Support Guardian Fractal Builds?
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mccV0mcM9daxxmMsbosb This is what I’m thinking of going with.
The often over looked thing is vitality. Dont forget to get some armor that has vitality do not go full cleric draconic. you may consider something other then strength oh numbers beacuse 30 toughness on someone with full exotics isn’t exactly a worth while.
(edited by Lucraneous.5489)
The often over looked thing is vitality. Dont forget to get some armor that has vitality do not go full cleric draconic. you may consider something other then strength oh numbers beacuse 30 toughness on someone with full exotics isn’t exactly a worth while.
Some of the armor I got has Vit boost, yeah. Lots of Toughness on armor as well. More toughness is directly proportional to less damage taken. Though It probably won’t help with Agony… :P
Does Power translate to any form of healing power or is that just for damage?
Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend a full support build (nor a full dps build) for fractals as Guardian. You need to have a good mix of the two and really, if you have a multitude of weapons available, that ends up being JUST as good as having a “support” build. By that I mean: if you roll with a focus/reflect for the Asura fractal, you can end up blocking the VAST majority of all the knockbacks and some of the agony too.
As far as a build goes, I have something quite similar to the AH hammer build linked in the main Guardian thread(using Soldier runes, ~17-19.5k hp with food depending on weapons). I switch between hammer/staff/sword-focus/scepter-focus depending on the fractal and occasionally I’ll toss in reflect for the fractals that “require” it.
The one thing I would caution against is running any build with lower than 17k hp, unless you are some kind of dodging God. Some of the bosses hit for a metric kitten ton of dmg, and will often leave you with a sliver of hp left if you are using a primarily dps build.
As far as +healing gear goes, many people around these parts consider it to be absolute garbage. I don’t know if it’s broken atm or what, but I wouldn’t recommend stacking +healing gear if at all possible. Get a good mix of pre/power/tough/vit/crit% if you roll with the AH build and you should be good.
(edited by somsom.5201)
I dunno about the +hp claims. I’m running about half my gear at this level with +hp, and I’m getting almost 2k heal at the end of the #4 staff ability on surrounding players. My #2 heal skill also awards me 60% of my total health now. It took me from 6k to 14k yesterday…
I’m gonna run what I’ve got at first, and if It turns out I need to change it up a bit, I’ll replace my gems for their +Vit alternatives.
I dunno about the +hp claims. I’m running about half my gear at this level with +hp, and I’m getting almost 2k heal at the end of the #4 staff ability on surrounding players. My #2 heal skill also awards me 60% of my total health now. It took me from 6k to 14k yesterday…
I’m gonna run what I’ve got at first, and if It turns out I need to change it up a bit, I’ll replace my gems for their +Vit alternatives.
Switch those to other pieces without healing power and you will heal for almost the same amount. Healing scales really poorly, besides for the dodge.
If you want to max incoming heals then go for:
1. An AH build (42-44% critchance)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUMQNAS8dlYgSCHCSFEm4ERWBRi9QjeE+XPcIFZIA;ToAqsMZJyymlLLZWLMGYs/YSA
2. Hammer, or if you cant stand that use the gs but its slightly worse in survivability.
3. Increased symbol duration and symbol size. Duration for more boons and more crits and size for more crits and easier to get mates in the symbol.
4. Empowering might
5. Life steal sigils on crit in the hammer and 1h sword. Sigil of energy in the focus.
6. Omnom berry pie
7. Master maintenance oil
8. Shelter
9. full knights gear, accessories and weapons with soldier runes so you can use the same in every other aspect of the game.
10. stand you ground and save your self
11. Hallowed ground for group stability or signet of judgement for even more mitigation and retaliation and aoe defense.
With this setup and two teammates in the symbol you will heal your self for over 2k per chain attack. To be honest it makes most content silly easy.
You will be able to block at least 8 attacks in a row and even 10 attacks if the mob isnt immune to blinds. This is my partypooper versus 100 blades warriors in pvp. They still dont get it :-)
Focus is just awesome, just swap weapon and pop it, it can be done while fully cced and you have three hits mitigated.
When you need or want to use GS instead, please do, and have a scepter and staff as back up.
Cant see any other build spew out the amount of support this one does.
Building for healing is the same as building for lower damage and i cant see why you should do that when you can have nice damage in combination with the ability to spew out boons to the team and higher survivability.
Personally i do fractals with full berserker and it works nice. Only level 8 so far but i think i only died (downed only) twice with the setup above and later on you might to go knights but until level 8 there is no need what so ever.
(edited by Brutaly.6257)
I’m really not so much interested in healing MYSELF as much as healing OTHERS. I have no problem keeping myself alive at the moment.
1. So do crits affect heals? As in…critical heals? (of other players)
2. Hammer is underpowered at close range compared to the GS. I plan on running support and using staff or scepter + other anyway. GS will only be a backup to whatever else I’m using.
3. I have duration maxed, but I’ll activate the trait for the symbol size. Thanks for the tip.
4. What is empowering might? I can’t find a direct definition in googling.
5. I rarely switch weapons in combat. Once I start a fight I don’t usually have an excuse to change them.
6. Will do.
7. Maybe
8. I would rather go with healing breeze, as it allows me to spray heals on allies as well.
9. I am still going +HP for the benefit of my teammates. As I said, not really looking for a boost for myself on this stuff.
10. My two favorite skills in the game.
11. I already use hallowed ground a lot, and the signet of judgement sounds great. Thanks!
Thanks!
You want to help support your teammates? Then help kill things faster.
It’s such a waste to focus on healing…you completely kitten your ability to do damage (the staff is almost worthless for DPS), which means your teams has to work harder to kills things, things stay alive longer and do more damage to you and your teammates.
And the truth is, you won’t be able to do enough “emergency” healing to save someone’s life. Sure, you’ll keep a steady stream of +HP coming in, but it won’t be enough to save someone’s bacon.
Go read Brutality’s AH Hammer thread…that’s about as good as it’s going to get if you want to place a really nice balance of damage, support and survivabilty.
But otherwise, remember…THERE ARE NO HEALERS in GW2, no matter how much you want to fake it.
Also, remember this…that 2k heal you’re getting at the end of empower? That skill takes 3.5-4 secs to channel.
That’s 4 seconds of you not doing anything…ending with a pretty wimpy heal.
Seems like there’s one basic thing you’re missing.
Toughness reduces Direct damage, namely direct hitting abilities that can benefit off critical-hit chance.
Indirect damage is unhindered by Toughness, and is thus best defended against by stacking up on Vitality. Anything that applies a condition or debuff that deals damage is a form of indirect damage (excluding agony).
That’s why some posts are advising you remember to gear up some Vitality.
Generically speaking, Vitality is just as effective as Toughness in keeping you alive
Vitality is seen as superior because it works against either physical or condition damage.
But against standard physical damage, it’s not better because then you’re lacking toughness. (Assuming you’re still trying to maintain optimal damage output)
But otherwise, remember…THERE ARE NO HEALERS in GW2, no matter how much you want to fake it.
Tome of Courage’s Skill-1 is a spammable AoE heal.
There are no dedicated-healers in GW2, but there is a support role, while is the culmination of granting boons, curing conditions on allies, and being able to heal allies. (“allies” including yourself).
“Bleeding, Poison, Confusion, Torment, they all look delightful on you.”
Lv80s: Guard, Thief, Necro. Renewed my Altaholic’s card on the HoT Hype-Train. Choo choo~
Lv80s: Guard, Thief, Necro. Renewed my Altaholic’s card on the HoT Hype-Train. Choo choo~
(edited by DreamOfACure.4382)
Also, remember this…that 2k heal you’re getting at the end of empower? That skill takes 3.5-4 secs to channel.
That’s 4 seconds of you not doing anything…ending with a pretty wimpy heal.
It channels TWELVE stacks of might to teammates, 3 per ~second, and then ends with a big heal. I’d hardly call that “not doing anything.”
(edited by Hickeroar.9734)
You want to help support your teammates? Then help kill things faster.
But otherwise, remember…THERE ARE NO HEALERS in GW2, no matter how much you want to fake it.
This is entirely inaccurate. I can’t tell you the number of times my healing has saved the lives of those on my dungeon running teams with this guy. Having a player go down takes TWO (or more) players out of action, which is going to hurt a LOT worse than having one player doing a bit less damage. Not to mention the chances of a rezzer getting downed are significantly higher since he’s stationary. One downed player can chain react into a wipe very quickly…
You can’t do damage if you’re dead, and a team of glass cannons will fail at high level fractals EVERY time.
I also provide a tons of significant damage boosters. With large groups of enemies, I can generate 20 stacks of might on teammates, for instance. 12 from #4 on staff, and then 1 for every crit I land… That extra damage I’m providing on teammates more than makes up for the lack of DPS on my part.
Toughness reduces Direct damage, namely direct hitting abilities that can benefit off critical-hit chance.
Indirect damage is unhindered by Toughness, and is thus best defended against by stacking up on Vitality. Anything that applies a condition or debuff that deals damage is a form of indirect damage (excluding agony).
That’s why some posts are advising you remember to gear up some Vitality.
Thanks a lot for the explanation! I’ll remember this and I’ll probably end up switching some of my stats around a bit with gems reorgs.
I am filling in the entire Vitality tree in my traits too, so that should help.
You want to help support your teammates? Then help kill things faster.
You can drastically improve your teams damage output by running a support build with a guardian.
For starters you keep your teammates alive buy providing very nice and numerous heals and boons which increases the parties overall damage output.
It’s such a waste to focus on healing…you completely kitten your ability to do damage (the staff is almost worthless for DPS), which means your teams has to work harder to kills things, things stay alive longer and do more damage to you and your teammates.
The #4 staff ability provides 12 stacks of might to everyone around you dramatically increasing the overall damage output of you party, and its on a relatively low cooldown. Sure, you will personally be lacking in damage, but you more than make up for it by booning your party.
And the truth is, you won’t be able to do enough “emergency” healing to save someone’s life. Sure, you’ll keep a steady stream of +HP coming in, but it won’t be enough to save someone’s bacon.
I disagree.
@Vitu – On that last point, I have actually provided emergency heals on many occasions to teammates. Healing Breeze and the (cant remember its name) virtue are great for that.
Also, providing a constant stream of healing mitigates the need to emergency heal as much. There’s even a trait that grants constant regeneration to everyone around you if your healing virtue is in passive mode.
I also provide a tons of significant damage boosters. With large groups of enemies, I can generate 20 stacks of might on teammates, for instance. 12 from #4 on staff, and then 1 for every crit I land… That extra damage I’m providing on teammates more than makes up for the lack of DPS on my part.
It doesn’t.
And you’re not generating consistent 20 stacks. Your crit rate as posted is only 4%. So Empower is essentially useless for you.
And with the staff, you’re doing next to no damage. Your symbol is on a long cooldown, as well as Orb of Light, which is your only other source of healing outside of battle presence, which again only ticks in a 600 radius.
So, I’m asking, where does all that healing and support come from? Because I’m not seeing it.
All I’m seeing is another lousy “support” build that is more than likely being carried by the other four group members, who have to work harder to make up for some Guardian who who thinks he can be a healer.
And second, to DreamOfACure who pointed out Tome of Courage, again you have a skill that’s on a 90 SECOND CD and a 20 second duration with a some spells that heal, but that hardly makes you a healer. And even then, I can take that elite on ANY build and be more group effective than any dedicated “heal” or “support” build.
And yes, I apologize if I’m coming across a little strong here, but enough it enough. We have too many people putting together too many useless “100% support” builds which only make the rest of the group have to work that much harder.
Enough is enough, guys. You ARE NOT a healer.
Enough is enough, guys. You ARE NOT a healer.
You obviously don’t understand this class for anything other than a damage dealer….which was never the point of the class. ANet’s own website states them as a support class. Part of support is healing, and they are LOADED with abilities that heal. They would not have so many healing abilities if they weren’t meant to heal.
You are right that I need to boost crit though, and I will do that.
I’m not saying that everything I did is right, which is why I asked. I -am- saying that you have a rather misinformed view of what a guardian actually is.
One other note: I wouldn’t use the tome. I would use the avatar of melandru. Protection, healing, and condition removal.
I don’t care much about the elite skills though, because their cooldown is too long. I only pop them in extreme emergencies.
One downed player can chain react into a wipe very quickly…
Here’s my final point.
This is what you are every single fight if you’re not contributing in a meaningful way to the groups overall damage. You are the dead weight of a downed player.
Every class is perfectly capable of surviving via their own means in dungeons. This is not WoW and you do not need a person “dedicated” to keeping other people alive. All this makes you is that “downed player” in every single fight, who’s not contributing.
To be clear, I use a variation of Brutality’s AH Hammer build. I am bringing a ton of damage and AOE to the guild as well as:
- 100% uptime on protection, a 33% damage reduction via my shouts and symbols, which ultimately mitigates far more damage than any healing from your staff.
- Stacks of might via Empower and crits (currently 45% crit rate on my hero tab)
- Stacks of stability, retaliation, regeneration and protection from my shouts, with very high up times on all those buffs.
- Extremely high personal survivability, which means I can jump into the pack of bad guys and take hits my teammates don’t
- Worse case, I can ALSO slot a staff or Tome of Courage, and jump in with a few quick heals at nearly the same effectiveness as your “support” build, if and when they are needed.
But you know what? They rarely are, because my contribution to the team in terms of buffs, damage and survivability help keep the encounters manageable and under-control. And that’s what you need to be an effective player.
So, I guess I’ll leave you with one final, final point.
You are trading off way more overall effectiveness for a marginal increase in what you call “support”. This, in my opinion, makes you more of a liability to the group than a boon, and you should highly, highly reconsider a build that maximizes all the talents a guardian can bring to the group, which includes boons, survivability, healing AND damage, and not nerf yourself because you can’t let go of this fantasy that people have “roles” in GW2.
There are no roles. There are no healers. There are no tanks. There’s only players, and what they bring to the table…and as it stands, your build ideas bring very little.
One other note: I wouldn’t use the tome. I would use the avatar of melandru. Protection, healing, and condition removal.
I prefer Renewed Focus. Mostly because it renews the CDs on all of your virtues.
If you have your Virtues feated to provide additional boons it becomes even more useful. You can provide:
——————— 6 stacks of might (10s)
——————— ~5-6k health
——————— ~10s of regeneration
——————— 2 aegis (huge in emergencies)
——————— ~10s of protection
to every teammate and all within 4 seconds.
Just my personal preference though
One downed player can chain react into a wipe very quickly…
Here’s my final point.
This is what you are every single fight if you’re not contributing in a meaningful way to the groups overall damage. You are the dead weight of a downed player.
Every class is perfectly capable of surviving via their own means in dungeons. This is not WoW and you do not need a person “dedicated” to keeping other people alive. All this makes you is that “downed player” in every single fight, who’s not contributing.
To be clear, I use a variation of Brutality’s AH Hammer build. I am bringing a ton of damage and AOE to the guild as well as:
- 100% uptime on protection, a 33% damage reduction via my shouts and symbols, which ultimately mitigates far more damage than any healing from your staff.
- Stacks of might via Empower and crits (currently 45% crit rate on my hero tab)
- Stacks of stability, retaliation, regeneration and protection from my shouts, with very high up times on all those buffs.
- Extremely high personal survivability, which means I can jump into the pack of bad guys and take hits my teammates don’t
- Worse case, I can ALSO slot a staff or Tome of Courage, and jump in with a few quick heals at nearly the same effectiveness as your “support” build, if and when they are needed.But you know what? They rarely are, because my contribution to the team in terms of buffs, damage and survivability help keep the encounters manageable and under-control. And that’s what you need to be an effective player.
So, I guess I’ll leave you with one final, final point.
You are trading off way more overall effectiveness for a marginal increase in what you call “support”. This, in my opinion, makes you more of a liability to the group than a boon, and you should highly, highly reconsider a build that maximizes all the talents a guardian can bring to the group, which includes boons, survivability, healing AND damage, and not nerf yourself because you can’t let go of this fantasy that people have “roles” in GW2.
There are no roles. There are no healers. There are no tanks. There’s only players, and what they bring to the table…and as it stands, your build ideas bring very little.
You’re still stuck on the incorrect assumption that healers and support guards are “dead weight.” Once you get rid of that, the rest of your argument falls apart.
There are no roles. There are no healers. There are no tanks. There’s only players, and what they bring to the table…and as it stands, your build ideas bring very little.
I see it more as, “Every class can play any role depending on how they build their character.”
It is possible to be an effective damage dealer, tank, or support.
I’ll even agree that it is even possible to play a combination of those three roles, and that guardian -even more so than most of the other classes- can do it relatively easily.
In the end as long as you and your party are able to complete a dungeon in a timely manner and are having fun doing so it doesn’t really matter. I play my guardian as a support / tank guardian and as of yet have had no issue completing any dungeon that I have participated in and have even been told that my presence made running dungeons easier.
With this game, its all just a matter of preference —- for the most part.
:D
Healing Power is not garbage, end of story. Having max healing power =/= playing your class as a GW1 Monk (a common assumption.) People fail to understand that because they wouldn’t do something for themselves, it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work for others (AND to their allies benefit.)
Since I don’t see the Guardian as a true old-school holy warrior (ala “paladin”), I have no problem accepting its other non-DPS possibilities.
“Maximum efficiency” should never be achieved at the expense of fun, especially in an RPG-this is not a job. Further, for many players, Healing/Support builds will be more efficient (to them) than those hackneyed DPS types (I have NOTHING against DPS, I just dislike seeing it thrown around as the one way of playing GW2.)
Hickeroar, I did full Exotic Magi’s armor with full Cleric’s accessories (minus the green Cleric’s Spineguard of the Cleric) for a balance between toughness, vitality, critical chance (important for many builds), and power (of course, this also maxes the much maligned Healing Power). For that you would need to do some Dungeons/Orr Karma pieces, though. You don’t need to do it that way, and you don’t really need max healing to support/heal others well, of course, but if you love supporting others, Healing Power needs at least some boost from your gear-too low Healing Power isn’t as exciting/effective IME for what you want to achieve (might as well go full HP if that’s what you like, is what I mean.)
One other note: I wouldn’t use the tome. I would use the avatar of melandru. Protection, healing, and condition removal.
I prefer Renewed Focus. Mostly because it renews the CDs on all of your virtues.
If you have your Virtues feated to provide additional boons it becomes even more useful. You can provide:
——————— 6 stacks of might (10s)
——————— ~5-6k health
——————— ~10s of regeneration
——————— 2 aegis (huge in emergencies)
——————— ~10s of protectionto every teammate and all within 4 seconds.
Just my personal preference though
That’s a really good idea. I still lack the points needed to unlock another elite, but I’ll start saving.
You’re still stuck on the incorrect assumption that healers and support guards are “dead weight.” Once you get rid of that, the rest of your argument falls apart.
Healers and Support guardians don’t really exist—not in any meaningful sense of a role. Support is not a role you fill—it is the sum of your tactics on the field. So saying that a Guardian is “support” is, at best, woefully imprecise.
Support can mean just about anything, but let’s assume that by Support we’re referring to the body of skills and traits which provide boons, remove conditions and improve your allies’ performance. Even then, Support isn’t a role you fill but an adjective we use to describe certain abilities. Empower, for example, can be described as a Support ability.
Consequently, you can’t really “build for Support.” You can build around certain skills (Shouts, for example) or a certain concept (Battle Presence), but Support is not your role in a team because roles don’t exist except in the most abstract sense. Teams aren’t composed of 2 DPS, 2 Support and a Tank. Teamwork happens not between roles, but between individual players.
So it’s not that “Healers” and “Support Guardians” are dead weights—it that these concepts are inviable. They don’t exist in a meaningful discussion on teamwork and coordination.
What Ironzerg is therefore saying is that by assuming these roles exist and trying to build specifically for these roles and shoehorning yourself into the tunnel vision of DPS/Support/Control (or whatever specious pseudo-Trinity we’re going with these days) you’re actually severely limiting your potential and your contribution to the encounter, and therefore, you may as well be a dead weight.
The choice of words is a bit harsh, and probably not accurate (you can make a 30 Honor 30 Virtues build work well, but it will require finesse), but I hope you can see the underlying point.
I’ll give it a go and tweak the heck out of it. I’m not married to anything as far as traits go, so if I need to change things up, I do.
It’s worth noting also that every piece of gear, every weapon, every gem in my build also provides Power as well as either Precision or Condition Damage. So it’s not like I’m going into this as a weakling…
(edited by Hickeroar.9734)
There are no roles. There are no healers. There are no tanks. There’s only players, and what they bring to the table…and as it stands, your build ideas bring very little.
Playing with maximum HP is in no way playing a strict “healer role.” There’s no “Healer’s Boon” or “Heal Party.” A max HP Guardian can also be balanced in other areas, and have an effective role as both a damage dealer, party enhancer, and healer/supporter. This is what you are failing to accept as a possibility. As it stands, your close-mindedness brings very little.
I honestly mean no offense, though I know it sounded rather harsh. It just feels as if you have made up your mind about the right way to play GW2 Guardians, and want everybody else to follow in your lead, else they’ll be “ineffective” or “dead weight.”
I hate thinking of allies/party members as “weight.” I don’t even try to see who’s being “effective” while I am doing dungeons, etc. Why can’t everybody just have fun contributing their own way to the venture at hand? Again, this is not a business, real-life endeavor, but just a fun game to roleplay and enjoy, so I’ll take for granted that everybody is doing something to contribute, rather than question their choices/builds/roles from the get-go.
(Though I admit more competitive guys/gals only have fun “winning” and through being the most “effective”; but even if that’s your case, it doesn’t mean everybody is like that, and it would be rude to expect others to think like you do. )
BTW, I have also used my own variation of Altruistic Critical Hammer build with max healing power, save the Hammer, which is Berserker’s. Pretty great damage and good overall healing and party protection. I don’t use it that often but it works great, despite having “nerfed” myself with Healing Power.
If Healing Power wasn’t viable, it wouldn’t be an available option for each and every class. Different strokes for different folks.
I’ll give it a go and tweak the heck out of it. I’m not married to anything as far as traits go, so if I need to change things up, I do.
It’s worth noting also that every piece of gear, every weapon, every gem in my build also provides Power as well as either Precision or Condition Damage. So it’s not like I’m going into this as a weakling…
Yeah, that’s what I’m getting at. You do want to strike a good balance between offensive stats and everything else. Crippling your offensive capacity is never a good idea and rarely a good bargain for better healing/boon duration.
Still, I do think deep Honor and deep Virtues can function well with the right playstyle. So the question is: What’s your focus? What does your playstyle emphasize? Symbols? Shouts? Virtue boons? Healing?
The general rule of thumb is that, no matter what, you want to make sure you have a solid mix of offensive power and survivability first. After that, build toward a specific concept, a specific playstyle or a general tactic. You’re better served focusing on, say, Shouts or Symbols or Spirit Weapons or Virtue activation than picking up traits scattershot.
Also remember to keep a full array of weapons at your disposal. I see you have Staff + Scepter, but don’t be afraid to swap at least one of those weapons out as necessary, and as the encounter permits.
You’re still stuck on the incorrect assumption that healers and support guards are “dead weight.” Once you get rid of that, the rest of your argument falls apart.
Healers and Support guardians don’t really exist—not in any meaningful sense of a role. Support is not a role you fill—it is the sum of your tactics on the field. So saying that a Guardian is “support” is, at best, woefully imprecise.
Support can mean just about anything, but let’s assume that by Support we’re referring to the body of skills and traits which provide boons, remove conditions and improve your allies’ performance. Even then, Support isn’t a role you fill but an adjective we use to describe certain abilities. Empower, for example, can be described as a Support ability.
Consequently, you can’t really “build for Support.” You can build around certain skills (Shouts, for example) or a certain concept (Battle Presence), but Support is not your role in a team because roles don’t exist except in the most abstract sense. Teams aren’t composed of 2 DPS, 2 Support and a Tank. Teamwork happens not between roles, but between individual players.
So it’s not that “Healers” and “Support Guardians” are dead weights—it that these concepts are inviable. They don’t exist in a meaningful discussion on teamwork and coordination.
What Ironzerg is therefore saying is that by assuming these roles exist and trying to build specifically for these roles and shoehorning yourself into the tunnel vision of DPS/Support/Control (or whatever specious pseudo-Trinity we’re going with these days) you’re actually severely limiting your potential and your contribution to the encounter, and therefore, you may as well be a dead weight.
The choice of words is a bit harsh, and probably not accurate (you can make a 30 Honor 30 Virtues build work well, but it will require finesse), but I hope you can see the underlying point.
Since you are a roleplayer, you will also understand that it’s not that we want a “support role”, but that we are playing the role of a supporting character, which reflects itself in the choices we make for our builds. I hate debating, so I am not arguing, but what I am saying is that by going 0/0/10/30/30 he may very well play much better his character, because he ENJOYS it, thus it being a perfect fit for his playstyle. In short, the true and tried is not for everybody, and it’s OK for people to go for the so-called “weaker choices”, especially when it enhances our gameplay because of the roleplaying that goes up in our minds.
Ironzerg was much harsher than you, BTW. I also don’t believe in the so-called trinity, but it doesn’t diminish the value of these healing/“support” builds in any way or fashion (I don’t even care for the other “damage/control/support” trinity myself, as a player could theoretically fulfill all of those roles as well, much as with the older “trinity”.) I just feel that sometimes you mix up people that want to go healing power/support as individuals who go all the way to “nerf themselves”, just because it’s something that you wouldn’t do yourselves for whatever reasons, be it logical or otherwise.
I’m not sure I understand your point, Star Ace. I’m not berating the OP for choosing a suboptimal build. I’m reminding him that the build he’s asking for doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as a Support Guardian, not in the stereotypical sense of an MMORPG Healer. If you try to build like one, you’re severely limiting your potential.
GW2 is built in a way that severely discourages focusing entirely on boons and heals. You are expected to go toe to toe with your enemy and deal damage, so it’s always a good idea—regardless of your build—to have some good offensive stats (power/crit/condition).
If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine. It’s your playstyle. And you can probably clear most PVE encounters regardless of your build. I’m just assuming that since the OP asked for advice, he wants a good build. And every decent build that emphasizes support skills carries a good deal of damage too.
I’m not sure I understand your point, Star Ace. I’m not berating the OP for choosing a suboptimal build. I’m reminding him that the build he’s asking for doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as a Support Guardian, not in the stereotypical sense of an MMORPG Healer. If you try to build like one, you’re severely limiting your potential.
GW2 is built in a way that severely discourages focusing entirely on boons and heals. You are expected to go toe to toe with your enemy and deal damage, so it’s always a good idea—regardless of your build—to have some good offensive stats (power/crit/condition).
If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine. It’s your playstyle. And you can probably clear most PVE encounters regardless of your build. I’m just assuming that since the OP asked for advice, he wants a good build. And every decent build that emphasizes support skills carries a good deal of damage too.
Yes, I do come across a bit of a jerk, so thank you to Eveningstar for putting it in much nicer terms across his last two posts.
Tank. Support. Healing. These are all adjectives than can be used to describe different aspects of a build, but they’re not “roles”. GW2 system, in my opinion, strongly discourages you from taking a group “role”. If you do, you’re automatically shoe-horning yourself into a less effective overall build simply by your mindset. That’s my bottom line, and I will not stray from it.
Most threads I see that start with “100% support” really mean, “Gosh darn, I love healing and want to be a healer”. They’re dishonest in that way, simply because there is no way to be a focused healer as a Guardian in GW2. The system simply does not reward that kind of play. In fact, it punishes it.
In other MMOs, specializing in a particular role is done because the Trinity system rewards specialization. It’s much more effective for one person to specialize in heals, one person to specialize in tanking and three people to specialize in DPS. But that’s simply not the case in GW2, because these roles DO NOT EXIST.
You have to change your mindset as to how you approach a build. My beef with the Support build above is the logic for why it should exist is inherently flawed.
The flawed logic is “I should build to be support, because that will make my group more effective.” That’s wrong. You will make your group LESS effective.
The correct logic is “My build has good levels of Damage and Survivability. Now how can I improve my value to the group by adding more support to my build.”
This thread is a great example of the first flawed logic.
Brutality’s AH Hammer thread (to use only one example) is a great thread showcasing the second logic. Eveningstar’s thread on general build concepts as an introduction to the Guardian is another. There’s a reason why we don’t have a support/healer Guardian build stickied, or even very active.
If your build concept is based around the first, flawed logic, you’ll simply come out with a less than optimal build that makes groups less effective. If you want to play that way, simply because you love the staff, you love seeing green numbers (regardless of their usefulness), then that’s fine. That’s how you play…but don’t try to pass it off as being an effective way to contribute to a group.
Ooops…went back to being mean again. Sorry!
(edited by ironzerg.3196)
I honestly believe that the whole non-trinity thing has degraded in the majority wanting to go more or less full DPS, to the detriment of everything else. I don’t mind if it’s player’s choice (as it should be), but it seems as if you go for your completely legitimate support options (which doesn’t mean we won’t be attacking/contributing to the offense), for many you would be “nerfing yourself” and “NOT CONTRIBUTING” to your allies, which I am sure is FAR from what ANet had in mind when devising this combat system-all options are supposed to be valid and “effective” according to player and party coordination, rather than just one or two options. It doesn’t affect me at all, as I don’t give a darn, but I am sure that many feel “forced” to follow this “DPS is king” mentality without question (and despite it being an old holdover from the trinity system), even if they wouldn’t prefer it, in order to meet a supposed standard of “effectiveness” and/or not feel “left behind” by their peers.
In short, play whichever way suits you (the true GW2 combat system concept, IMHO), not the way that suits others/trying to fit an artificial “meta.” Feel free to be “DPS happy”-just avoid telling others how “wrong” they are for not playing the game the perfectly valid way you chose to, because they have the right to follow what works for them too (even if it would “suck” for you.)
I gotta add that I have no hard feelings for anyone, as I don’t care that much, and am just wishing people’s choices were respected even-if they may go against the logical, “math” grain at times-so I apologize if I have offended someone with my honest opinion.
(edited by Star Ace.5207)
I utilize a full set of knights armor. Combining this with altruistic healing makes me near invincible. All I do is spam #1 on my hammer and my health almost never drops. This is very boring but the most effective way to stay alive and do decent damage. As much as you could play any play style you wish, this, to me is most effective.