Guild Wars 2

Has anybody tested the Pure of Heart trait with the Communal Defenses trait following the recent patch? I am wondering how helpful this combo is in terms of effective heals per second for a WvW support guard.

I understand that Communal Defenses has a 20 internal cooldown. But does Pure of Heart have an ICD?

For reference from the Wiki:
—Pure of Heart: Aegis heals when it blocks an attack. 645 heal plus 0.4 of Healing Power.
—Communal Defenses: Grant aegis to allies when you block an attack; Radius: 360; Unlike other traits that affect allies, the user does not gain aegis when this trait triggers; This trait does not have a target limit and will grant aegis to all allies within range. (a minimum of 8 targets affected has been confirmed).

Communal Defenses has 15 ICD and Pure of Heart doesn’t have any ICD.
You can heal allies with it with:

• Shield of Avenger,
• “Retreat!”,
• Virtue of Courage,

You can even apply aegis 2 times witch each of those skills.
“Retreat!” >> Aegis on you breaks >> Communal Defenses
Then you have to wait 15s to do this again (ICD of Communal Defenses) or you can just ignore it and pop other skills with aegis. But if you wait this will be much more effective.

I did try it and it’s not as good as it sounds, not on WvW, but it can be nice addition to a Shout Guard. Especially when both Pure of Heart and Pure of Voice are in the Honour trait line.

Because ANY Block will trigger Communal Defenses, it’s hard to time this in WvW with all the 1-attack-button spam. I’m mostly thinking of it as “just another heal” to go along with Battle Presence, healing symbols, Mace 2, dodge roll heals, Staff heals and the Signet of Courage passive.

I’m just wondering if Pure of Heart together with Communal Defenses amounts to a good amount of healing per second. I’m not relying on any one ability to be the be-all, end-all of my support guard’s healing. It’s hard for me to tell because I have so many green numbers in the middle of combat.

It’s more like old Glacial Heart (without CD reduction). It can be useful, but you won’t see much of a difference in battle. But if you have another Guard in your party with the same trait setup you will probably notice heals.

Assic.2746:

It’s more like old Glacial Heart (without CD reduction). It can be useful, but you won’t see much of a difference in battle. But if you have another Guard in your party with the same trait setup you will probably notice heals.

Yeah, I run double Sigils of Hydromancy which I try to pop on top of enemies. I guess I don’t see the effect of that either but it’s happening.

Would love for someone to run the numbers on effective heals per second on these traits. I don’t have the computer savvy to figure that out and, as discussed, observationally it’s tough too.

You can check the healing spreadsheet link in my sig for some rough numbers.
It is unfortunately pre-patch information, but the communal/pure of heart info should still be reasonably accurate.

Tarsius.3170:

You can check the healing spreadsheet link in my sig for some rough numbers.
It is unfortunately pre-patch information, but the communal/pure of heart info should still be reasonably accurate.

Fantastic, man, thank you. Question: why do you list a 15 second recharge time for Pure of Heart?

Wow. With about 700 Healing Power, Pure of Voice heals for almost 1k with each pop of Aegis. That’s not bad at all and comparable to dodge roll heals, Staff 2 and the Shield 5 double pop.

Any thoughts about whether Strength in Numbers “out-heals” the Pure of Voice heal by virtue of its damage mitigation from 150 Toughness to five allies?

In general +150 toughness doesn’t make a difference.
I’ve just tested it on PvP.
Average damage taken with Strength in Numbers: 1293
Average damaga taken without Strength in Numbers: 1303,5
Difference: 10,5dmg (per hit); less than 1%

I think it’s better to take Communal Defenses. You will not decreseace, but completly negate incoming damage for your whole team.

So if the amount of lets say AoE damage is equal to 1293. Communal Defenses will block a total of 4 * 1293 = 5172 or 5 * 1293 = 6465 (if you have have aegis) damage for your whole team.
With Strength in Numbers you can only decrease it by 5 * 10,5 = 52,5 damage.
But what is important, Communal Defenses has 15s of ICD and Strength in Numbers works all the time (while in combat), so it’s 52,5 * 15s = 787 damage in 15s if each of your team members gets 1 hit each second.
It’s 75 hits in 15s distributed across all of your team. It would be equal to amount of damage blocked by Communal Defenses if your team would have recived
75hits * 6,6 = 495 hits in 15s (each member has to be hit ~7 times each second).

I recommend Communal Defenses and if you take Pure of Heart with it you only gain further benefits.

Yeah, your math is my math now. While you have little control over when Communal Defenses goes on cooldown, the ICD is low enough to pop a few times in a WvW sustain fight. That means damage avoidance on the hit that Aegis blocks, plus an immediate 1k heal. While not a lot on its own, that heal fits nicely with all the other heals heals my support guard cranks out.

Thank you, Assic!!!

I did those measures basing on 2600 armour pool (2750 with Strength in Numbers), so it would be a small difference in WvW, but when people go to WvW they usually have sth about 2500 armour+. The amount of dmg decreased by Strength in Numbers can be higher or lower depending on player’s toughness, I doubt it will be higher than damage blocked by Communal Defenses.

I’m rocking 3400 Toughness right now. Probably a bit too much given diminishing returns.

But that suggests that perhaps Strength in Numbers is not as effective for WvW frontliners since most should be gearing for significant Toughness.

Pure of Heart is now a 0.5 coefficient, up from a 0.4 coefficient pre-patch (at least in tool-tip). Same base of 645.

DroidDreamer.2861:

Tarsius.3170:

You can check the healing spreadsheet link in my sig for some rough numbers.
It is unfortunately pre-patch information, but the communal/pure of heart info should still be reasonably accurate.

Fantastic, man, thank you. Question: why do you list a 15 second recharge time for Pure of Heart?

it’s just to simulate 4 aegis procs a minute ( I didn’t want to create a special-case formula just for Pure of Heart )
– to be honest 3 procs a minute is probably more realistic.

Exedore.6320:

Pure of Heart is now a 0.5 coefficient, up from a 0.4 coefficient pre-patch (at least in tool-tip). Same base of 645.

Oh nice – I checked the wiki before posting my link, but it still shows 0.4 – I’ll try and find time to test whether it’s actually 0.5 and not another tooltip bug