Guild Wars 2

So, I hope that title wasn’t confusing or misleading, but there was only so much I could pack into a title :P

I leveled a Norn Guardian around Halloween running around the Laby for hours on end, but I haven’t touched it since. Now I finally wanna use it.

We can completely ignore PvP and WvW scenarios, that’s just not my scene :P I wanna be a pillar – the player that keeps the party from having to start over with Mai Trin – but I also wanna be able to run around the World Map on my own without being completely useless in the killing department (hoping that makes sense). The #1 thing for me though is, I don’t wanna even acknowledge the F-key Virtues are there; let the passive stay passive. (and I acknowledge this makes Renewed Focus useless) Maybe that’s dumb, but that’s how I wanna play it. What research I’ve done (mostly build videos and gw2skills.net), the videos’ builds all make use of activating Virtues at various times.

So what I want, in order of importance;
1) Don’t need to touch F-key Virtues
2) Survivability
3) Still do acknowledgable damage
4) Use Greatsword/Staff (though this is totally compromisable, fine using anything that gets the job done)

Can anyone come up with something complete for an exotic-wearing Norn Guardian?
(and by ‘complete’ I mean traits, skills, equipment prefixes, and runes/sigils/jewels)
Or am I just being entirely too picky?

Play a warrior or something else.

I’m glad you asked! I came up with this build myself, and its perfectly adaptable to lots of different situations/content. The best part is that I was able to get the stats I was looking for without any Food/Maintenance Buffs.

Behold Perfection. (Ascended)

Behold Lesser Perfection. (Exotic)

It’s set up for the perfect split of survivability/damage when roaming around or playing with groups that aren’t super organized. If you want to tailor the build more for dungeons (that are more organized and require more DPS), just run the 4/5/0/0/5 trait setup and you’re good to go. Greatsword + Sword/Scepter is pretty standard, but just play with whatever makes you perform better.

Play around with the build editor and find something that makes you happy. It took me a while, but I finally nailed it and got the exact build I wanted.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWlsApUo9CxQI8DNR8AVZAaAmP5/XfkYcDA-TBCBAB8o+DuKBB4SA0iugi2f4BzfIp8LgnAApAoYZE-e

The above build should net you something around 15-20% less damage than a full zerker build but with the added benefit of 3k armor and about 6k more life. (if you factor in 5 might stacks and 20% more crit with fury active. If not it does about 30% less than a zerker)

Cletiscake’s build has much more survival in raw stats, but lacks boon reapplication to make use of Altruistic Healing, as well as it does about 50% less damage than a pure zerker build (another 30%~ less than the one I threw together up top).

You can try both to see what you want more, damage or survival. I will try to reemphasize that active defense and zerker are the better way to go, because there is no tanking in this game and you can still be 1-shot in defensive gear.

Also I want to point out, while you said that you do not want to activate your virtues, by not doing so you are missing out on some crucial capabilities.

VoJ with justice is blind, renewed justice, blind exposure, and inspired virtues makes for some amazing survival in multi target combat with lots of things dying around you. Tons of blinds and tons of might stacks as well as ae vulnerability (utility, survival, and damage rolled into 1)

VoR traited with absolute resolution can be critical in clearing 3 conditions from 5 allies in 1200 range, this can be amazingly clutch on some bosses and helps your group survive, let alone it does a “decent” group heal.

VoC is mostly good on passive to allow more self blocks, but if you rotate your retreat and VoC you can help your group maintain dps without dodging for 2 extra rotations.

Again, I suggest you learn the “meta” way of doing things and maximize the guardian class mechanics. It can take you much further than you can with building tanky alone.

CMF.5461:

The above build should net you something around 15-20% less damage than a full zerker build but with the added benefit of 3k armor and about 6k more life. (if you factor in 5 might stacks and 20% more crit with fury active. If not it does about 30% less than a zerker)

You are loosing 10% from Scholar, 10% from Elusive Power, 10% from Radiant Power and ~5% from Power of the Virtuous alone (~40% damage), ignoring the loss of power and precision from your gear. Your numbers are not true.

I factored them in, I’m not talking about damage modifiers but a rough estimate of actual damage done.

For the sake of trying to show my work:

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Average damage = Base damage * ( 1 + Critical Chance * ( Critical Damage – 1 ) )

Zerk raw damage on whirling wrath with Average Crit Damage (ACD) modifier for crit/crit chance (not assuming 100% crits)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApUo9CxQI8DNR8Ql7Y8i2+BtQlBQDA-TBCBwAGV+JRJI29Hwp+DgLCQKdDJM/F4JAQKA9UGB-e

ACD /Scholar/Fiery Wrath/Radiant Power/Force/Zealous Blade/Power of the Virtuous

3018 * 1.6 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 1.05 * 1.05 = 7440 damage

Proposed compromise build I posted (with 5 self might stacks):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWlsApUo9CxQI8DNR8AVZAaAmP5/XfkYcDA-TBCBAB8o+DuKBB4SA0iugi2f4BzfIp8LgnAApAoYZE-e

ACD / Fiery Wrath / Zealous Blade / Force

3004 * 1.43 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 1.05 = 5209

5209 / 7440 = 0.70

or 100% – 70% = 30% less damage

Feel free to point out errors, as I’m sure I am capable of making mistakes. I did not assume 20% more precision from fury, but with it, the loss of damage is lessened…BUT both builds are capable of having fury in a party so I did not want to assume it as a strength.

NOTE: (damage on build calculator shows differently than when I use gw2wiki damage formulas, not by a drastic amount but it does differ slightly)

Also, while the “stats” are close, the attack rotations will also drastically drop your damage as you stop to channel Empower and you lose weapon swap auto attack dps from sword. Again, just saying any of the above is less than optimal, but optimal isn’t what the OP asked for.

Using no virtues is the same as a necro not using his deathshroud skills… stupid

CMF.5461:

Feel free to point out errors, as I’m sure I am capable of making mistakes.

1) Let’s take you numbers. That’s not how you get the % increase of dps.

7 440-5 209 = 2 231

2 231 / 5 209 = The zerker build have a 42.17% increased dps compare to what you propose. When I did the math, it got to 38.75% increased dps compare to you.

EDIT : Sorry Like Molch I looked at how much more dmg a zerk build will do, your math is good on that

2) You take into account 5 self might for your build but you didn’t took into account the might for F1 for the zerker build, neither the vulnerability of the F1 for the zerker build. But you didn’t take into account the fury you gain from Rune of the Pack. In solo situation zerker would only have 30% more dps, but in group situation it would be around 50% more dps than your build.

3) That’s a terrible zerker build. That’s like the entry general purpose build. On a real zerker build you would have a sigil of the night (10%), a slaying potion (10%), UC (20%) and trait would be more like 4/6/2/0/2.

4) You calculate dmg only for 1 attacks. GS camping is a big lost of dps. Using a good rotation between GS and Sw/F will increase your dps by 12-13%.

Overall, a zerker build will do around twice as much damage as your build.

Now for the OP. Here what I propose.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAS7dlsApUo9CxZI8DRR8QlVKa7H8C1FAY+EbBA-TxBBwASUCaU5HgnAAu9H1fSpbIh5vAXEAA-e

The hammer build will give perma protection to you and your team. That’s a 33% decreased incoming damage, the build that CMF gave you only reduced incoming damage by 26% with all that toughness. So you will be able to take more hits like that. You can take with your a stock of Potion of slaying and Skale Venom (for when there is not a slaying potion). The potion will decrease incoming damage by another 10%, while Skale venom will give weakness to enemies (also decrease incoming dmg). All of that will only cost you about 5-10% of you dps and not 50%. I also changed the rune from Scholar to Flame Legion. That’s a small lost of dps, but Flame Legion is way cheaper and the dmg bonus is far easier to keep. At that point, feel free to maybe add a couple of Valkyrie gear (maybe 2-3 pieces of armor) if you don’t feel comfortable with your low hp. You can also change Blind Exposure to Signet Mastery and take the Signet of Resolve over Shelter as your heal. Those choice will make you harder to kill with the less sacrifice possible to your overall effectiveness.

Finally, if GS isn’t good alone and need another weapons to compensate the auto-attack (Like Sword or Mace), Hammer is good by itself without swapping in the fight. So you can take with your Sceptre/Focus if you need to range stuff in difficult situation.

My bad, I looked at how much more damage a zerk build does than yours (1/0.7=1.43).

Edit: And Thaddeus did that, too^^
Yeah sure if you factor in UA, his build looses hard, but look at what the op asked for, do you really think he’d play with UA?

But I agree to your build, hammer sounds like a better option here. Its also more passive, and thats what op asked for.

I’d have to agree that hammer is the best passive gameplay the OP asked for, but he also asked for gs/staff, thus I tried to supply that. (he also said it was not mandatory so that is flexible).

I also wasn’t trying to build a “zerker” build, so of course its a terrible “zerker” build, what I tried to do was work within the realm of dps meta while providing him something “tankier”….even though I repetitively mentioned it is more often than not, not worth investing into.

And the comparison zerker build was an average zerker, I did not include sigil of night more as ease of translating damage in changing conditions. Although majority of dungeon ARE night, it is known that night and force are typically taken.

Also, slayer potions….not an option on build calculator and you are really pushing into speed run territory, which is obviously not the OPs cup of tea. So stop trying to showcase the most optimal of optimal.

I was not taking into account virtue of justice active, as the OP specifically asked to NOT use virtues. So that wasn’t taken into account for either build and tried to avoid traits into it as he wasn’t using them anyway.

Unscathed contender with the OP will have just about a zero percent uptime I suspect, but I may be wrong… I opted to not try to sugar coat it for him though.

I also mentioned that I only factored in one weapon attack and not a rotation, weapon swapping and proper use of cooldowns will vastly increase damage as I mentioned way prior to the additional posts, the numbers are not there to show actual damage, but stat effectiveness in maintaining “dmg” while increase of toughness and vitality (survival stats), also utilizing altruistic healing to maintain life. Survival stats without replenishment of life will net you no real survival. The idea is to take a hit while being able to recover from damage.

The only thing you really did is give him a zerker build with a hammer and found him a “steal” on a cheaper rune set than scholar.

If anything take the build I provided and throw a hammer on it (WAY better for AH anyway with a hammer versus GS). Then you get the 20 something percent damage reduction from armor and 33% from protection. All the while replenishing health with symbols. To maintain decent damage rotations, drop staff and swap to GS for cooldowns then camp hammer auto attack till greatsword cooldowns are ready again.

But you still imply that your build was around 30% less dmg than a zerker build even if in reality its more around 50%. Whatever you said, the number you provide give zero useful information. 30% less dmg on a single attack between your build and a general purpose zerker build. That give no useful information.

I gave him a zerker hammer build with a cheaper run easier to keep up, and several options if he need more survivability. Signet Mastery, Valkyrie gear, etc. How much more survivability he think he need will depend on him.

- For the GS/Staff he said he was flexible to get a better option.
- For blind exposure, that’s why I propose him to use signet mastery instead. That trait line is still the best because of minor trait and stats.
- Slaying potion give you 10% more defense and 10% damage and cost almost NOTHING. So why is that speed run territory? Its a good and cheap utility, why can’t he use it? And i also proposed Skale Venom which will work everywhere.

30% in one attack should reflect roughly 30% in a complete rotation if both attack patterns mirror each other (which they wont because zerker builds would not use staff and greatsword).

Factor in actual combat scenarios and yes the build I proposed will drop behind drastically. BUT I feel it is one of the better options to take while building for survival. Going pure knights as suggested by many for entry level is actually even more of a dps loss and gains no vitality, which gains you almost no survival with toughness alone. The other survival build posted before mine also was a dps loss (but with much better survival stats, yet without sustain mechanics).

The build you posted will do more damage, but offers almost no sustain and encourages virtue usage. It also has no sustain mechanics, and I feel the OP will want/need sustain…maybe I’m trying to sterotype him too much and I should give him more credit than that…but no virtue usage

Having him use signets such as judgement (only real survival signet anyway) is “ok”, but the up time of active is not strong enough, and passively I don’t feel it is enough. I like your idea of hammer though, but not sure if the OP will take it.

I think in the end we can all agree that the OP should just learn how to play zerker meta, but trying to give options.

CMF.5461:

Factor in actual combat scenarios and yes the build I proposed will drop behind drastically. BUT I feel it is one of the better options to take while building for survival.

It certainly better than what cletiscake proposed, but that doesn’t make the build you propose good. Its lackluster in DPS, have less resistance than an Hammer build. The only thing it have better is the sustain, which is not good in this game.

If someone want to have a bit more surviability the best choice is always active defense. If you want to sacrifice a bit of dps for more resistance or for more sustain that’s ok. But when you sacrifice a lot of dps for both resistance and sustain, you end up with well a bad build.

Tsubasa Yume.4185:

The #1 thing for me though is, I don’t wanna even acknowledge the F-key Virtues are there; let the passive stay passive. (and I acknowledge this makes Renewed Focus useless) Maybe that’s dumb, but that’s how I wanna play it. What research I’ve done (mostly build videos and gw2skills.net), the videos’ builds all make use of activating Virtues at various times.

So you are looking for a build to make you a bad guardian? Why would you not want to use the virtues? There’s a reason all build use virtues at various times, its called being a guardian. There are certain traits that really make the active abilities on the virtues really nice. If thats how you want to play, more power to you. Just don’t start complaining on the forum when you get kicked from dungeons.

So I took the Ascended version of the build I posted and I re-traited for 4/5/0/0/5 and put a Sigil of Mischief in the weapons (I meant to include Sigil of Mischief in the original build, but I forgot to change it). This is it. The whole point of my build is that you can simply re-trait for whatever content you want to participate in and always be able to do meaningful DPS without sacrificing too much survivability.

The Big problem I see with Rune of the Pack is the fact that the Fury uptime revolves around you getting hit. This runs counter intuitive to the “active defenses” gameplay that most builds rely on. Mind you, if you can have that Fury uptime on you for the majority of the time, it’s a nice boost in DPS, but it’s not worth it IMO.

Sigil of Mischief is much better. It enables Vulnerability much more often, which in itself becomes a much better damage increase because it’s consistent, and it provides the added benefit of protecting you and your party members more often. Apply this to Open-World PVE or even WvW, and you got yourself a pretty durable/protection-oriented build that can still output Meaningful DPS when traited correctly.

You know, Yume, if you’re having trouble reaching the virtue keys (F1, F2 and F3) you can always bind them to a different key easier to press. I’d actually recommend customizing the entire setup to how it’s most comfortable for you, as the default bindings are just garbage. You can try to google different binding setups if you’re unsure, ask for them on the forums in a topic or just send me a private message if you need some help setting them up.

It goes a long way and might improve your survivability more than traiting for sustain. Remember, it’s easier to kill things quickly and rely on active defense than it is to fight a drawn out fight dealing less damage even with more passive sustain.

Thaddeus.4891:

CMF.5461:

Factor in actual combat scenarios and yes the build I proposed will drop behind drastically. BUT I feel it is one of the better options to take while building for survival.

It certainly better than what cletiscake proposed, but that doesn’t make the build you propose good. Its lackluster in DPS, have less resistance than an Hammer build. The only thing it have better is the sustain, which is not good in this game.

If someone want to have a bit more surviability the best choice is always active defense. If you want to sacrifice a bit of dps for more resistance or for more sustain that’s ok. But when you sacrifice a lot of dps for both resistance and sustain, you end up with well a bad build.

Go back and read the OP, he is not asking for a zerker build, and go back and read many of my bottom lines how I encourage dps builds over survival builds.

You are barking up the wrong tree telling me how ineffective survival builds are, but you are also blind to what is going on here. You are trying so hard to push the meta in a place that is not asking for the meta. You are telling me that what i posted is a bad dps build when it is “not” a dps build but a survival build for a man who asked for a survival build.

I am not the one running the build I proposed, I run full zerk and use my virtues consistently. Yes I posted that build, no I don’t run it. I am trying to help a player who asked for a specific thing with specific requirements. Not regurgitate the meta

I run meta and encourage others to do

But you see a non meta build and you start build bashing without thought or reason.

Stop think, breath, preach somewhere else.

I dont see how he was pushing a zerk build, just encouraging the OP to use active defenses. The OP should be learning to use his virtues, not create some ineffective build. If you don’t want to use/learn the Guardian profession mechanics then why play a guardian?

Tron.3471:

I dont see how he was pushing a zerk build, just encouraging the OP to use active defenses. The OP should be learning to use his virtues, not create some ineffective build. If you don’t want to use/learn the Guardian profession mechanics then why play a guardian?

It looks like the OP made a thread, saw that he started a build war, and took off for the hills. We may never see him again. xD

I’m not pushing the meta. 2-3 pieces of valkyrie, signet mastery, Hammer build in dungeon, etc. That’s not meta. The op asked for surviability, not using F keys and still having acknowledgeable dps. That’s what I gave him. Protection is WAY more powerful than toughness gear to gain survivability. I just gave him a good build that will provide him with as much if not more survivability than the build you provided him with, while having a lot more dps.

OP, set a macro for your f1-f3 skills to pop when you use your elite. Most game mouses has a key binding program build in, “Autohotkey” can work as if you had bought a $70 gaming mouse.