Spirt Weapon Guardian
My current impression is that it is not versatile.
You need to invest heavily into the zeal line to improve spirit weapons and thus don’t have much points (or skill slots) for anything else. Furthermore, it does not make sense to me that the zeal minor traits improve symobls which in my opinioin don’t synergyize well with spirit weapons
The good think is they boost your damage even if you are not attacking.
SW build is very good and I think that it’s the best build you could have because of the long cool-down of the other skills.
You have to focus on power and toughness as power scales with their damage.
My build > http://tinyurl.com/bhyxacw
All 80es > MM necro is my best ,cleric
guard ,nades eng ,Trap thief \ranger ,signet\shout warrior, zerk mes\ele & shiro rev.
guard ,nades eng ,Trap thief \ranger ,signet\shout warrior, zerk mes\ele & shiro rev.
They’re decent to average at best. The only one that is really worth it is Hammer of Wisdom as it hits pretty hard and has a 3s knockdown. Sword of Truth is okay as it does decent amounts of damage and has an insanely low CD when traited. Shield of the Avenger is decent only in certain places where projectiles are abundant and even then, Wall of Reflection may be better.
SW build is very good and I think that it’s the best build you could have because of the long cool-down of the other skills.
You have to focus on power and toughness as power scales with their damage.
My build > http://tinyurl.com/bhyxacw
IMO, Wrathful Spirits isn’t really worth the investment as spirit weapons attack pretty slow. But then Zealous Blades isn’t any better.
Spirit Weapons do not benefit from your stats unfortunately, or if they do,they scale extremely poorly. I tested it with no gear/amulet on and with full gear,traits and amulet focused on power and critical chance/damage and the difference in damage was marginal if there was any.
Also burning caused by the" fire inside" trait in the radiance tree seems to be based on the spirit weapon’s condition damage and is not affected by the guardian stats.
They always cause 528 damage from burning with that trait.
Also keep in mind that spirit weapons have huge cooldowns(you have to time in the actual cooldown and their duration,because the cooldown starts only when they die ), a long casting time and due to the Zeal line being useless that you are forced to invest in,you will feel very weak while you don’t have them out.
Having said that, If you are actually going to invest in spirit weapons, then make sure you get the following traits:
Eternal Spirit – Spirit weapons are not destroyed when commanded.
Spirit Weapon Mastery – Spirit weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
A Fire Inside – Spirit weapons cause burning.
(This doubles their damage, especially the hammer that hits 3times each time)
Improved Spirit Weapon Duration – Spirit weapons last 50% longer.
Surrender is not an option!
As far as dungeon running with teams go, I’ve found most spirit weapons very lackluster. For open world PvE, using the traits from OneManArmy’s post above, spirit weapons are fun for shutting down enemies and bursting them. I’ve been using spirit weapons since GW2 Beta and have slowly transitioned to shouts because of the utility they offer.
Shield of the Avenger is the only one I ever take because it’s the longest lasting anti projectile in the game. There are many situations in dungeons where there are tons of projectile based threats and this just turns all that damage to zero. With spirit duration (the only trait you should need for this once you know how to use SoTA), it’s 30 seconds of pulsing projectile absorption, which is enough to withstand a large portion of a boss fight (i.e. Tom in fractals). Once you learn how the AI SoTA, you won’t need the Eternal Spirit trait to reposition the pulsing shield.
The Hammer of Wisdom’s auto attack AI has a knockback that you can’t control and makes it detrimental to use when trying to effectively AoE a group of mobs. Using this will only frustrate your team because it scatters targets when it is more efficient to AoE things that are closer together. I definitely like its command ability to shut down a target, but the auto attack AI makes it not worth having.
The Sword of Justice is okay for extra damage, but it doesn’t really provide any utility. The only time I’ve used it recently was for a bit of extra damage on Simin in Arah.
The Bow of Truth’s condition removal is not too bad, but shout condi removal and some of the guardian weapon combos far outshine it. The command heal is pretty nice, but it only gets value if you’re stationary in that zone and have the eternal spirit trait.
A full on spirit weapon guardian is generally better for solo play, in my opinion. I only discarded the build because I play on teams more often and shouts offer more with condi removal (save yourselves or soldier runes), lower cool downs, stun breaks, aegis for blocking lethal attacks, etc.
you just need
Spirit Weapon Mastery – Spirit weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
Improved Spirit Weapon Duration – Spirit weapons last 50% longer.
Eternal Spirit is a waste. Yes you can use the spirit weapon skill without the destroying the weapon but the skill has cooldowns too. by the time that the spirit weapon skill is up, the spirit weapon is almost up to be destroyed.
just invest 10 in zeal and 10 in virtues and spam the weapons after cooldown and distribute the numbers to appropriate traits of your “main build”.
My experience with spirit weapons is rather limited, but I have found them to be all around terrible.
If you expect to be able to rely on them for anything (e.g. healing or cleansing)…well, good luck.
The sword might be useful, but when you activate it, it just stabs the ground where it currently is, not your target.
tl;dr they’re bad: unreliable and difficult to control
Jaqalope
Charr Legionaire
Dragonbrand
Charr Legionaire
Dragonbrand
I mostly use spirit weapons for underwater combat. Compared to other classes I feel pretty weak when comes to fighting underwater. My build already has 10pts in virtues so I can just change my traits for longer spirit weapons duration. It helps to improve my damage output.
Big problems with spirit weapon builds are points need to get all the associated traits. Here is a comparison with meditations and shout based builds.
Meditation: Valor 30pts 2 traits
Total: 30pts 2 traits
Shouts: Valor 30pts 1 trait
Honor 10pts 1 trait
Total: 40pts 2 trait
Spirit Weapons: Zeal 30pts 3 traits
Radiance: 20pts 1 trait
Virtues 10pts 1 trait
Total: 60pts 5 traits.
This point distribution doesn’t leave a lot of room for anything else
I also don’t remember any minor traits that synergize well with spirit weapons, another downside to them. Now I know you don’t need to spend the full 60pts. I am just pointing out the difficulties in getting the full trait benefits for spirit weapons.
Correct me if I am wrong, but spirit weapons don’t scale with your power stat. Points placed in to Honor help to boost the heals from the mediation combo. Points into Honor and Virtues help to boost the healing from the boons you get from shouts in a AH build as well as boost their duration time. The points spent in Zeal don’t boost the spirit weapons damage. Virtue points do not boost their duration time or reduce cooldowns. Spirit Weapons only get a boost in condition damage from Radiance. Keep in mind that spirit weapons have slow attack speeds and Spirit Bow and Spirit Shield don’t actually attack. Only the Hammer and Sword deal damage. So the condition damage boost from points in Radiance only improve 50% of your spirit weapons.
In my opinion spirit weapons are a novelty/RP theme build.
Templar Valens – Human – Guardian
Server: Maguuma
Server: Maguuma