Guild Wars 2

uhoh space engineers – nice knowing you

Any chance this guide will be updated?

It will be, but I’m holding off for the April update. Since they are completely redoing Runes and Sigils, plus giving us new Grandmasters for every line, there may be some significant new synergies that will come from it.

Zeal – Amplified Wrath : Burning deals 33% more damage.
Radiance – Radiant Retaliation : Retaliation Damage scales with condition damage instead of power.

How about these Grandmaster traits? They’re from the stream apparently. Think we can do anything with this? Certainly seems like Anet is trying to make it work. I’m still just waiting for someone to come along and be all, “nah it’s still kitten because _.” but I’m also curious what you think about it.

If Kindled Zeal asks you to primarily build up Power with some Condition Damage as extra, Amplified Wrath seems to do the reverse. Radiant Retaliation seems designed specifically for builds using things like Settler’s Amulet, assuming you were also going into Honor and Virtues. I kinda wish it was a Virtue trait.

I haven’t looked at it exhaustively, but barring any additional surprises Amplify Wrath isn’t going to be enough to make even a hybrid build worthwhile in terms of competing with the standard suite of DPS builds. But that’s using current numbers for critical damage, not the new ones. When we get precise conversions for Ferocity I’ll be able to make a more detailed comparison.

While we’ve already seen some interesting things in the new version of the runes of Balthazar, I was wondering what you thought about using sigils like the Sigil of Torment to add a separate condition to slow down removal, instead of further enhancing the burn?

Nike.2631:

While we’ve already seen some interesting things in the new version of the runes of Balthazar, I was wondering what you thought about using sigils like the Sigil of Torment to add a separate condition to slow down removal, instead of further enhancing the burn?

It’s kinda pointless. Essentially what you’re saying is this: I’m going to sacrifice a damage multiplier or Sigil of Energy on a rune that I can’t control that might make it slightly more difficult to remove my Burns. The saving grace is that assuming you manage to stack a long duration Burn, the Torment will definitely be stripped first, as it’s typically going to be the most recent. At the moment, it’s not worth it though, because the damage bonus that you’d get from say a Force sigil, or the survivability bonus that you’d get from a Sigil of Energy far outweighs retaining the Burn – especially since A: Burning is easy to reapply anyway, and B: There are tons of big condition dump skills in the game. If you’re fighting another Guardian for example, you’re looking at Absolute Resolution (3), Purging Flames (3), Contemplation of Purity (all), PoV/Soldier shouts (2), Lyssa runes (all), and so on. It’ll take out your Torment and your Burning.

I don’t have that specific question built into my metrics that I’ve been using to evaluate things though, so I can’t give you a specific cost/benefit for it, but the above is what I would be concerned about.

foofad.5162:

I haven’t looked at it exhaustively, but barring any additional surprises Amplify Wrath isn’t going to be enough to make even a hybrid build worthwhile in terms of competing with the standard suite of DPS builds.

Well, that’s depressing. I was hoping a burn build would be useful. I mean, isn’t that the point of this trait? How could Anet come up with some new idea specifically designed to address an issue… and yet still entirely not fix the issue? Do they not know why burn builds don’t work for us? This whole thread is dedicated to that answer. I also just read this http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/210opr/ready_up_ep8_developer_livestream_notes/cg8k05v which basically sums the problem up.

33% just isn’t enough. Even if they raised it more… making it like 66% or higher, I still think that’s the wrong angle to attack this issue from.

The number one issue plaguing a condition build is that in order to pick up the condition traits you have to sacrifice all survivability, which is in contrast to what Engineers, Necromancers, and Warriors do – where they can pack on tons of tankiness to make the comparatively slow condition DPS a nonissue. It wouldn’t actually matter if we had stackable conditions. No one would do it because to make it viable damage, you have to give everything else up where no other class does.

Which of course isn’t to say that we shouldn’t bother with stackable conditions. We do need them. But it’s not a silver bullet.

The only thing we have going for us is that burning can be spread out over a huge swath of enemies in melee with Permeating Wrath. But it’s not enough, because you rarely see huge swathes of enemies.

Proven.2854:

If Kindled Zeal asks you to primarily build up Power with some Condition Damage as extra, Amplified Wrath seems to do the reverse.

This is true, but the point where Kindled Zeal breaks even with Amplified Wrath is so high, that no matter how you build your character, Amplified Wrath will always be the better option of the two.

Simply buffing Kindled Zeal would honestly be stupid, since they’re basically the exact same traits in the end (here more burning damage!) and don’t fix the problems of condition guardians at all. Kindled Zeal is and always has been crap (why would power builds all of a sudden want condi damage?) and should be altered to a trait that’s actually useful for power guardians, while Amplified Wrath should add extra benefits for condition guardians.

Simply adding more damage to burning has shown in the past that it’s not enough to fix the problems for condition damage Guardians. It honestly feels like Anet is trying to fix the problem by doing the exact same thing that didn’t work out before.

Hi OP.

Would really appriciate an update of the guide due to the new traits.

I realize it costs gold to do it in a proper fashion so send me a pm if you need a contribution.

I’m working on it. I was kinda hoping we’d get more attention on our other traits too, but alas.

Short version: As expected, AW is nice but putting 30 into Zeal is extremely awkward.

I ran around in spvp a few days ago with 4/4/0/0/6, balth runes, gs/staff, and celestial ammy. It was amazing in team fights. The buffed celestial avoids many problems you might get running carrion or rabid, and you get a chance to really make use of each stat. Due to the sigil of smoldering and radiant fire bug/situation/whatever, I couldn’t get 2s burns, but it was still a burn stacking monster.

I still need to try a 6/2/0/0/6 version, which should work better through adding AW which should end up very nice. A wvw or even pve build might work based on this. The meta is still zerker, but burning might be an acceptable alternative.

Hi guys, I’ve been trying out burning in wvw and I kinda like it now that amplified wrath is out. If only it would be in the radiance tree q-q. This is what I’ve been running.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/
It’s kinda pricey I know, cozza the traveler runes, but they give you the 10% extra condi duration, with the 30% that you get from your traits and 40% from food +20% from the new sigil of smoldering, you get a 100% burning duration increase, which means that the passive gives 2 seconds of burning, which makes it two ticks of damage, together with the passive going off every 3 attacks instead of 5 you can reapply burning really really easily, especially with sword auto’s and greatsword ww’s. Binding blade is nice too because the ticks are based off condition damage. If you can keep someone in your auto’s you can keep burning up infinitely, and even if you can’t you’ll still have torch to give them a bit of a longer burning duration. Condi removal comes from the new sigil of purity + signet of resolve passive, all the signets have an active 1 removal, and ofcourse purging flames is too good to pass up with decent cooldown, burning, plus a condi reduction field. Lil bit of passive healing from resolve, greatsword attacks, decent toughness and vit, movement speed from traveler runes, possibility of fire aura. It’s even not that bad if you use it in zerg play with gs/staff or even scepter/staff so you can throw down smites and symbols everywhere that tick and give random people burning on 3rd tick I believe. Not to mention the damage that you do with tome of wrath.

Arddyn.7683:

Hi guys, I’ve been trying out burning in wvw and I kinda like it now that amplified wrath is out. If only it would be in the radiance tree q-q. This is what I’ve been running.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/
It’s kinda pricey I know, cozza the traveler runes, but they give you the 10% extra condi duration, with the 30% that you get from your traits and 40% from food +20% from the new sigil of smoldering, you get a 100% burning duration increase, which means that the passive gives 2 seconds of burning, which makes it two ticks of damage, together with the passive going off every 3 attacks instead of 5 you can reapply burning really really easily, especially with sword auto’s and greatsword ww’s. Binding blade is nice too because the ticks are based off condition damage. If you can keep someone in your auto’s you can keep burning up infinitely, and even if you can’t you’ll still have torch to give them a bit of a longer burning duration. Condi removal comes from the new sigil of purity + signet of resolve passive, all the signets have an active 1 removal, and ofcourse purging flames is too good to pass up with decent cooldown, burning, plus a condi reduction field. Lil bit of passive healing from resolve, greatsword attacks, decent toughness and vit, movement speed from traveler runes, possibility of fire aura. It’s even not that bad if you use it in zerg play with gs/staff or even scepter/staff so you can throw down smites and symbols everywhere that tick and give random people burning on 3rd tick I believe. Not to mention the damage that you do with tome of wrath.

Could you provide us with a correct link to your build, I’m curious what build you have since i wanna compare mines to it.

Be aware that several of the duration increases are bugged currently. I think the affected are Sigil of Smoldering and the Radiance trait. From what I can gather it’s very difficult to hit 100% right now. Double check that your tics are actually hitting twice.

Oh oopsy, that’s a stupid mistake heheheheheheheh
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAsfRl0ApRoVCxZI8DNR8Ql5Y0iWeCrQ1BQD8oA-TBiAABZoEkw9HA4UAgj+gHM/ZlyvjU/ZknAApAgYNA-e Here you go my lovelies.

Also smoldering sometimes doesn’t work and sometimes does, it’s rather strange yes, but usually if it doesn’t you can fix it by re-equipping your weapon with the sigil, in my case the torch, and indeed the torch trait which increases the burning doesn’t really increase the burning, just decreases the torch skill recharge. Too bad they sorta nerfed zealot’s flame, no longer multiple burning inflictions, just one :c

Hi guys, for whoever still reads this:
Like foofad said, Radiant Fire in the radiance tree works incorrectly, but if it would get fixed you could use this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQRArf7fl0Apfn1CxZI8DNh/AlVSsOBVIAYXjy/DA-TRSFABSpUYBlggofAgHAY2Lu9HoR9ngU2hwJBI5jAApAWUXF-e
Or something along the lines of it. I use traveler runes still for the movement speed because I roam with this, but if you don’t need the movement speed you could use balthazar runes which could increase your burning duration much more easily.
But since it doesn’t work, and if you roam and need the movement speed from somewhere, this seems to work pretty well too, since cleasing the burning is useless since you’re gonna reapply it anyway. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNAR8fl0Apfn1CxZI8DNR8Ql7Y0iVHANwji3TA-TRiAABeoEcCzeEu/AAXEgyUKYjuhjU/hKldb8EAIFwiKrA-e
I run this with sigils of purity atm instead of doom, but the poison is pretty big since it lowers their healing, even though you don’t have much condi removal.
Hope it helps a little bit ^^

Hi guy not sure if i’m willing to post my build outside this topic for those who say burning is the worse on a guard to go for.

Short intro i’ve always loved the 1h sword/torch and tried the full dps option but just didn’t like the squishy-ness,
so now i opted for a balanced build both well in defense/offense with blocks from focus hence the cd in traits for focus and some high raw power with extra dmg supply for F1 passive aoe

my current build i’m running:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNAsdRl0ApfndDxWIEENR8QldK2izY1BQC8oY9EA-TBiAwA62fgl+gdq/wV5njTAgalgAeEADOCAkCgNlRA-e

i just wanted to test and run a raw power/ hp build with supply from the fire to aid my guardian m8 i co-op with. as always the util skills can be swapped to your preff but this is what im running mostly.

ill be swapping my 10 remaining traits between 20% cd on shouts or meditations depending on what my last util skill is.

in nasty situations i tend to go for renewed focus to aid me through otherwise the wrath book does its thing.

Can you guys let me know what u think about this and give additional tips ?
if there question let me know

regards Kip

Is this for PvE or WvW?

foofad.5162:

Is this for PvE or WvW?

i use this in pve/dungeons

You’re way overtanked for dungeons and are lacking the condition damage that makes Amplified Wrath useful. This will be gone over in more detail in the revised guide as soon as I fix some of my metrics, but basically the Amplified/Permeating combo works best as a hybrid physical/condition DPS spec when you’re talking about dungeons. It lacks single target DPS of something like the standard meta, but it has very good sustained AOE dps. It’s also forgiving, in the sense that because you’ve got typically very long durations of burning on any given target you’re continuously applying damage even when positioning requirements take you out of melee range for a span of time, and so on.

In other words: Almost anything is better than Soldier’s armor for damage in something like this. The way you think about this kind of build is a little counter intuitive. Start from a standard DPS loadout (basically, all Berserkers or a Soldier/Berserker or Knight/Berserker combo if you aren’t comfortable with that) and then begin replacing things with Rampager gear. You have tons of power by virtue of going fully into Zeal, so you don’t really need to invest more in that because you’re getting more out of critical chance at that point.

Anyway, long story short I’d do something more like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNAsdRl0ApVoNDxXIEERR8Ql9Y0izoNVHAJwjiDA-TxhAwA62fon6PcV+pWJIgnAwgTBgL9BkC4RpRA-e

Still keeping some Soldier’s stuff if you want the little bit of pillow, but (roughly) 40%-50% more damage than what you would have gotten. It should also be a crime to have full Virtues and not Master of Consecrations, because Wall of Reflection is just that good, and Purging Flames is also excellent especially since you don’t have the AoE condition dump from Absolute Resolution if you pick up Supreme Justice instead. I also took one point out of Honor and put it into Radiance instead for the very important Justice is Blind which can save your butt in dungeons when used properly.

It’s still not ideal, but like I said I’m holding off on going into details til I’ve fixed some stuff.

foofad.5162:

You’re way overtanked for dungeons and are lacking the condition damage that makes Amplified Wrath useful. This will be gone over in more detail in the revised guide as soon as I fix some of my metrics, but basically the Amplified/Permeating combo works best as a hybrid physical/condition DPS spec when you’re talking about dungeons. It lacks single target DPS of something like the standard meta, but it has very good sustained AOE dps. It’s also forgiving, in the sense that because you’ve got typically very long durations of burning on any given target you’re continuously applying damage even when positioning requirements take you out of melee range for a span of time, and so on.

In other words: Almost anything is better than Soldier’s armor for damage in something like this. The way you think about this kind of build is a little counter intuitive. Start from a standard DPS loadout (basically, all Berserkers or a Soldier/Berserker or Knight/Berserker combo if you aren’t comfortable with that) and then begin replacing things with Rampager gear. You have tons of power by virtue of going fully into Zeal, so you don’t really need to invest more in that because you’re getting more out of critical chance at that point.

Anyway, long story short I’d do something more like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNAsdRl0ApVoNDxXIEERR8Ql9Y0izoNVHAJwjiDA-TxhAwA62fon6PcV+pWJIgnAwgTBgL9BkC4RpRA-e

Still keeping some Soldier’s stuff if you want the little bit of pillow, but (roughly) 40%-50% more damage than what you would have gotten. It should also be a crime to have full Virtues and not Master of Consecrations, because Wall of Reflection is just that good, and Purging Flames is also excellent especially since you don’t have the AoE condition dump from Absolute Resolution if you pick up Supreme Justice instead. I also took one point out of Honor and put it into Radiance instead for the very important Justice is Blind which can save your butt in dungeons when used properly.

It’s still not ideal, but like I said I’m holding off on going into details til I’ve fixed some stuff.

thats the reason i run the utils with condition removal i was well aware on that
i was gonna suffer condition removal and just trying it out a diff build that was halfway between worlds that would be able to run along another guard as semi dps

waiting for the new info keep up the work.

There’s a big difference between untraited Contemplation of Purity which cleanses every 60 seconds on yourself only, and traited Purging Flames which clears conditions on your team and yourself every 28 seconds. There’s a reason very few if anyone runs Meditations in PvE – They just don’t do anything for anyone else. Now you don’t need the Save Yourselves/Contemplation combo to clear conditions on your team – That’s two utilities to do the job that Purging Flames can do alone very well. Also, this is a burn build – and Purging Flame burns. So that’s always a plus.

You also no longer need the Fury from Save Yourselves, as your base crit chance is now above what you would have gotten, and generally speaking almost any PvE group is going to have someone that can cast Fury.

You were also missing Stability, which is also incredibly important.

thnx for shining some light on different aspect ill defintly redo my guard a little to see how well it goes

foofad.5162:

Be aware that several of the duration increases are bugged currently. I think the affected are Sigil of Smoldering and the Radiance trait. From what I can gather it’s very difficult to hit 100% right now. Double check that your tics are actually hitting twice.

its easy to get 100% duration

balthazar/flame runes 45%/30% – power or condition runes
zeal trait 30%
food 28%-40%

just dont forget there is cap of 9 stacks so use your skills wisely

That comment was in reference to PvP, where you can’t eat food. I should have specified.

Hey folks! I`m trying to make good WvW condi guardian for guild raid (like 15+) and blobs fighting. What do you think about this?
build #1 http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQJARWlsApZoFDxVI8rNx/Ql1RYdAMA151XwKsBA-TlyCAB+pJAgjAgCXAAh2f44HAAg6A8U9nwUCmlyvpPEAkC4UpRA-w
F1 spamming(might + selfheal)+ some stability + burning on block + Purging falmes(condi removal + burning)+ radiant retalation + bleed\torment on crit + poison from Elite
2010 condi damage
3332 toughness
17355 HP
Build #2 http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQJARWlsApZoFDxVI8rNR8Ql9Y0izY1BQD8oXNDA-TlyCAB+pJAgjAgCXAAh2f44HAAg6A8U9nwUCmlyvpPEAkC4UpRA-w
Less condi damage but more damage from burning + AOE burning every 3rd hit

Hi! Are you still working on the guide? And is there a copy of your old guide somewhere?

I do still have a copy of the old guide, if you want it let me know. I’ll have the new version up this week, for real this time. I had some real-life hangups that were distracting me.

Re: Deathmond, full condition damage builds remain underpowered for Guardians. Radiant Retaliation is also pretty garbage as a trait. There will be in-depth explanations in the updated guide for why this is the case, but Dire is a pretty bad choice of armor for Guardians.

A quick bottom line on condition damage – high condi burning is great when your time on target is low. That is to say, if you are having to chase someone (as in pvp) or the fight is otherwise set up such that you can’t be constantly applying standard melee DPS rotations, having a hybrid with a good chunk of burning damage makes a lot of sense because it’s positioning agnostic for the most part. If your time on target is high, i.e. you’re able to stick to someone like glue without breaks in your rotations, regular melee DPS is much better.

Oh, okay then I’ll wait for the updated guide instead. Thanks for working on it!

I have had no internet at my house for the entire month of July, which has made finishing things difficult. It’ll be done when it’s done. :l

Two months of problems with my connection at home have finally more or less abated. I’ll be resuming the playtesting I was unable to complete soon.

I look forward to updates! Been messing with burning lately based on your research since I got tired of playing a general zerk meta guard.

Updated my build.

Question to all of you guys, how much should the basic burning tic (without any might or stacks) be to be considered effective and not just be ignored by players? Would 800 be sufficient enough or is it still too weak?

It comes down to how much direct damage is lost by increasing condition damage.

For example, if you get 800 per second in condition damage but you lose an average of more than 800 per second in direct damage to get that kind of burning damage, then it’s ineffective. There may be other advantages of condition damage where losing some direct damage is acceptable, but that’s very situational. I don’t actually have more realistic values but with the current game mechanics, I believe burning always falls behind direct damage.

Burning is at its most effective when using the AoE trait on large, tight groups of mobs.

Yeah that is exactly what I have been thinking, I have been playing around with the build editor and the new Sinister stats (add Rabid gear to editor, add amount of toughness gained by it to power and remove it from the calculated amount of toughness itself), with berserker gear I could push up the basic burning tic to be 704/s while keeping power at 2162, crit at 45% and ferocity at 201% which should be OK, but, you’d lose so much own survivability again that I am not sure if it would be a good idea to invest in burning if you would not be able to stay up yourself for so long that it would start burning through them. With 10 stacks of might which should be doable to keep up with blocks, and 25 corruption stacks it would be up to 903/s however

Wait what why does my post get the thread removed from stickies? Sorry guys, my bad

Probably because it’s outdated, and hasn’t been updated for months now.

Hi guys, I don’t know if anybody still checks this, but I tried this build today and I thought I’d post it here, since it performs fairly well. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApUotCxWI8DNR8QVdAkAPK2PRSkFXNDA-TVyCABAcSAUR/gCmc4R9HCVCylyhm2fYJlcS8EAIFwiKrA-w
You don’t get direct damage, but every block turns into a 4 second burn, and aegis heals you, along with dodgerolls. It gives good sustain. I use this for wvw, and I use retreat and a staff to get around. You can’t really disengage that well, but I use it in small group roaming. I also made a pvp hybrid which is this one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DRR8QZT1BQC8o4c9PMD5AA-TZBHwAGOJAAeAABOCAl2fAZZAA
Which is actually decently strong, since you can get a really good burst off with the intelligence sigil.
Hope you like them, and hf ingame.

Arddyn.7683:

Hi guys, I don’t know if anybody still checks this, but I tried this build today and I thought I’d post it here, since it performs fairly well. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApUotCxWI8DNR8QVdAkAPK2PRSkFXNDA-TVyCABAcSAUR/gCmc4R9HCVCylyhm2fYJlcS8EAIFwiKrA-w
You don’t get direct damage, but every block turns into a 4 second burn, and aegis heals you, along with dodgerolls. It gives good sustain. I use this for wvw, and I use retreat and a staff to get around. You can’t really disengage that well, but I use it in small group roaming. I also made a pvp hybrid which is this one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DRR8QZT1BQC8o4c9PMD5AA-TZBHwAGOJAAeAABOCAl2fAZZAA
Which is actually decently strong, since you can get a really good burst off with the intelligence sigil.
Hope you like them, and hf ingame.

I applaud you for using sw/t combo. Many burn guardians fail to tap into Torches full potential of 12s burn duration. At minimum, Torch should always give 8s burns, assuming the throw isn’t blocked ;)
I’m incredibly new to the WvW scene so i’m very curious as to what kind of burn builds that can be had. I’ll give the staff variant a go when I get a chance :p

I’ve had very poor experiences with Celestial amulets. It under performs in almost every aspect. The potential 4,867 damage on your sw/t weapon switch is nice, but because sc/f can’t do similiar damage, you’ll actually lose a lot of damage without gaining much of Celestial’s perks.

Try
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QZ1IUdAUAP61/wMkDA-TJRHwABOJAILDA4JAEa/BA
You’ll do twice the amount of damage with viritually the same amount of sustains with a near 100% accuracy w/ judges intervention and flashing blade. That’s about 5408 condi burst damage in 4s, on each weapon switch.
Rune of Krait is used as a “finisher”. I mainly use it to kill almost any class that would be nearly impossible otherwise. d/d celes eles is a prime example.
I would use Balthazar runes if the perk Burn on Heal wasn’t dodgeable or blockable. It’s a close 2nd rune if you prefer that over krait.

Saiyan.1704:

I applaud you for using sw/t combo. Many burn guardians fail to tap into Torches full potential of 12s burn duration. At minimum, Torch should always give 8s burns, assuming the throw isn’t blocked
I’m incredibly new to the WvW scene so i’m very curious as to what kind of burn builds that can be had. I’ll give the staff variant a go when I get a chance :p

I’ve had very poor experiences with Celestial amulets. It under performs in almost every aspect. The potential 4,867 damage on your sw/t weapon switch is nice, but because sc/f can’t do similiar damage, you’ll actually lose a lot of damage without gaining much of Celestial’s perks.

Try
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QZ1IUdAUAP61/wMkDA-TJRHwABOJAILDA4JAEa/BA
You’ll do twice the amount of damage with viritually the same amount of sustains with a near 100% accuracy w/ judges intervention and flashing blade. That’s about 5408 condi burst damage in 4s, on each weapon switch.
Rune of Krait is used as a “finisher”. I mainly use it to kill almost any class that would be nearly impossible otherwise. d/d celes eles is a prime example.
I would use Balthazar runes if the perk Burn on Heal wasn’t dodgeable or blockable. It’s a close 2nd rune if you prefer that over krait.

Thank you for your compliment, and remarks on my pvp build. For my roamingbuild, I did not mean I used a staff actively in combat, I meant to say I swap to a staff to boost my swiftness duration just a little bit, or when I’m standing still to stack it up, to get around more efficiently. The build itself is fairly effective, but still not as effective as a direct damage guardian. In groups it is really useful though, especially if the focus is on you, since you basically hurt people by being attacked. The burn duration on the blocks is insanely long, and therefore quite effective.
As for your remarks, I understand them, but you will not have the same sustainability as with celestial while using carrion, mainly due to toughness and healing power. I might not be able to profit from celestial as much as other classes, but with the might stacking from battle, hoelbrak, and blocks I manage to do decent direct damage along with the burning ticks, giving me more options, which is what I prefer over higher condi bursts, although the bleedstacking with weaponswaps seems really strong as well. I don’t really understand your choice for 2nd major trait, shattered aegis. It does very low damage. Is it so you get extra attacks in so you can proc your passive burn more? I would still prefer the cooldowns from focus to be lower for more blocks and blinds.
Greetings,
Arddyn

Arddyn.7683:

Thank you for your compliment, and remarks on my pvp build. For my roamingbuild, I did not mean I used a staff actively in combat, I meant to say I swap to a staff to boost my swiftness duration just a little bit, or when I’m standing still to stack it up, to get around more efficiently. The build itself is fairly effective, but still not as effective as a direct damage guardian. In groups it is really useful though, especially if the focus is on you, since you basically hurt people by being attacked. The burn duration on the blocks is insanely long, and therefore quite effective.
As for your remarks, I understand them, but you will not have the same sustainability as with celestial while using carrion, mainly due to toughness and healing power. I might not be able to profit from celestial as much as other classes, but with the might stacking from battle, hoelbrak, and blocks I manage to do decent direct damage along with the burning ticks, giving me more options, which is what I prefer over higher condi bursts, although the bleedstacking with weaponswaps seems really strong as well. I don’t really understand your choice for 2nd major trait, shattered aegis. It does very low damage. Is it so you get extra attacks in so you can proc your passive burn more? I would still prefer the cooldowns from focus to be lower for more blocks and blinds.
Greetings,
Arddyn

Shattered Aegis is mainly personal preference, used just like how you described. Scepter Power or Focus Mastery is definitely something I would choose. Probably Scepter Power because I want to do more burst damage in 10-20s appose to waiting 36s with Focus #5

I’d have to see how your Celestial build does in TPvP play. I still don’t think the Celestial sustains can outweigh the burst damage of Carrion and Doom +Geomancy sigils. Even if you could get sustainable 15 stacks of might in 20s, you would have to sustain even longer to make use of Might’s damage.

You need to constantly be in melee range with sword in order to hit with your auto attack. My build is different in that, you don’t need to be in range 100% of the time once you switch weapons. As long as your conditions hit the target, you don’t necessarily have to risk receiving damage by trying to nail your AA chain.

Perfect example is d/d Ele. Most of his attacks is in a 240 radius. I’m usually out of Sword’s AA range, trying to avoid as much damage as I can. You’ll take noticeable damage if you’re making use of Intelligence Sigils.

I’m not dismissing the build by any means. I’d like to see how you play the build. It could very well out perform mine

A modified burning build that I’ve been running in unranked level 51 pvp

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QZ1IUdAkAP61/wMkDA-TJhAABws/A0PBgxKDAwJBAA

The nice part is that we have multiple ways of applying burning so I’m not really concerned when it is removed. All about duration and maximizing burns.

phokus.8934:

A modified burning build that I’ve been running in unranked level 51 pvp

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QZ1IUdAkAP61/wMkDA-TJhAABws/A0PBgxKDAwJBAA

The nice part is that we have multiple ways of applying burning so I’m not really concerned when it is removed. All about duration and maximizing burns.

Duration isn’t the issue, it’s application. Between F1 procs, Torch, Judge’s Intervention, Burn on blocks, you actually get quite a bit of burn duration already. What hurts most condi builds is the fact that our huge duration burns can easily get cleansed.
It’s why we work in Bursts instead, using Doom, Geomancy and even Krait, to work around people’s cleansing rotations.

Your build would be good if our F1 wasn’t single target damage
It’s why Permeating Wrath desperately needs to be “on target aoe” instead of “self aoe”.

In conclusion,
We could utilize a 932 condi, 650 power, 650 toughness amulet for tanky, high duration burn builds. Regardless… our F1 mechanic forces the build be used for mostly 1v1. High duration builds isn’t good in skirmish fights unless people absolutely have 0 condi cleanses like most Thieves and Rangers or Engi’s.

EDIT
I don’t mean to hijack this thread or be some kind of burn guard guru.. if someone thinks i’m completely wrong please say so. These are just my own personal opinionated experiences