Guild Wars 2

I’ve got an 80 guardian and trying to decide what’s best to put on my armor. In short, can we use crests on armor same as runes?

My main issue is that I’ve gotten my power, prec, crit damage, and toughness all in a nice place, but I am lacking in vit and healing. Healing….I’m not as concerned about as a little more vit, as I’m just under 14k.

Atm, I have full Runes of Altruism on armor, which I’m sure isn’t ideal. I get more healing, and grant couple buffs when I use #6 heal skill, which works with AH, but it’s situational. Runes of Mercy is pretty gimmicky, yet I res ppl SO much, it wouldn’t be totally worthless, and I’d get a little more tanky from it.

What I wonder the most though is if I should just use Crest of Soldier or something else, or if I even can, haven’t tried.

It seems that Runes are gimmicky while Crests are flat increses….are they interchangable? Can Crests be used on anything?

Is there a Rune that is better then any Crest in your opinion?

I run all shouts in my utilities so Rune of the Soldiers 6/6 is perfect for me (lots of vit and toughness along with condi removal). For more versatility, you can run 2/2 Superior Monk, Water and Major Water for 50% Boon Duration increases which works well with any guardian build centered around boons.

Duke.4795:

I run all shouts in my utilities so Rune of the Soldiers 6/6 is perfect for me (lots of vit and toughness along with condi removal). For more versatility, you can run 2/2 Superior Monk, Water and Major Water for 50% Boon Duration increases which works well with any guardian build centered around boons.

Im pretty much shouts too…I guess what I don’t get is: wouldn’t full Crests of the Soldier give you more then full Superior Rune of the Soldier?

I’m just not sure how Crests work. :/

Ok so just looking at it:

6x Crests of the Soldier gives:
120 Power
84 Toughness
84 Vitality

6x Superior Rune of the Soldier gives:
0 Power
50 Toughness
165 Vitality
Shouts remove a condition

It seems to me that one would come out on top with the Crests, yet they are 1/4th the price of the Runes on TP. I can see the benefit of more Vit and Cond removal on shouts, but at the cost of toughness and power, I don’t understand the difference in price. Is there something I’m missing here?

My guess is that most people aren’t taking the soldier runes for the soldier stats. They’re doing it mostly for the condition removal, which really is that good if you’re building for shouts anyway.

It is good, no doubt, but with all the other ways that we have to remove conditions, I don’t see where it warrants a 4x markup in price.

Especially since you are losing out on any power at all for cond removal, which again can be had in several other ways.

Power/damage is not everything. And while we have the option to spec for passive condition removal via Signet of Resolve and Purity, it’s always better to have on-demand-removal. I am currently the (bugged…) Pure of Voice trait, but otherwise my only condition removal comes in the form of the Absolute Resolution trait.

Iavra.8510:

Power/damage is not everything. And while we have the option to spec for passive condition removal via Signet of Resolve and Purity, it’s always better to have on-demand-removal. I am currently the (bugged…) Pure of Voice trait, but otherwise my only condition removal comes in the form of the Absolute Resolution trait.

Power/damage is not everything, but it is something. I have remove cond on crits, with hi crit chance, and that flaming ring that removes cond on members, burns foe, and creates area might with mighty blow. Between all that, I’m handling conds ok.

Having said that, I can see the allure of cond removal on shouts as I use them alot per AH build. I just don’t see the price difference in something just as good, or maybe even better.

Well, if power/damage is your main concern, then you should be using ruby orbs or a more damage-oriented rune set. And if flat stat increases are more appealing to you than bonus mechanics, then you should use orbs or crests rather than runes. To some people for some builds, however, the bonuses really are worth it.

Another way to keep a passive bonus would be to go for a mix of runes for boon duration. If you want to keep the healing theme you have now, 2 water/ 2 monk/ 2 Dwayna or 3 water/3 monk are nice.

Urthona.3198:

Well, if power/damage is your main concern, then you should be using ruby orbs or a more damage-oriented rune set. And if flat stat increases are more appealing to you than bonus mechanics, then you should use orbs or crests rather than runes. To some people for some builds, however, the bonuses really are worth it.

Another way to keep a passive bonus would be to go for a mix of runes for boon duration. If you want to keep the healing theme you have now, 2 water/ 2 monk/ 2 Dwayna or 3 water/3 monk are nice.

I wouldn’t say power/damage is my main concern…or that knowing how to max that is an issue. As you say, for some builds, the bonuses from runes are worth it. I guess I’d like to know what sets are worth it, and why.

As for boon duration, it is not an issue. AH self heal build through boons on others doesn’t require that the boons last long, only that you can pop alot of them off regularly. I’m giving up on the “healing theme” because I just don’t see any way to maximize healing without utterly crippling the other stats. Aside from that, I would say that 2x any this or that runes mixed together probably isn’t the best you can do.
It’s getting a little too hybrid jack of all trades, and not getting the best out of something.

I’m currently at ~1100 Healing Power, combined with about 2900 Attack and 3000 Armor (without food). Also 15k-16k HP, should be enough.

Granted, my Crit% is at 4% base so i likely never crit but still often enough to proc Vigorous Precision (now i somehow like the recent nerf ^^).

But when using AH, you certainly need more Precision. Maybe try Magi Armor with Healing Power/Precision/Vit Stats (bought with AC tokens) combined with Knight’s.

I am running a shout build as well with 6x soldier runes. The remove condition on shout works on the other members of your part as well. Basically turns your shouts into aoe condition removal in addition to the boons provided.

Something to else to consider are the weapons you’re useing. If your using a hammer then the 2x monk runes, 2x water runes, 2x earth runes setup would provide nearly permanent protection boon. If your using a greatsword then swap out the 2x earth for 2x strenth runes and you will get 50% might duration.

The “remove condition on shout” effect for six soldier runes is equivalent to one of the Guardian’s “Grand Master” traits. You can get it for free using the runes, so that’s pretty significant.

Pure of Voice is, in theory, better than 6 soldier runes as it converts conditions and not just cleanses them. It is horribly bugged though and only reliably works on 2/4 shouts.