Guild Wars 2

I’ve been looking at a 0/5/30/30/5 AH build for roaming (zerging is not really my thing) with Hammer and either GS, Sword/Focus, Mace/Focus, Scepter/Focus, or Staff for the 2nd weapon set.

Here’s a link to my tentative spec:
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-9;4NF-40M3JG-90;9;54TT4;435A178;14-F0;2qObSqObSNBlccGm5;3vV0X5Y8ZG4La5Z-870HV8aNX8a;9;9;9;9;9;54k3N

I’ve read through Brutaly’s most excellent guide, but I still have some questions and would appreciate input from veterans of the class:

1. given the current meta with heavy conditions, do you think 60-65% passive condi removal (via food and Melandru/Hoelbrak runes) is sufficient with Guardian? When soloing I plan to slot Purity instead of Strength in Numbers. I was thinking of going with shout condition removal but many of the shouts even with Superior Aria have fairly long cooldowns

2. how much Armor is enough? Guardian feels so different from my Warrior in that we have more access to Protection/Blind/Aegis, so to some extent it feels like I get less mileage out of Toughness on my Guardian compared to Warrior, since the Guardian can avoid damage but the Warrior has to eat it (aside from Enduring Pain)

3. Which of the following would you take: Empowering Might, Writ of Persistence, or Writ of Exaltation?

4. in a 1v1 or 2v2 context, does AH provide meaningful value? I expect as the group size goes to 3+ that the healing scales well, but I’m curious for soloing and duoing contexts

5. what’s your pick for the 2nd weapon? Hammer seems like a no brainer due to the auto-chain and Mighty Blow mechanics

Thanks for the feedback!

Shouts don’t work that good for 1v1 roaming unfortunately and a meditation build with traveler runes will give you nearly 100% more burst dmg, pressure AND sustain.

You have neither GS nor Sword, so your mobility will be severely crippled whenever u are chasing or trying to run away from stuff.

You also have retreat for mobility which will hinder you at times due to popping it for condi cleanse vs mobility and vice versa.

What kills people in 1v1 and 2v2 is burst and the ability to pressure when u have them on the defensive, you have none of that. That is why medi burst is king in solo romaing

1. It is way way way more than sufficient. Negating direct damage is very easy as a guardian, but our low HP makes us vulnerable to condition damage. 60-65% duration reduction is huge. Not only it will reduce the damage, it will reduce the duration of Soft CC such as crippled, chilled, and immobilized. You have heard tons of guardians whine about how slow guardian is, so this set up will help a lot. With this set up, the only reason to use PoV trait and/or Soldier runes is to help your teammates. You pretty much already have more than enough defense against Conditions.

2. Thank you for pointing out how awesome we are compared to Warrior. Not a lot of guardians see that. I’d say 3000 armor is enough, but I have 3300 on my frontline bunker build.

3. For self-heal, Empowering Might gives you way more heal than the other two traits. So if your intention is for defense, choose that. Between Writ of Persistence and Exaltation, Persistence would give you more boons and self heal. Exaltation would make your symbols as big as necro’s wells. It looks awesome, honestly.

4. It’s not as great compared to a 5-sized group, but your other sources of heal should be able to handle 1v1.

5. You have decent DPS, give GS a try!

I like shouts more than meditations generally (except JI, <3) as you have better access to protection and SyG is too good. I felt the spec I had to go to make it work made damage subpar to what meditations offer though.

Current favorite roaming build is 10/5/30/20/5 (II,I-X-XII,VI-IX) since you can drop the 10 points from Honor and trade PoV for FW and also have easy access to fury. Pure of Heart is underrated too, hope the planned buff goes through.

Main reason to go meds over shouts though is that it is almost suicide to roam without JI, and that leaves you one utility short in a shout build.

Hunter.4783:

Shouts don’t work that good for 1v1 roaming unfortunately and a meditation build with traveler runes will give you nearly 100% more burst dmg, pressure AND sustain.

What kills people in 1v1 and 2v2 is burst and the ability to pressure when u have them on the defensive, you have none of that. That is why medi burst is king in solo romaing

Understood re: applying pressure.

So basically you’re saying for roaming that:
Meditations > AH + shouts

Hunter.4783:

You have neither GS nor Sword, so your mobility will be severely crippled whenever u are chasing or trying to run away from stuff.

Yes, I forgot to update the link. I find GS3 to be very valuable, as a gap closer or creator, and for the AOE blind.

Hunter.4783:

You also have retreat for mobility which will hinder you at times due to popping it for condi cleanse vs mobility and vice versa.

I also use Retreat for the on-demand AOE Aegis.

What food are you using? I assume you’re not using -condi food. If you are using Traveler’s Runes then I assume you consume food that supports your burst.

xFireize.6318:

1. It is way way way more than sufficient.

OK thanks.

xFireize.6318:

I’d say 3000 armor is enough, but I have 3300 on my frontline bunker build.

To get to 3k I’d need to gear a bit more defensively, e.g. use Melandru’s instead of Hoelbrak’s.

xFireize.6318:

3. For self-heal, Empowering Might gives you way more heal than the other two traits. So if your intention is for defense, choose that. Between Writ of Persistence and Exaltation, Persistence would give you more boons and self heal.

Thanks.

xFireize.6318:

4. It’s not as great compared to a 5-sized group, but your other sources of heal should be able to handle 1v1.

My impression – and you and the two other repliers have confirmed – that AH is not really optimal for roaming.

khefka.2804:

Current favorite roaming build is 10/5/30/20/5 (II,I-X-XII,VI-IX) since you can drop the 10 points from Honor and trade PoV for FW and also have easy access to fury.

What do you mean by easy access to Fury?

khefka.2804:

Main reason to go meds over shouts though is that it is almost suicide to roam without JI, and that leaves you one utility short in a shout build.

OK thanks.

Sounds like you agree with Hunter that Meditations are better than AH+Shouts for roaming

Focused Mind (X) in Valor gives a little over 4 seconds of fury when you use a meditation, and with the short cooldown on Smite Condition and the teleport to target on JI it’s fairly easy to take advantage of it. A solo shout build will work, as over 20 seconds of protection + stability is nice, but without JI you really have no way to reliably choose your battles.

Also you need shout cooldown and PoV then have to choose between 2h mastery or EM. EM will give you a lot better sustain but having GS3 up close to every time you swap is really good also to keep pressure up. The meditation build just all-around works, with shout build I feel like there are too many compromises.

i’ve done small scale fights with AH + shouts (was getting back to my group) and you DO have “better” utility through access to a ton of boons as well as stability, and done so relatively successfully. though of course, this all depends on who you’re fighting and how the rest of your build is set up. if you’re focusing on mainly roaming, and solo roaming especially, meditations any day of the week. on average, better than AH shout roaming.

hmm. put it this way. i don’t miss JI and smite condition as much as i miss my boons or stability to be honest.

though again, if you’ll be roaming with a few buddies or small 5man havoc, what have you, an AH shout build can be pretty strong. your buddies get all the beneits of your boons, and you get more mileage out of AH as well. can always take two shouts and then JI. i used to run that for a bit.

AH isn’t a roaming build, get triple medi

The build I have the most success with in WvW solo roaming is 0/0/30/20/20. I prefer the extra 10 points in virtues for Absolute Resolution (Activating Virtue of Resolve removes 3 conditions). I use AH in sPVP and group roaming but I find it lacks in 1v1 or 2v2, and opt for Meditations. Especially with the newly added Fury. Judge’s Intervention has really good synergy with Hammer skills (port > ring or port > punt) and you’ll always have Fury for the following Mighty Blow (as well as a timed Shield of Wrath if you go with Focus). I generally prefer Hammer/GS with 2 Handed Mastery in Honor, but Sword/Focus is really good as well.

taugrim.7604:

Hunter.4783:

Shouts don’t work that good for 1v1 roaming unfortunately and a meditation build with traveler runes will give you nearly 100% more burst dmg, pressure AND sustain.

What kills people in 1v1 and 2v2 is burst and the ability to pressure when u have them on the defensive, you have none of that. That is why medi burst is king in solo romaing

Understood re: applying pressure.

So basically you’re saying for roaming that:
Meditations > AH + shouts

Hunter.4783:

You have neither GS nor Sword, so your mobility will be severely crippled whenever u are chasing or trying to run away from stuff.

Yes, I forgot to update the link. I find GS3 to be very valuable, as a gap closer or creator, and for the AOE blind.

Hunter.4783:

You also have retreat for mobility which will hinder you at times due to popping it for condi cleanse vs mobility and vice versa.

I also use Retreat for the on-demand AOE Aegis.

What food are you using? I assume you’re not using -condi food. If you are using Traveler’s Runes then I assume you consume food that supports your burst.

I use condi reduction food and maintenance oil. Sometimes I switch to life leech food depending on who I am fighting. I use the lvl 70 foods which let me switch between them on the fly.

The beauty of meditations is that you can chain sword #2 GS#3 and IJ for chase or escape and be nearly untouchable.

Smite condi by itself heals me for 2200 or something like that, which is much more than hold the line or SY does, and this is not even including the ultra short cooldown.

Contemplation is a bigkittento every necro and Mesmer. Wait till they relay the first wave of condies on u before you use it for maximum effect. Its how you kill necros, basically, you make sure you have enough DPS and pressure to down or take em really low before their second set of cooldowns is up.

Traveler runes is mandatory.

I am not posting a build because the med roaming build can be highly customisable. I personally use PTV armor, (zerk everything else) for some extra survivability.