Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, been trying to do my own math on a spreadsheet and before I dive in and buy a full suit I figured I’d ask if anyone else out there has been successful. I’m looking at a full arsenal of PVT (armor, trinkets, weapons, crests, and soldier runes 6/6) or should I go PvT armor + Soldier runes, emerald crystals+emerald gems, and a PVT weapon.

I’m weighing whether the 12% crit and almost 100 armor difference I am seeing is worth the drop in 2k health and almost 100 power. Build is the 0/15/30/20/5 but I’d like to go 0/0/30/20/20 for a cleansing machine.

Weapon I might use is hammer since I won’t be shooting for crit but heavy hits and CC.

Toss me your thoughts. Just looking for a sturdy front line fighter that can take some hits and return them. More balanced than a glass cannon or a bunker.

What the heck is with people thinking PVT is anything but trash?

“Hey, let me do bad damage for some mitigation that is mostly irrelevant because I can achieve the same by just playing well instead.”

With PVT you won’t hit hard. With 0/0/30/20/20 you won’t hit hard either unless you have a lot of precision. You’ll be a sponge though, but that’s it.

If you want a balanced build then go Pow/Pre/Tuf and 0/15/30/20/5.

In general I favor precision. You will never out damage professions that are built for DPS, so building pure damage is kind of a waste. More importantly, crits proc Empowering Might, Vigorous Precision, and Glacial Heart (depending on your build).

Right now I run a build with Altruistic Healing and Empowering Might, so when I crit I spread might and get healed for it. Its a nice steady stream of health, but your traits are going to decide what you build here. If you decide Altruistic Healing and Empowering Might isn’t your cup of tea then obviously crit chance might be less useful to you.

Oh, one note: this is for PvE, for sPvP I run a different build entirely.

Its not just about traits. You can balance with gear also. Never go full support as that will just gimp yourself. Never go full glass cannon (unless your good at mitigation) as your death will be a hinderance to the group.

Versatility is the key. Find your happy medium. There is no point in being immortal if youcant do enough damage to pressure the enemy. All you do is delay the inevitable.

My balanced build:

Attack: 3K
Armour: 3K
Crit rate: 49%
Crit damage: 79%
Health: 15-16K

all without food and I run 0/10/30/30/0 with either AH or Monk depending on the situation so being able to deal damage and survive is more than possible.

Yaki.9563:

What the heck is with people thinking PVT is anything but trash?

“Hey, let me do bad damage for some mitigation that is mostly irrelevant because I can achieve the same by just playing well instead.”

What’s with people clearly not understanding there are multiple viable builds for guardians? It’s not always as simple as dodging you know. It all depends on the environment (PvE, sPvP, WvW). PVT gear is wonderful for WvW if you’re building something like the “Healway” spec and want to dive headfirst into a zerg and have them kill themselves on your retaliation while still doing decent damage due to stacking power.

To the OP, it’s best to plan on having multiple sets of gear so that you can switch around gear and builds depending on what you want to do. I personally started out with mostly power/precision/toughness gear with a few pieces of berserkers gear and used a variation of the Crithammer build (altruistic healing, empowering might). That build gives you good damage while also having good armor/toughness and some self-healing (especially when combined with a lifeleeching food).

Like the person above, it depends on what you are playing, sPvP, PvE, or WvW.

In WvW, PvT is almost always better than any other stat. You need the extra vitality to survive zergs and conditions everywhere, toughness doesn’t mitigate condition damage at all so you really don’t need that much toughness in sPvP or WvW.

i’d want to say strike a balance – and have certain aspects lean towards your personal play style. toughness may not be needed AS much in PvPs, but it still helps a lot. though you get more room to tinker with other stats.

i see the uses for PVT, but it’s never going to be a major part of my gear make-up. then again, i enjoy my crits so PVT might be the set for you. what i did was find a build that i enjoyed, runes included, then work my gear around it to balance things out, highlight the strengths of cover up the weaknesses.

For what it is worth, I applied what I learned converting a glass cannon ranger into a more survivable ranger to my guardian. And yes, I used a spreadsheet …

I found a very nice balance with a particular combination of crafted Knight and Valkyrie armour and trinkets as follows:

Knight: power/precision/toughness
Valkyrie: power/vitality/crit dam %

helm Valkyrie
shoulder Knight
coat Valkyrie
gloves Knight
leggings Valkyrie
boots Knight

Ring 1 Knight
Ring 2 Knight
Earring 1 Valkyrie
Earring 2 Valkyrie
Amulet Valkyrie

With a full set of Runes of the Ranger, this is my general, solo farming in Orr kit for my 30/30/10/0/0 ranger. I have a fulls set of p/t/v with Runes of Melandru for dungeons.

Last evening I crafted the exact same armour for my new lvl 80 (0/15/30/20/5) Guardian, with a full set of Runes of the Soldier. For trinkets I went as follows:

Ring 1 Valkyrie
Ring 2 Valkyrie
Earring 1 Knight
Earring 2 Knight
Amulet Valkyrie

Guardians have a lower health pool, and I wanted to get at least 18k hp’s so went with Valkyrie for the rings and Knight for earrings. Weapons will be all Berserker to fill in more precision and crit damage.

Eventually, I will get a p/t/v armour set, but for now, this should be good enough to do Orr map exploration and some dungeons.

tanshiniza.8629:

My balanced build:

Attack: 3K
Armour: 3K
Crit rate: 49%
Crit damage: 79%
Health: 15-16K

all without food and I run 0/10/30/30/0 with either AH or Monk depending on the situation so being able to deal damage and survive is more than possible.

I don’t see how this is possible without Food buffs or oils/stones. My traits are the exact same and its tough to get these stats with the buffs and all the ascended pieces currently available.

Zarovich.7285:

tanshiniza.8629:

My balanced build:

Attack: 3K
Armour: 3K
Crit rate: 49%
Crit damage: 79%
Health: 15-16K

all without food and I run 0/10/30/30/0 with either AH or Monk depending on the situation so being able to deal damage and survive is more than possible.

I don’t see how this is possible without Food buffs or oils/stones. My traits are the exact same and its tough to get these stats with the buffs and all the ascended pieces currently available.

I doubt it’s possible even with food and oil.

Marking for when I hit 80

tanshiniza.8629:

My balanced build:

Attack: 3K
Armour: 3K
Crit rate: 49%
Crit damage: 79%
Health: 15-16K

all without food and I run 0/10/30/30/0 with either AH or Monk depending on the situation so being able to deal damage and survive is more than possible.

I’d like to know the specifics of this build. What gear, trinkets, runes, etc. That’s pretty nice.

Yaki.9563:

Zarovich.7285:

tanshiniza.8629:

My balanced build:

Attack: 3K
Armour: 3K
Crit rate: 49%
Crit damage: 79%
Health: 15-16K

all without food and I run 0/10/30/30/0 with either AH or Monk depending on the situation so being able to deal damage and survive is more than possible.

I don’t see how this is possible without Food buffs or oils/stones. My traits are the exact same and its tough to get these stats with the buffs and all the ascended pieces currently available.

I doubt it’s possible even with food and oil.

When I run my “tanky dps” build (using the exact same trait allocations) I get pretty close to those stats when using food. I’ll admit that I also use the Bane Signet as well in that build for the extra power. My armor is in more of the 2.8k range and my hp is just over 15k but my attack, crit, and crit damage stats are all pretty much where his are. I also don’t have any ascended pieces.

I wear full knights gear for armour and use berserker weapons.
I have 2 ascended rings as well as the ascended back piece all berserker.
I use Emerald jewellery with emeralds or berserker/beryl in the extra slots.

With regards to food I decided to pick up some lower level stuff that gave me 60 vit and 80 precision which took me to 16,300 HP and 53% crit though for actual WvW etc I take the food that improves my endurance regen rate which is why I gave you may stats without food.

If anyone would like me to I will post my exact stats down to the last decimal point this evening when I can get online

Appreciate the replies everyone!

@Tanshiniza, Yes please. Screenshot works too. I can get close to your numbers but I am short on the crit, crit dmg and power side. Only by a few. Probably because I am only in exotics.

@Bri, I like where you are going with this. What were your end stats? I have a spreadsheet I was going to try for my thief using similar items (Knights Head, Chest, Legs + Valk boots, hands, shoulder + beryl orbs)/ (Emmy trinkets + beryl gems)/(Valk weapons + beryl orbs)

He has 3266 attk, 2557 defense, 15k health and 37% crit with 77 crit dmg. He does well enough for the 25/30/0/0/15 build. I haven’t found any builds yet that allow me to be more a toe to toe fighter. Long duration fights = thief loses.

If I use that same setup for my guardian though with the 0/15/30/20/5 and a 2h hammer (valk + beryl orb) I have 2995 attk, 3004 defense, 16815 health and about 30% crit chance @ 74% crit dmg.

I’m too poor for food and oil…

Food and oil costs coppers. Just use the item step worse than the L80 one. That means a pie that heals 50% of the time on crit instead of 66%

Oil that gives 8% total rather than 10%.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Appreciate the replies everyone!

@Bri, I like where you are going with this. What were your end stats? …

I just saw your reply …

I am at work now, but can give you more details when I get home a bit later.
Last evening I crafted up all the exotic Berserker weapons, so my stats will include these as well.

Alarox.4590:

With PVT you won’t hit hard. With 0/0/30/20/20 you won’t hit hard either unless you have a lot of precision. You’ll be a sponge though, but that’s it.

If you want a balanced build then go Pow/Pre/Tuf and 0/15/30/20/5.

Exactly how I’m running my guard — PVT armor, PPT jewelry, PPT weps, 0/15/30/20/5 trait build.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

@Bri, I like where you are going with this. What were your end stats?

ok, here are my stats with 2H equipped ( berserker greatsword)

power: 1802
precision: 1506
toughness: 1523
vitality: 1638
attack: 2902
crit chance: 32%
crit damage: 69%
armour: 2734
health: 18025

bri.2359:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

@Bri, I like where you are going with this. What were your end stats?

ok, here are my stats with 2H equipped ( berserker greatsword)

power: 1802
precision: 1506
toughness: 1523
vitality: 1638
attack: 2902
crit chance: 32%
crit damage: 69%
armour: 2734
health: 18025

If you go with my suggestion up above, You lose about 1k health and 2% crit but gain a good amount of attack, defense, and crit damage. Up to you.

tanshiniza.8629:

I wear full knights gear for armour and use berserker weapons.
I have 2 ascended rings as well as the ascended back piece all berserker.
I use Emerald jewellery with emeralds or berserker/beryl in the extra slots.

With regards to food I decided to pick up some lower level stuff that gave me 60 vit and 80 precision which took me to 16,300 HP and 53% crit though for actual WvW etc I take the food that improves my endurance regen rate which is why I gave you may stats without food.

If anyone would like me to I will post my exact stats down to the last decimal point this evening when I can get online

Any luck with a screenshot or a list of your gear so we can see ways to get the most out of our items?