Signet Guardian?

Signet Guardian?

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Posted by: InmanGrey.6718

InmanGrey.6718

Build

Rip this apart (gently) for me. I have an aversion to running the meta in most games. Guardian is no exception. I want to make this work as well as possible. I have had some luck in WvW with it, but anything can be improved upon.

You’ll notice there is no secondary weapon selected. I imagine staff should be there for mobility, but I left it open for ideas. Thanks in advance for helping.

Signet Guardian?

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Posted by: iados.5790

iados.5790

I’ll be honest. With just a cursory glance I can tell you that Signet of Courage is by far the worst guardian elite currently and you should probably use something else until Anet either buff it or retool it considerably. The heal is waaay too unreliable and even if you get the massive channel off (nearly impossible vs players) your team will be long dead and it doesn’t heal downed allies. So if you wish to be supportive run FMW or if you’re a loner run RF.

Signet Guardian?

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Posted by: CMF.5461

CMF.5461

RF + Inspired Virtues + Absolute Resolution + Indomitable Courage + Justice is Blind = Group Support

FMW = DPS

So depends, do you want haste and some fury?

Or do you want (stability, might, protection, regeneration, condition cleansing, burst healing, blocks, blinds, and a stun break) x 2?

Signet Guardian?

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

FMW is aoe, so the better question is, does your team need or want the Quickness and fury?

Fishsticks

Signet Guardian?

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Posted by: CMF.5461

CMF.5461

Same question, you just emphasized the fact that it affects allies as well, which I thought was inherently understood in my post, but I guess not.

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Posted by: InmanGrey.6718

InmanGrey.6718

Thanks for the input guys. Do you think I should just drop the signet build and move towards something else? Typically prefer being in a group with the Guardian, but would like some solo survival abilities. I trust all of your opinions more than my own since this is my first/only heavy armored character. It plays so very different than what I’m used to.

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Posted by: CMF.5461

CMF.5461

The build you want will depend a bit on your playstyle. I notice that it is WvW build, that said is it large group encounter or small group encounter based.

If you are running with a group at all, then Altruistic Healing will vastly increase your survival while you supply boons to your group.

If you are running solo then Monk’s Focus will help maintain a high degree of burst self healing.

Those two traits have been the staple of Guardian pvp/wvw builds for a long time. It is possible to run without them with success, but they are really good and nice to have.

Beyond that, you were gearing clerics and soldiers while traiting for damage modifiers and signets.

At the moment you do not have any significant healing occurring that healing power is going to emphasize, save for Virtue of Resolve and the new Signet of Courage. As SoC is new, it has yet to be given a stamp of approval, but initial review says that the 10 second tick is far too long.

Also with the lower power and next to no crit chance/damage, the damage modifiers you did trait for will see little to no return, so you have to choose on if you want to be a cleric supportive build or an offensive dps build. Guardian has had a hard time of finding a middle ground in being tanky and providing offensive pressure.

We CAN survive and do damage, but through a lot of active defense utilizing blinds/blocks/condi cleanses. That said one of our best survival skills has been shelter and renewed focus. Blocking potential burst damage has saved more guardians than recovering from burst damage with signet of resolve.

I am not a WvW expert and only did a couple months worth of havok squad and large squad fighting. So I hate to tell you to use a specific build, but from my experiences your build currently is spread thin.

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Posted by: InmanGrey.6718

InmanGrey.6718

I haven’t had so much a playstyle in WvW with it. I would rather tune towards group support, though. I have enough zerker running around on my character select screen. Are shouts at all viable these days?

My indecision and ignorance of Guard WvW shines through that build screen. Attribute-wise, though, I would rather make minimal changes with the low funding I’m at after that sword

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Posted by: CMF.5461

CMF.5461

While not typically used with most guardian builds, the only way we can recover some damage while not changing gear is the following:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retributive_Armor
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Wurm
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inner_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Radiant_Power (this is actually 10% to crit chance on burning targets now)

Radiant power, Inner Fire will net you about 30% more crit chance on top of your baseline 4% putting you at 34% crit chance. If you want you can replace the Sigil of Force for a Sigil of Accuracy to put you up to 41% crit chance, debatable.

Rune of the Wurm and Retributive armor will recover lost ferocity putting you up to about 181% crit damage, almost doubling your damage on crits. Typically want to get closer to above 200% but we are limited here.

Problem now, is we are sacrificing the ability to use Monk’s Focus or Altruistic healing in order to make up for lost damage. You “can” run without them, but majority feels they are mandatory in some degree.

I would suggest you take one of the two survival traits depending on if you are running solo or with a group as you start off, and then experiment without them as you feel comfortable.

So now you should have
Radiance (1 , x , x)
Valor (x, x, x)
(blank)

If you want to run shouts I would suggest Honor with Pure of Voice coupled with Altruistic Healing. Good group condi cleansing and self healing with allies around.

If you want to forgo the crit chance you can drop Radiance for Virtues for even better Altrusitic Healing synergy, but you are not really a healer and not really doing any damage at that point. Mostly just a boon bot for allies and cleansing condis, which is still nice, but has less of an effective feel on your end.

If you want to keep with the damage modifiers, you could go

Radiance (1, 3, 2)
Valor (2, 3, 2)
Virtues (2, 2, 3)

Helps maintain a good amount of retaliation to maintain 10% damage mod, provides self healing with Monk’s Focus and Meditations, and good group support with Virtue activation.

This is all forcing a square peg into a round hole, but it may help push the build in one direction or another?

Someone with better insight in wvw may have better suggestions, I’m just trying to think mechanically within the class is all.