Guild Wars 2

While playing around with the build planer I came across a mace/shield build that seems to be pretty good:

- 3k armor
- 15k HP
- 76% crit. chance
- 83% crit. DMG
- 5.011 effective Power

So that’s the link to the Mace-Shield-Build

Now before I start going for the gear I would like to hear some experiences about playing with Mace/Shield (I’ve been using Hammer/GS/Staff so far). Is it good for PvE (high lvl fractals)?

Looking forward to any kind of feedback about that build.

Well the main selling point about the mace is the default attack’s third hit which heals and the regen symbol. Both of these benefit from healing power which this build largely ignores. In high level fractals things can one shot you into oblivion. The insignificant healing from the build will do absolutely nothing for you. Based on the gear it looks like a full bore damage dealing build than support healer. If you use this setup I would ditch the mace and shield. Keep your hammer/gs/staff and add in a scepter/focus.

this specific build will be stronger with scepter or sword in main hand.

high level fractals are about killing enemy fast avoiding all damage,
gs when you can sit on the enemy and scepter/focus when you cant sit on the enemy
as the default setup.

Mace is most definatly extremely discouraged in any high end PvE including dungeons.

Agreed with the other posters. Mace is a support oriented weapon, it’s not meant for damage dealing. The right build to use for a mace is a Regen build to help buff your group. You would need to trait Battle Presence and Absolute Resolution, as well as stack boon duration and healing power (minimum 1300) to take full advantage of the Regen boon you can dish out with the mace. When you combine the mace with another weapon that offers group protection, such as the shield, you are able to mitigate a lot of damage for your group.

I’ve found the mace + shield combo is great for WvW where damage mitigation for your allies is much needed. But for Fractals, you won’t notice much of a difference. It will just take you a really long time to kill stuff with the mace. Sword is the best one handed DPS weapon the Guardian has so its best to build a Fractal spec around that.

I run AH Mace/Focus with offensive orientation in my atributes. The beautiful thing of Mace+Focus is all the damage you can simply avoid from getting to you (at some points in high end content you can be one or two shotted no matter your stats, being able to not receive the hit at all is marvelous) and even without heavy healing power investment the heals come in handy for what passes through your defenses, and while not as high as with certain weapons, the offense is good as you can expend more atributes on it that other sets would need on more defense.

I see Shield more effective with Scepter and Sword as both have either ranged attacks, or a combination or ranged attacks and gap closers. Mace is a bit counterproductive with shield 5 if you want to stick to someone and still use all your available resources.

i enjoy mace + focus a lot as well. depending on how you’re specced, i’ve had my mace auto hit for 2k+ consistently and symbols crit for 1k+ (hmm.. in WvW) it may not be as fast or hard hitting as the sword/scepter but it is by no means a weapon that kills slow. plus your defensive capabilities add to DPS as well if you use them at the right time.

mace + shield definitely very defensive and a great combo, but more useful in WvW i’d say. so in terms of high level fractals though, perhaps mace wouldn’t be the IDEAL choice. but iw ouldn’t say it’s not viable.