Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,
since the balancing patch I have been experimenting a lot with Litany of Wrath rolled into a meditation build. I don’t know if anyone has already posted about a similar build but if so, apologize this is not an attempt to steal your glory it’s really just the result of quite a bit of time of testing. So kudos to whoever has posted about this already, reply and will add the link here.

I am and Hammer user pretty much 24/7 and everywhere as I love the way you can play around with it, and the perma Protection is borderline OP covering my (and the party) bum for lots of mistakes made.

Here’s what I ultimately found more suitable for my playstyle and my skill cap: 10/0/30/25/5

Zeal 10: +10% damage with Fiery Wrath (II)
Easy damage bonus to get and to maintain.

Valor 30: Meditation Mastery (I), Retributive Armor (VI), Monk’s Focus (XII)
Meditation Mastery and Monk’s Focus are the obvious bulk of the build. Retributive Armor could be swapped to something else.

Honor 25: Writ of Exaltation (III)/Superior Aria (II), Writ of Persistance (VII)
Writ of Persistence is the other bulk of the build as the Hammer is the main weapon.
I tend to run Writ of Exaltation too but that’s just to give perma Protection more easily, especially in pugs where everyone runs all over the place. When I can I run Superior Aria for faster shouting.

Virtues 5: Inspired Virtues.
Self explanatory, too good to not get.

I tested the build in every environment and it does perform really well. I run full Berserker Ascended set. I tried Obal’s Hammer build but the simple fact is I am not good enough to mitigate everything with blocks and blind and especially I am terrible with Shelter.
Due to these reasons I opted to increase my health pool and instead of increasing my blocks, I increased the frequency of my healing and condition removal.

In high level fractals (40+) it is solid and consistent. The damage output is decent, below any max damage options but ultimately the purpouse of the build is not the max damage but the 100% Protection uptime while having a decent dmg output.
So far my dmg has never let any party down with every kind of composition of classes.
Some rough numbers: Hammer chain output swings around 4.5k-5.5k, Mighty Blow goes up to 10k most of the times and the Symbol hits up to 2k.

The other strong aspect of the build is how fast and frequent I can heal up and cleanse conditions. Generally I use Merciful Intervention + Bane Signet + Smite Condition.
Smite condition is extremely good due to its low cd. Litany of Wrath every 24s is incredible to top yourself of with a Mighty Blow on packed mobs and it is pretty solid on single target too with your Symbol rolling and the other hammer swings.
I find this healing combos quite powerful because I can keep the uptime of Scholar +10% damage for a long time.

Normally I run Staff as second weapon but that is really and truly just for speed, pulling and Empower at the pull. When I really need to a reliable second weapon cause the hammer is risky, I either use Mace + Focus for full block trains, or Scepter + Torch for ranged damage.

If there’s one thing I am not particularly happy about this build is the lack of Master Consecration. I love that Major and in some fractals it is borderline OP. That said I almost everytime run with another guardian so I can keep an extra 10% damage.

At last I just want to say that this is not a max damage build or ultimate performance build crap thread, it’s just what I found perfectly fitting for my playstyle and skill-cap with a guardian. It probably has flaws and that’s why I posted about it so other and more knowledgable people can point them out.

So yeah reply ahead.

no blind spamming or master of consecrations or condition removal?

Painbow.6059:

no blind spamming or master of consecrations or condition removal?

Did you actually read anything past the build calculator?

Taking 5 out of honor to put into virtues for MoC and bringing a wall would be better. The 10% buff won’t apply to most trash mobs since you probably won’t be dodging there. When you do dodge you have perma vigor so the buff won’t last long. It’s only somewhat effective for a few bosses in the game. I guess you can do a run and see how much you truly get out of it over the big loss in support.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Painbow.6059:

no blind spamming or master of consecrations or condition removal?

Did you actually read anything past the build calculator?

I’m guessing he means team condition removal. Either way, I’m not a fan of such a selfish build. But to each his own.

I’ve previously run a very similar build, except with 3 utility meds (usually JI, SC and MI). Except the SoP it’s pretty selfish, but then meds seem like they’re meant to be. On the other hand, it’s a very comfortable build to run with a alot of room for error (and with the #3 AA on Hammer you often need that extra survivability if you don’t want to interrupt it) and you won’t be relying on anyone to stay in the fight, and with WoP for the SoP you are contributing a reliable DPS uptime with a permaprot buff for everyone in melee with your target.

Yes I mean team condition removal, one of the things a guardian is liable for, but if you enjoy meditations go for it, personally though I feel the valor trait line is rather selfish

I’m not so convinced a Guardian bringing team condition removal has as much value as everyone thinks, depending of course who you team with. If you want to have team condition removal, it’s a skill swap away and even then, it’s pretty conditional depending on who’s standing where when you use it. Putting traits to it makes me feel really hand-tied.

Obtena.7952:

I’m not so convinced a Guardian bringing team condition removal has as much value as everyone thinks, depending of course who you team with. If you want to have team condition removal, it’s a skill swap away and even then, it’s pretty conditional depending on who’s standing where when you use it. Putting traits to it makes me feel really hand-tied.

25 in vitures gives you a nice dps boost, and give you the master trait for condi removal, or you can use it as a second stability, or give you longer shield of avenger when you need it. That Master trait in virtues is very good to have in my opinion, and I hate running builds without it. So you see it as hands-tied, but 20 in virtues gives you alot of on the fly trait swapping for different situations, then for 5 more you get nice damage modifier.

Cheers all who replied so far <3

@Obal: I will indeed try run with 20 pts. in Honor and grab lovely Master Consecration. It’s actually a bit I was pondering this but never got around to do it. Your words kinda seal the deal and I’ll go for it. Thanks

@Cat Has Ducks: Yeah the downside of going for Monk’s Focus is that it is a ‘selfish’ build or I’d say a less support build, but on the other hand being able to last very long and always running the hammer Protection seems a quite solid support, on top of dealing good damage.
For the team condition removal I’m in two minds and I kinda share a bit the pov of Obtena. Off the top of my head I am thinking of the Mai Trin Fractal where there are tons of conditions applied very frequently. So far I never found myself missing Absolute Resultion (which is an amazing Major) because Purging Flames works just fine if the party execute that fight correctly. And also the moment you have a mesmer in the party (which I normal have luckily) you can rotate PF and Null Field and you are set. For every other condition heavy fights (can’t think of other specific ones atm) I always found teams that were more than capable to remove conditions by themselves, granting me much more time to focus on keeping Protection up and executing the fight flawless.
So I agree completely with you that a 20 pts in Virtues would be super cool (and 25 pts. even more) but the problem is that I really don’t have points to spare. The only choice would probably be to loose WoP which is the bulk for hammering, so no go.

Keep up the feedbacks. So far so good!

I’ve been advocating this build for some time as well now although I’ve been getting a lot of critique saying it is selfish. One thing I did is that when I ran this build I removed one of the meditations and replaced them with wall of reflection or purging flames only when it was needed.

People should not forget that the light field from the hammer auto-attack can also regularly remove conditions if you have players in your team with physical projectile finishers. Which happens more often than you think.

You could drop Monk’s Focus (because it’s basically a crutch trait), and use it to get Master of Consecration. If you also drop Elusive Power, which I don’t consider that good, you have another 5 points to spend somewhere else. This way you can build something like 10 / 0 / 20 / 20 / 20

Noah.4756:

I’ve been advocating this build for some time as well now although I’ve been getting a lot of critique saying it is selfish. One thing I did is that when I ran this build I removed one of the meditations and replaced them with wall of reflection or purging flames only when it was needed.

That is indeed what I normally do when the fight requires it. Sometimes I even run without meditations except LoW, but that’s just for couple of fights (e.g. Arpies fractal).

Noah.4756:

You could drop Monk’s Focus (because it’s basically a crutch trait), and use it to get Master of Consecration. If you also drop Elusive Power, which I don’t consider that good, you have another 5 points to spend somewhere else. This way you can build something like 10 / 0 / 20 / 20 / 20

I am not sure I’d like to drop Monk’s Focus but definately I will drop Elusive Power for Master Consecration. Going 20 Virtues for Absolute Resolution I don’t know…I will try it out but I think I won’t be able to cover my butt enough without the extra heals from meditations. Thanks for the suggestion though, it is worth a try.

Just a question — have you tried the balanced 15/15/0/20/20 variant from obal’s thread? It’s more dps and I’ve found it still very sturdy. If you’re having trouble with conditions and Shelter usage, you could replace Blind Exposure with Signet Mastery instead and use Signet of Resolve (+Signet of Judgement for the passive) — that greatly increases your healing and damage reduction, and gives you passive condition cleansing.

I think 15 in radiance and 10 in virtues are must haves for a Guardian build. That blind spam for trash mobs is quite beautiful. As well as mini might stacks you get as you keep clearing mobs thanks to the 15 in radiance combined with 5 in virtues.

Valarauka.2719:

Just a question — have you tried the balanced 15/15/0/20/20 variant from obal’s thread? It’s more dps and I’ve found it still very sturdy. If you’re having trouble with conditions and Shelter usage, you could replace Blind Exposure with Signet Mastery instead and use Signet of Resolve (+Signet of Judgement for the passive) — that greatly increases your healing and damage reduction, and gives you passive condition cleansing.

I actually have tried it yes and I was not good at it at all unfortunately. Will try the signets. Thank you!

Actually, for an even sturdier variant you can try 15/15/10/20/10 and take the +150 more toughness for party trait too.

Personally I think the 10/15/?/?/? doesn’t make sense like 0/25/?/?/? does. While 100 precision isn’t as good as 100 power, you get the Major Radiance slot for whatever suits your fancy and Radiant Power is more reliable than Fiery Wrath and grants the same damage increase.