Guild Wars 2

Hi -

So the last time I played with my Guardian and guild wars for that matter, was about a year and half ago – The landscape has somewhat changed since.

I played GW at release, but didn’t stay for too long – just long enough to get a couple of chars to 80 and equips them in exotics.

Cleric Guardian was a thing back in the day, but as I didn’t play for long, I don’t have the money to re gear my guard to a meta accepted build.

Is there a way to salvage my Cleric guardian without re-gearing, and still be relevant in pve content – wvw content etc.

Thanks

Using clerics stats in a general PVE build will be exceptionally painful for you but the good news is that because you haven’t had a taste for what a high DPS build can do, your point of comparison is non-existent. If you must, continue to use it, but I would have to advise you upgrade to zerker ASAP.

Actually, even if you get RARE zerker gear, it’s a step up in damage from zerkers, it’s more affordable and you can salvage for ectos worth some gold or crafting later.

While you are using your cleric’s you can still improve your build by using the weapons/traits appropriate for high DPS and still have some reasonable damage, but not amazing.

This is a weird point of contention right..It’s why I left, it’s why many left, it’s what is making it hard for me to come back..

Is it really DPS or nothing? Is that what your post is implying? Can I not be of benefit in some capacity, as the Healway builds were back when I did play, unless I’m dealing max DPS??

I guess farming for gear is an option while I wait for Revenant anyway, but still, it’s disheartning, to have what I would no assume to be, absolutely no variety in playsytle amoung any class – Just DPS, DPS, DPS..

Anyway – Being out for the game for so long, where are the current farming spots, what’s the best way to make money/farm for ectos etc??

Thanks

SO much could be written on the questions you ask.

Healway was a WvW build. It was in NO way appropriate for PVE. I’m not a WvW expert so your cleric gear could still be relevant there, though I don’t think the healway build is.

PVE has always been about DPS. That’s not something that has changed. The only factor there is how capable a player is; what this means is how well a player uses the defensive skills at their disposal to not need defensive stats. A highly capable Guardian player has more blocks, dodge, heals and blinds than almost any other profession, so it naturally attracts players that are DPS oriented; ironic considering conceptually, we are about supporting team with defensive boons.

I’m not an expert on much other than gathering and roaming Open world and watching TP prices for my collected goods; a TRUE farmer. I don’t recommend that you do that. I understand that there is alot of potential to make money in Silverwastes doing events and in Edge of the Mists. Other route is tried and true dungeon runs, but in Clerics gear, youi might get alot of flack if you don’t learn how to choose teams to join or make your own.

Cleric Guard by Skady in high level fractals.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYBoQCTK8YadNMZglIDAdOA

There is one key problem to every time I see someone link a Cleric guard In PVE The first video in that link he’s doing no damage and never dodges times blocks poorly and sacrifices all DPS so his party basically drags him through it. One can provide just as much support with higher DPS not wearing a full set of Cleric. But if you’re looking for lazy gameplay and don’t want to have to think of what the boss is doing to do an easy counter and just want to stand there and face tag sure go for there’s nothing wrong with that. The key thing to keep in mind is you play the game the way you want the reason why everyone runs full DPS is simply part of boredom if you’ve done the same dungeon 1000 times you just wanted to kill it and be done not sit and slowly very slowly kill the boss with no chance of dying just face tanking the entire time.There really is Not a wrong way to play the gameAs long as your parties understanding when it comes down to it it’s simply time if you have the time and that’s how you want to play please feel free.

a sub 50 minute run in fotm50 with 3 people is still better than alot of groups with 5 players

I think its enough proof that he can still bring something to the table. Yes you might not speed kill molten duo before they even do anything but as far as facilitating the encounter for general play I’d say its more than enough evidence that he can salvage his clerics play for PvE.

To say its completely inappropriate for PvE is unfair when it has shown to benefit a lot of people who aren’t the guardian in question.

You know, I’m not a zerker fanatic, but even I can recognize that if a player is capable of using it, they should; NOT for the teams benefit but for their own. The ability to carry/benefit others in a team is an very weak reason to use clerics gear or any gear for that matter.

In fact, the claim it’s good for players not the Guardian makes almost no sense to me whatsoever; How does a defensive stats choice on a Guardian benefit people in a team that aren’t the Guardian? It doesn’t, unless those few stats are the fine line between keeping that Guardian upright and fighting and eating dirt.

Bottom line: There is little reason for people to not use the most offensively oriented gear they can as long as they aren’t dying a whole bunch of time.

The traits generally used with clerics for guardian AKA battle presence spec is more than capable of doing 4k back to back heals or pushing upwards of 15k AoE burst healing with relatively short cooldowns without even trying and that’s STILL with bringing the maximum amount of active defense available for party members and maintaining well over 1.5k HPS w/o the burst heals fully specced out (and btw, that number is going up come expansion), that can mean letting even a full zerker thief face tank mossman’s auto attacks on 50 and clearing it with relative ease with other players who are fully optimized DPS.

Bottom Line:

Its worked
People like it
People who ARENT the guardian like it
People who aren’t the guardian in FotM 50 like it
People who aren’t the guardian in FotM 50 like it AND HAVE ASKED FOR THE BUILD SETUP.

bottom line: many people say otherwise.

Ben, stick with your cleric gear! Cleric Guardian is an amazing setup, and one that is really under-appreciated and under-used. This is the Build that I’m running

Here’s the rundown: Use your hammer auto-attack to generate symbols every third hit. Those symbols provide Protection and Healing (the healing comes from the trait). Use your shouts to cleanse conditions and put boons on you. You get alot of healing from this thanks to Pure of Voice. Your dodge rolls will heal you for a large chunk, so do that when things get hairy. Basically, all that, combined with a high toughness + Signet of Judgment (-10% damage), you will be mitigating a very large portion of the damage that is dealt to you, and you will be able to heal through the rest of whatever damage you take. The whole point of a build like this is to provide Protection, Healing, and Cleansing to your party. It’s really fun and you should try it out.

Don’t let people discourage you from doing this. You can’t face tank everything, but you can take those BIG one-shot hits from Champ bosses and still survive when everyone else around you dies. Your healing will allow to recover and still stay on those bosses. It’s not foolproof though. You still need to dodge regularly because there will always be instances where you can’t heal through damage, but for the most part, this build is excellent for anyone who wants to be an “anchor” for their team.

Hi fellow Guardian!

A few pieces of Cleric gear can make your life much easier. If you learn fractals or doing Silverwastes it is a godsend indeed.

Try something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVQQJARSlsApZotCxUI8DRR8gk14qCg5zuXfM2NA-TVCBABPqEEjjAAPqwImyPJuEAA8AAKa/h80Foj6DkCIilRA-w

You will have OKish damage, perma swiftness, support and some nice heal/second.

Not optimal but your group will love you

For PvE: Dungeons/fractals with most random groups on the party finder will demand you bring berserker gear, and usually some other ridiculous requirement like proving it and an arbitrary achievement point amount (usually the amount they have). Granted if you know how to dodge roll and the mechanics of the boss fights, berserkers usually is best. But in the open world zerg world bosses or smaller scale groups like Silverwastes events, I’ve found taking some support traits and skills can be useful. You just need to do enough damage to get enough credit for kills. Running around trying to heal and support will get you little to no credit, and you’ll find yourself standing around hitting upscaled to level 83 mobs for hours trying to kill with no power/precision/ferocity/condition damage.

Anything but only Dungeon / Fractal runners will shout not bringing berserker gear…

Berserker is only needed in speedruns… that’s it. He’s BALANCED cleric/zerker/knight gear can be usefull everywhere else…

EDIT: i can’t speak english…

Ben Delat.8415:

(…)
Is it really DPS or nothing? Is that what your post is implying? Can I not be of benefit in some capacity, as the Healway builds were back when I did play, unless I’m dealing max DPS??

I guess farming for gear is an option while I wait for Revenant anyway, but still, it’s disheartning, to have what I would no assume to be, absolutely no variety in playsytle amoung any class – Just DPS, DPS, DPS..
(…)
Thanks

yes dps so far but migth change a bit, about farm for gear get badges of honor in EOTM, after some u can trade for lvl 80 armor in BL armorsmith, easyest way to grab gear for toons.

OP, take whatever advice you wish from the thread. Bottom line is that your going to kill stuff faster with more offensive-focused gear if you can handle yourself without overloading on defensive stats. You can never overload on offensive stats, you can overload on defensive stats if you don’t need them. Many players can do completely without defensive stats on gear in PVE. It simply depends on you.

Also, don’t believe in any hype about how appreciated you will be by your teammates if your using defensive stats gear; the defensive stats on YOUR gear doesn’t impact THEM at all. If your teammates even ask you to use a specific set of stats on your gear, it will most certainly be berzerkers stats.

Your clerics gear has a limited use for extremely hard PVE content that you don’t even have access to yet. You may endeavour to keep it for that but hopefully by then, you’re skills have increased to advance your stats choice beyond it. Even as defensive stats, Clerics is not a very good choice as healing power doesn’t scale well with increased health.

Remember, choose gear based on what benefits YOU the most for the content you want to do, not how good it will be for your team.

Nomad / cleric is brilliant in high level fractals if your group is not very good. You will make the whole run a lot easier. If your group is good then you will not be as much use, but still useful as your ability to facetank will cause the target to be stationary and allow easy melee rotations from your zerkers. In easier fractals and dungeons the content is so easy there is little reason not to bring as much dps as possible.

People say cleric suck and is a waste of time.. I say I have yet to fail a lvl 50 fractal. Cause I constantly save allies and keep them alive even when the in quick to die zerker builds. I say give us epiclily hard content with no timer more about surviving instead of dps

Thanks for all the responses -

I have another toon that can be a Zerker beat face stick, so I’m happy that my Cleric Guard still has a place and can be utilized – I’ll work towards zerker gear for my own benefit, but I like playing the Anchor role as someone put it – My team currently, isn’t the most experienced, so Cleric is good for us.

..And Really – I don’t want every toon I have to just dps, a bit of variety is nice, and if my Cleric is still a valued addition to some in certain content, then I’m happy.

Thanks for all the advice and builds.

Ben

All I do is WvW basically, and here’s my perspective. I really wish there was a place for defensive/support gear such as Clerics and Nomads. But sadly, there just isn’t (my opinion).

Once I switched to almost full zerker on my guardian (a few pvt items) I just couldn’t go back.

It’d be nice if this changes in the expansion. As much fun as high DPS is, I’m more a fan of diversity and alternate, equally effective options.