacking hit, not on “being” hit. So it is offensively applied not defensively.

Also I would randomly apply a stack of 5 without doing any obvious interrupts. Unsure on how that happens. When I do survive, as expected, people run away when they realize they are hurting themselves. After that I have no reliable way of catching them, especially after the symbol of swiftness change a few months back.

By the way, according to the wiki the duration bonuses on the runes are broken. I don’t know if that makes a difference to you or not.

It does, because the confusion uptime is what I was going for the most. I will test that to see how long the duration actually is with and without a full set in a few. It is really easy to get 100% confusion duration with a couple changes if you have both rune bonuses, but if they are broken, it is even more pointless than you originally indicated.

I’m more and more dissatisfied with the staff after the previous symbol change. To put salt on the wounds I recently leveled a warrior and with signet of rage and a banner, I can have perma swiftness and regeneration or fury with no effort at all.

I may morph the build into a meditation gs, sw/fo build just for the teleports and travel. Our travel speed is pretty abysmal alone, but I know there were threads upon threads about that previously, so trying to not start it up again. Just something I’m noticing.

How are others coping with our travel speed? I haven’t played my guard since around Halloween.

Regarding speed. I can’t speak for others but the change to the swiftness symbol is a mistake and uncalled for. Unless you run with a pack (zerg) you will fall behind. You can’t use sword 2 all the time because a ambient creature may not be around (and P.E.T.A has filed a lawsuit for animal cruelty) and GS jumping is also not the greatest. Everyone is more mobile unless you are sporting traveler runes

If it was me all classes would get speed boosts removed trait or otherwise. Then offer up the traveler runes and one class defined trait and call it a day. Other classes being able to reset a fight at will is a huge design flaw. Especially without giving the classes that can’t any form of reliable CC. Key word – RELIABLE.

The confusion duration on the runes do indeed seem to be broken and do nothing, sad to say.

Only getting 8-ish seconds of up time when I should be getting 10 on a 100% confusion duration (without 30% from runes only have 70% duration 5*1.7=8.5 seconds). Waste of money, oh well!

Have you isolated what causes you to get the 5 stack procs yet?

No, was inconsistent. Didn’t use any knockdowns/backs or interrupts at all but would randomly generate a 5 stack. I’ll keep testing to see if I can figure it out while I have them.

Well, don’t throw them away – whenever that balance patch happens they’ll probably get just as significant a reworking as everything else.

I can’t recreate it in pve (sterile environment) at the moment. Possibly I reflexively threw down a line of warding and it caused an interrupt and I didn’t realize it. Ignoring that anomaly for now.