Guild Wars 2

Build Link

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApfSlUgSD3ESIEf4Eh1DBGQ/hpQjf8SBEfIA-jgCBYLCiUgBiKAMLSaMNSItqBowhRjVXDT5iIq2erIa1CBMaBA-e

(same build but with into the mists calc if people liked that better)

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7;4NFk30O3V0-90;9;5TJJ;234A06-29;2hNFA;2VqMUxpMUn-kZNJX5;2VR-pWv1-Z549a-30C-2i;5cW5PcW5P;9;9;9;9;7V8k3u

Synopsis

Just messing around trying to integrate our survival mechanics (VoR/Regen/Writ of Merciful) with good damage via crits.

Just theory crafting so not tested at all, mostly for talking points and community involvement.

First off the:

Bad

• Limited condition control
• Not bursty in damage
• No AH or MF heals
• No mobility

Good

• 80%-100% crit rating depending on fury active or not
• 244% crit damage to increase symbol damage up to 4965 in 5 ticks (993 a tick)
• Overlapping symbols via hammer as well as mace
• Symbols heal as well as damage
• Decent healing power at 945 providing 567 heals per second (Symbol/Regen/VoR)

Now as far as optional items, I was not big on the signets for utility, but was just playing with damage and healing for the sake of seeing numbers, those utilities can change.

Points in valor can be moved to make shouts clear conditions in Honor, or dig into Zeal or Virtues for flavor items (maybe virtues for imp VoR for more healing and condi removal).

Also the only trait in radiance that is mandatory is right hand strength to max crits on mace. The other two traits were just fillers, maybe fury on being burned but that is situational in pve…pvp happens a lot though.

Torch is there because meh? Any offhand can be replaced for that spot, but was trying to provide an AE condition to make use of 10% damage mod on AE targets.

Sigils of generosity create an interesting aspect of returning some conditions back on attackers, but the cooldown of 10 seconds is somewhat limiting. This is better than nothing as the condition removal was low, and there is “some” condition damage with the build. Honestly I would prefer both weapon swaps to have energy for dodge roll heals.

This build has decent damage and decent healing. Was looking to find a balance between GC and Bunker, and ended up here. Again, untested and it may end up being one of those jack of all trades worthless builds. Just wanted to share and maybe collaborate with others to round out problems that may make it an actually usable build.

The goal is to have high/decent damage via crits, high crit chance to maintain damage, and to utilize healing power to the best of our advantage to layer healing mechanics providing good heals per second.

Feedback and name calling welcome

Just ran around testing it, hitting for 1-3k consistently. Was able to solo a champ giant in orr if that is a feat of capability? Decent healing…could use more.

Initial feedback, probably want stability in there, no ranged option and running is slow, so maybe staff swap? I don’t have full zerker trinkets cause I have some zerk/valk ascended, but swapped it around to reach the 65% crit chance before traits and fury.

Also, holy poop generosity sigils expensive! so I just put purity in it to test the condi removal on weapon idea….if it becomes a good build I’ll dish out for generosity later.

It’s not “bad” but needs more work I think. Check it out and give me feed back to make it better

Hey,

I came up a few days ago with a variation of this build, the post is here :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Offensive-healer-Theorycrafted-www-build/first#post2675015

It was not built around symbols but the basic idea was to capitalize on right hand strength and mace of justice.

The answer given did not fully match my expectations, I’m not sure signet builds would be very efficient.

Coming back to your build, I wonder why you chose inner fire, this trait seem to be very situational and as far as I know it doesn’t work with the torch skill.

I’ll be happy to discuss further !

Inner fire and the boon removal with burns are not a critical part of the build. Just fillers because no good reason. If anything the Fury from inner fire is fairly cocnsistent in pvp/wvw, so it is one of two of our only sources of fury (save yourselves and inner fire).

Again signets were just filler to “see the stats”. The build currently could use more healing power I feel, at the sacrifice of critical damage. As long as crit damage is around 50+% things should decent on the damage end.

I would probably put shouts in the spot of the signets for the boons/utility they bring as well as already being in honor for shout reduction. Also can drop points out of valor and lose mace of justice/healing power to gain condition conversion on shouts. I was simply trying to push the stat side of the theory crafting to see what we “can” do, then bring it down to something usable.

Also, the reason I am trying to emphasize symbols is because of the 99% uptime of symbols with hammer and mace, which provide a good synergy with writ of the merciful, which is crucial to the idea of the survival side of the build.

The damage comes from right hand strength and “100%” (80% without fury) crit chance and the symbols provide a fairly high and consistent damage since they are up 99% of the time…as well as providing survival boons depending on the situation (protection and regeneration).

So symbols provide damage and survivability via always being active. Healing stacking is more effective than raw healing power in the sense of having 2 or 3 weaker heals doing as much with less investment than 1 strong heal.

So I can dedicate a majority of my stats and hit 2000 healing power which will make regeneration heal for 380 a tick and virtue of resolve heal for 204 (combined 584 heal per second).

Or I drop down to 1009 healing power and I can spend 991 of those points somewhere else like power/precision/vitality and get the same healing out of writ of the merciful (183 hps), virtue of resolve (145 hps), and regeneration (256 hps) and still get a combined 548 hps.

Symbols do a lot for us, but I still contest that they don’t do “enough” and should be relooked at in application or effect. Either way, I wanted to explore the idea of more synergistic symbol usage, instead of single minded damage “or” dps….why not have both?

Thanks for elaborating with such details, I think I understand where you wanna go. Maybe we can dig in another direction to up the damage of the build and to get PoV in. I’m thinking about damage multipliers:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApdSlUgSDXFyvDf4Eh9BAWzIe1D7hG/YHB-jgyAYLBRqBIRIQZRpx0oQaVDowxoxqrxUuER127ioVLEwoFA-e

We loose Right hand strength (but it’s only half a loss as long as we need the hammer for the perma symbol) and mace of justice but we gain:

- 10 % damage on burning target
- Symbol do 10 % more damage
- 10 % damage if endurance not full (may be tricky to optimize with symbols)

I replaced torch with focus to get the benefit of the zeal trait and that will optimize regen uptime. I guess that we can still get a good burning uptime thanks to radiance 15 this can be changed in scenarios where VoJ is not enough to provide sufficient uptime.

I tried to play with stats to switch critical damage for healing power but I could not reach any sweet spot ! I’ll try harder later when I’ll be back home.

The issue I see here is that you’re trying to go for a balanced build, yet you put too much emphasis on crit chance. The mathematically optimal crit chance is 41.9%, which is when the benefits start becoming linear rather than exponential and you’re better off allocating those stats elsewhere, where they would be more beneficial (like condition damage or toughness, both of which your “hybrid” lacks. Vitality wouldn’t be a great option for this build since you’ve opted for healing power. Allocating the remaining precision into toughness would be your best bet to increasing your effective HP and survivability.

See what you mean but i think that we should try to also add up some power if we lower the crit chance percentage.

Then, I lowered the crit percentage to 41% and increased Power, Toughness and Vitality. I also gained 5% damage with the sigils and another condition cleanse on shouts with runes (I guess there are several options for these slots: soldier for tankiness and condi control, flame legion for offense, sapphire jewels for healing and toughness, beryl jewels for balance approach). Here is the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApdSlUgSDXFyvDf4Eh9BAWzIe1D7hG/YHB-jAyAYLBRqBIVIQZxioxWZLiGruGT5SEVbvLiWtUARsAA-e

I am sort of stuck on RHS as a crucial part of the build as having 80-100% crit chance stabilizes the damage instead of randomizing it.

At around 41.9% the mathematically optimal crit chance as stated, increases in crit damage become less valuable, but what happens when that crit chance hits 100%? Now all attacks are “doubled” (depending on where crit damage is), getting “effective power” out of not investing into power stats at all.

Vitality was not a crucial part of the build, but I think “some” vitality is good up to around 13-15k, to absorb some spike damage. Healing power does not decrease in effectivness, unless you are talking about healing percentages, as the HP pool goes up but the heal stays the same. If you start talking about effective health, having a higher HP pool and also having a high heal per second rate, gives you more time to live.

Besides I picked the magi gear to fill in for healing/precision and the vitality was just “bonus”.

So I can have 10000 HP and 2000 healing power (548 hps as mentioned earlier in this post) and die against 1000 damage per a second in 22 seconds.

10000/(1000-548)=22.12

Or I can have 15000 HP with the same healing power and heals per second and die in 33 seconds.

15000/(1000-548)=33.18

This is all ignoring obtainable stats in game and just theory crafting the usefulness of stats. Yes, more vitality makes the heal do less “percentage” but you gain more “life” (heals per a second and hard hit point pool).

That said, I have been re-evaluating the build. Did some roaming in wvw and did well against most targets without life ever dipping while still putting out good pressure, but against mass conditions the healing is not enough. Factor in poison and it gets worse.

I think there are two answers for this, go x/30/x/30/x and pick up pure of voice to handle conditions.

or

Go x/30/30/x/x and pick up altruistic healing and run with groups.

This now changes the build into normal builds that we have seen before, and I was trying to be innovative and break our mold

The build as it stands now does fairly well in pve, but my end goal was wvw effective as well.

I am thinking of dropping hammer and putting scepter in to gain ranged and make use of the high crit chances with smite. It can do a possible cumulative damage of 11425, depending on if all the orbs strike the target…which is typically around 8 or 9 instead of 15 hits.

This then moves away from “symbology” though, so still pondering it.

Sorry, some off topic question here …

Where does this 41.9% crit chance optimization point come from? I see nothing particularly interesting about the math that determines resulting damage as a function of crit chance and damage for this value of crit chance.

Obtena.7952:

Sorry, some off topic question here …

Where does this 41.9% crit chance optimization point come from? I see nothing particularly interesting about the math that determines resulting damage as a function of crit chance and damage for this value of crit chance.

Back in old Team Legacy days we did a lot of universal stat optimizations. The google docs are security locked so I’m unable to send you a link to the exact math behind it, but it’s a trigonometric function that shows optimal stat distributions. The crit chance line is the most defined point where the “benefits” you get from it become linear after 41.9% when seeking a balanced approach. Mind you, everything in those docs is purely mathematically perfect, not realistically perfect. If you want 70% crit chance, be my guest. At that point though, your build won’t be mathematically “perfect”, or balanced, so to speak.

Running dungeons in it to keep testing, the build is still missing some crucial survivability. The damage is good, not optimal, but that’s not the point. I’m consistently seeing 1000-2000 auto attacks and 5k burst/multi hit attacks….nothing like a full damage build but it is fairly decent.

The issue is still: mobility, survivabiliity, and conditions.

I was considering magi weapons to increase healing power but keep the crit chance at 65 (80 with right hand strength and 100 with rhs and fury)….but those only drop from dungeon tokens, so it goes hand in hand, doing dungeons and rounding out the build.

Changing from zerk to magi weapons keeps damage above the 1k+ hits, but puts healing power at 1135 with mace.

Like mentioned earlier, having a middle ground build makes it difficult because you don’t excel in super fast damage or amazing survival.

Maybe sigil of blood for some life steal?

Still tweaking and thanks for feedback guys, helps me look from an outside pov.

Slight change in paradigm, was messing around with a more offensive set up and came up with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRApf7elYgSDXFSIEfIFh1DCaQ/VzIe6DXwVBKC-jgyAYrBRTECNVIQpvioxW1AKcMas6aMtLRUt9WZ1gLILEwoFA-e

With this you have symbol that does 7759 damage (1551 a tick) and smite that does 15382 (1025 a tick…not all smite orbs always hit) and torch just for the sake of talking about it that does 8049 on cleansing flames (840 a tick). This is all assuming damage mod 10% from burning and 10% from condition on target (1.21 damage mod) and 250% crit damage with 100% crit chance. Scepter and symbol damage mods were factored into the base damage via build calc. Actual gameplay will differ.

Still suffers from condition damage, and mobility…loses a lot of sustain, but gains damage. Maybe good for dungeon speed runs?

Viking Jorun.5413:

Obtena.7952:

Sorry, some off topic question here …

Where does this 41.9% crit chance optimization point come from? I see nothing particularly interesting about the math that determines resulting damage as a function of crit chance and damage for this value of crit chance.

Back in old Team Legacy days we did a lot of universal stat optimizations. The google docs are security locked so I’m unable to send you a link to the exact math behind it, but it’s a trigonometric function that shows optimal stat distributions. The crit chance line is the most defined point where the “benefits” you get from it become linear after 41.9% when seeking a balanced approach. Mind you, everything in those docs is purely mathematically perfect, not realistically perfect. If you want 70% crit chance, be my guest. At that point though, your build won’t be mathematically “perfect”, or balanced, so to speak.

That’s all a bit cryptic to me.. What I know is that there isn’t an optimal point in the function that relates damage increase to crit chance or damage (the function on GW2Wiki). That’s a very simply increasing function.

I guess when you speak of universal stat optimization, you are talking about a method that determines the best targets for various stats based on the constraints of gear slots and values to achieve a maximum output of something …. damage I assume?

Regardless, are you certain the game mechanics that determine this optimal point for crit chance are still relevant in the game now?

So I gave this a shot and ended up with a bunker variation with signets. It has improved condition removal and high healing power, but loses heavily on DPS, so switching jewels/weapons to berserkers may help to hit the sweet spot:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS5elYgaCHEyIEf4Eh1DCawCi9Qje8jXFcIA-jQCBoNCyEBwUBBKLqIasVRFRjVNjIqWZDzOO1myDRDA-e
It did rather well in Orr especially against groups of enemies, but I didn’t test it in WvW so maybe today.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRApf7flYgSD3ESIEf4Eh1DCiQ/hVQjXPo4DZIA-jQyAYrBRTFCUWUaMNKkW1AKcMas6aMlbg0uK1CBMaBA-e

Currently running around with AH mixed in and dropped writ of merciful. Doing well, but its not a unique build anymore. What it is showing me is that the original build is still lacking in survival, that I need to find a way to make up for somehow (probably healing power).

I believe you just made a full circle and almost got back to the original 0/30/20/20/0. When it comes to Altruistic Healing vs Writ of the Merciful and healing power, at 1000 healing power you would need to have at least 2 other people standing inside of the symbol to get the same healing with AH as you would with WotM and as healing power increases, WotM gets better and better. By going for WotM you also have access to Selfless Daring, so more survival on top of that.

It seems like one can’t become unique in any other way than the actual symbol reliance.
If only Smite was a symbol for the sake of weapon swapping and double symbols.

EDIT: updated my build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlYgaCHEyIEf4Eh1DCawCi9Qje8jXFcIA-jgCBoNCiEBgUBBKLqIasFOMasFVAKbYKXER12xp2UeIaCBMaBA-e

Damage is decent and the healing is higher. I would swap out the soldiers back maybe and drop the vitality infusions as well as possibly change out longer symbols, but how does it feel playing?

nice build, CMF. i had a wonky symbol build for a while – 25/10/0/30/5 lol. wanted to capitalize on taking both DPS symbol traits and supportive/utility symbol traits. i used a mix of cleric’s and berserker’s and magi’s gear as well. so a pretty big invstment into healign power as well – which gave me the sustain as well as being able to remain in my symbols. however, obviously, i sacrificed a lot of raw power to attain that high healing. which in itself is kind of.. silly, i suppose, since i gave up damage, to do more damage (by going for the zeal tree), thus having to rely on high healing for sustain.

but i had a lot of fun with it and performs reasonably well in WvW. not sure about PvE though. i think your build definitely outputs way more damage than mine ever did though. so there’s always a trade-off.

and just for fun, i dubbed my build Emblematic. lol.

CMF.5461:

Damage is decent and the healing is higher. I would swap out the soldiers back maybe and drop the vitality infusions as well as possibly change out longer symbols, but how does it feel playing?

Mixed feelings I must say, probably because of it being an actual Signet build, but still an improvement over 30/0/0/30/10 spirit weapon/symbol build I normaly run as I don’t have to worry about keeping them alive.

In PvE it’s easy to keep enemies inside of symbols and with longer lasting symbols, dropping the Protection one together with Symbol of Faith is almost godlike. Crowd control is a problem because of just one stunbreaker and no access to stability, so lots of dodging needs to be involved to counter it. Conditions are much less of issue aside from poison, that’s the enemy #1 here.

The hardest part in WvW (and PvP) is keeping your opponent inside as long as possible, longer lasting symbols can be switched for something else as the enemy most likely won’t stay inside for full duration anyway. Hammer is important here (again that darn scepter Smite not being a symbol), otherwise Bane Signet is not enough as CC on its own.

Generaly lots of tactical weapon swapping is needed. Also, in both cases mobility is almost nonexistant, unfortunately I don’t see any way to at least shorten travel time other than having to carry a staff in your bag.

Obtena.7952:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Obtena.7952:

Sorry, some off topic question here …

Where does this 41.9% crit chance optimization point come from? I see nothing particularly interesting about the math that determines resulting damage as a function of crit chance and damage for this value of crit chance.

Back in old Team Legacy days we did a lot of universal stat optimizations. The google docs are security locked so I’m unable to send you a link to the exact math behind it, but it’s a trigonometric function that shows optimal stat distributions. The crit chance line is the most defined point where the “benefits” you get from it become linear after 41.9% when seeking a balanced approach. Mind you, everything in those docs is purely mathematically perfect, not realistically perfect. If you want 70% crit chance, be my guest. At that point though, your build won’t be mathematically “perfect”, or balanced, so to speak.

That’s all a bit cryptic to me.. What I know is that there isn’t an optimal point in the function that relates damage increase to crit chance or damage (the function on GW2Wiki). That’s a very simply increasing function.

I guess when you speak of universal stat optimization, you are talking about a method that determines the best targets for various stats based on the constraints of gear slots and values to achieve a maximum output of something …. damage I assume?

Regardless, are you certain the game mechanics that determine this optimal point for crit chance are still relevant in the game now?

You’re correct in your assumption that the math seeks a “universal” balance between damage and survivability. The math behind it hasn’t changed according to the wiki, and I don’t think they changed anything regarding the stats themselves, only conditions like weakness and how they deal with critical hits. Like I said earlier, the math isn’t your “go-to” for every build. If you’re seeking THE absolute balanced build I suggest you do the math yourself to understand why things work and what best substitutes for what else. Team Legacy and later The Vengeful Blades both used 41.9% as a guideline target for crit chance, because its graph line compared to the others had the most definite drop in benefits at that point. The rest becomes pretty easy to allocate depending on your goal when you have 42% and are seeking a balanced build. If you’re minmaxing, please by all means go all out, because that’s what your build is about. Balanced builds seek to not let anything go to waste, maintaining DPS without sacrificing survivability.

Since the form is locked and you can’t link us, can you take a screenshot at least and show an idea of what you are getting at?

Or go out of your way to transcribe it to another spreadsheet :p

CMF.5461:

Since the form is locked and you can’t link us, can you take a screenshot at least and show an idea of what you are getting at?

Or go out of your way to transcribe it to another spreadsheet :p

That would be plagiarism. It’s Team Legacy copywrite, and as I’m no longer a member of Team Legacy I no longer have access to the google docs. I know how it sounds, but I assure you that I’m not bullkittenting you. I’ll see what I can do. Possibly one of the still current (and few) TL members have access to the docs. Shortly after TL left GW2 the council had a fallig out. Anyone who was friends with the council who all left was banned by association, because Freelancer is an ego-driven megalomaniac (ask any former TL member. Despite all that he was still a kitten good leader when he wasn’t gloating). Perhaps I can find the doc in a public format. I know that TL had a habit of sharing their documentation with other hardcore guilds.

I duno about plagiarism as you are not taking credit and trying to cite a source and I doubt that they have an official copywrite on it. Now if they don’t want to share that’s fine for intellectual property and having an advantage over opponents, but if someone does like to share I am interested.

Not even sure where to start the math myself or I would try.

I have been hunting around with the team names as keywords to try and find random posts on the internet and dig through them :p

Tried it in spvp not too bad but with all the necros and mesmers the lack of condition removal really stood out.

CMF.5461:

I duno about plagiarism as you are not taking credit and trying to cite a source and I doubt that they have an official copywrite on it. Now if they don’t want to share that’s fine for intellectual property and having an advantage over opponents, but if someone does like to share I am interested.

Not even sure where to start the math myself or I would try.

I have been hunting around with the team names as keywords to try and find random posts on the internet and dig through them :p

After some searching, I’ve found this:

http://phiaerith.blogspot.com/2012/09/so-you-are-level-80-but-arent-sure.html?m=1

He doesn’t delve into the optimal chance, but he does however explain how stat optimization works. From there you can utilize the math on the wiki under “Critical Hit” to find your build’s stat optimization. I’ve also found under several Team Paradigm posts that they also utilize the static 42% formula. As I’ve said before, though: 41.9 (42)% is not the be-all-end-all, and you should only utilize it as a goal when trying to achieve a balanced build that utilizes all stats, not just 3, which any min-max build will do.

Thank you, I’m checking that out as we speak.

I understand it is not the be all end all, but I still like to know the synergies with stats and how they interact with each other more.

Interesting read, especially the 50*50=2500 but 49*51=2499 in terms of thinking about balanced is optimal.

Still digging around for the 41.9/42% thing though.

Slightly off topic, but a lot of what inspired this build was from a couple other threads about crit/crit damage/damage modifiers, and also playing to our strengths and having some warrior posts showing the new regen/survival builds they have that still do damage.

in this clip:
http://youtu.be/lY5VpExRvPE?t=4m11s
The warrior has 3 heals ticking
Regeneration: 176
Healing Signet: 416
Adrenal Health: 427 (142 every 3 seconds)

With a combined heal per second at 176+416+142 = 734

If regeneration has a base heal of 130 and has a 0.125 coefficient, that would make the warriors healing power at around 364-371?

In order to get 730+ heals per second on guardian with regeneration, writ of merciful, and virtue of resolve we would need 1600 healing power, or 1410 with VoR traited…..

I contest that our base heals in some of our survival traits and mechanics need to be increased. Namely Virtue of Resolve and Writ of the Merciful :p

Going for the “balanced” approach, while still focusing on reaching a decently high heals per second, we get this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCXFyvDf4ESmiVCBxegRfUHdpgieIA-jQyA4NBRiQgoCgpxioxW1AKqMasqZioadNmBvIa1SBExYA-e

A lot lower on the damage end of the scale and the crits will be more randomized, thus making damage lower in consistency, but maybe even out in terms of “dps” instead of burst.

I don’t have ascended clerics gear, otherwise I would be tested this one too. I’ll have to muster a set of exotic and try to match the stats.

Closest thing I could muster for a spvp variant:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCXFyvDf4ESmiVCBxegRfUHdpgieIA-TsAAyCqIqRRljKDVSqsUNIYRwsAA

Here is another variant with more damage/healing while using RHS to hit the 41-42% mark.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCXFSIEf4Eh1DCaQ/VVIeYPw4H7IA-TsAgzCnIQShkDJDSSksINIYRwsAA

I plan to test these tonight, haven’t done so yet. If anyone tries them, feedback would be appreciated.

Ran a few pvp hotjoins with the most recent build posted just now.

Damage really isn’t there without high crit chance. I know it’s balanced at 41-42, and I did get a lot of other stats out of it, but it was that master of none kind of thing.

Conditions are much less of an issue though, needs more tweaking. Or it may be a l2p thing with a new build.

Can we open the discussion of this build, or if it is viable, in WvW?

This isn’t about me or the nail honestly, so maybe just ignore me I just prefer WvW vs. anything tied to maps like t/s PvP. I probably should try it more honestly, but I just can’t for whatever reason.

The end goal of the build is wvw viability, so of course. I was only testing in spvp cause ease availability on gear/trait swaps.

I am headed to the direction that I think it is too difficult to obtain meaningful damage and healing for the guardian at this time, but I am waiting eagerly for someone to find a new trick to spice things up.

Right now I think this is my proposal for a pve/wvw geared build. Removed reliance on healing power with mace, gained more power and 10% burning, and removed reliance of signet of mercy to gain higher healing power.

Also gained more condition control this way.

Symbol doing about 5226 with max crits and heals per second add up to 564. Not the 730+ that warriors have but getting there.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCXFSIEf4Eh1DCaQ/VVIeYPw4H7IA-jQyA4NBRiQgoCgZxioxW1AKqMas6aMlLRUtFvIa1CB4cBA-e

I can gear this myself, but need a little more time to get magi weapons, also I have a mix of valk/zerk ascended trinkets/jewelry so it won’t be exactly the same. But I will give feedback when I get it going.

This is what I will be able to test it on, too cheap to keep switching infusions out though :p so left them blank.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCXFSIEf4Eh1DCaQ/VVIeYPw4H7IA-jgyA4NBRiQgoCgZRio10IYVDooyoxqrxUuBS7qULEgzFA-e

Thanks. It was not my intent to direct it one way or another. However, I do like the various build threads that have some active discussions going on. Especially with the upcoming ascended weapons due out soon, one has to spend wisely. Of course if obtaining the gear isn’t a option then the rest of us can work around it like we have already done.

I currently sport 3 sets of gear all exotic of course with the exception of a zerker ascended neck Been just sort of waiting until I find something that just feels right.

Thank you by the way. And others who discuss in the threads and others.

OK I came across this one just as I was about to go to sleep. The original idea about using fully traited honor symbols is still there, but I’ve tinkered around the option of using tripple mediations instead of signets.

With somewhat reduced condition removal and less damage than the signet build, it gained a bit of mobility and extra healing, burning and direct damage sources, so every utility skill gives you healing of some sort. I also managed to squeeze out 16000 health and 3000 armor on top of that. Just too bad the trait lines became way too generic 10/0/30/30/0.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V8;4NFk20I33G-90;9;49-TT-1;303B269;15JV0-NV0ytbUytbUn-FekMs5-cc7dq-z01263E_I52L0Lc3B0;4cX9kc1BeY

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|9.1k.h2.e.1k.h1|2.1k.h2|1a.7i.1a.7i.1a.7i.1a.7i.1a.7i.1c.7i|2s.e14.21l.e14.31l.e17.21j.e14.31j.e17.2s.e14|a2.0.u14c.u37a.0|0.0|w.12.15.13.1i|e

Works just as well as the signet one against packs of enemies in Orr, now I have to do extensive testing in WvW.

EDIT:
Most recent variant (v5):
Symbology v5 – GW2Skills

Ran my g – imp (censored?) version of this with zerker weapons cause I didn’t get magi, so missing healing power. Also used a staff in off hand cause SLOW!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCXFSIEf4Eh1DCaQ/VVIeYPw4H7IA-jgyA4NBRiQgoCgZRio10IYVDooyoxqrxUuBS7qULEgzFA-e

Did some solo roaming with it, 1v1 it did really well (except against the 2 thieves that I could never catch in the open so I died a slow lonely death).

I got hit…hard..really hard, but I was able to run away and recover a lot. I know for a fact I caught a lot of people off guard with the 5k crits back to back with a protectors strike and mace auto chain, but in a mobile pvp fight, no one stayed in the symbol of course.

Most of the fights I got into started off aggressive, then I ran my little behind off till cooldowns were ready and turned and downed the chaser.

This build is still drastically missing survival, and I’m not sure where to pull it from yet. I’ll drop even more damage out of it and see what happens, but the crits are huge in keeping it viable to fight other players.

Other than that, this performs well enough in pve :p not what I was looking for though.

CMF, if I may recommend, try the meditation variant I linked in my post right above yours. I’ve spent some time in WvW today and holy hell it acually works. Even with my rather average pvp skills I managed to cut through some interesting fights today. The best one was against a well played burst thief, the fight went on and on for over 5 minutes without any of us getting close to winning. It ended only after some warrior from my server entered the fight and Whirlwinded through the thief just as he entered stealth with low health. Through the fight the thief managed to pull several 5000 damage backstabs, but I was always able to recover from it. Unfortunately later I got into a fight with one burst thief and one condition thief and I must say that one was over before it even started.

After that most fights got rather messy, while I could take down one group of two, I couldn’t scratch another elsewhere. The most important factor was (as I expected) heavy condition and hard crowd control usage. 1v1 is almost trivial, 1v2 is doable depending on what enemies you face, 1v3+ unwise to enter.

So I faced my share of ups and downs, but I can say all in all I’ve never experienced anything close to what I did with this build today.

I’ll have to try it out with a dumbed down exotic version of it instead of ascended, but my only question is, what happens if you drop symbols out of it and just rely on meditations?

I have a feeling it will perform similar to what you have now, thus making it a meditation build and not a symbology centered build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApfRlUgyCXFSIEf4ERNj4dPsHY8jd8+AFB-jgyAoNBRiQgoCgZxhMmGjaVDooyoxqawUqER1ejioVLFgzCjA-e

Here is another stab at a “balanced” build with 41% crit chance. The damage is much less guaranteed, but frees up a lot of stats. Focused on symbol damaging traits with the side effect of greater power and opening up greatsword some more for burst.

Also used exotics instead of ascended to make this more accessible, trying both the meditation one and this one tonight after I sort out an exotic version of the meditation build.

What was your focus on trinkets and setting up the stats? They seem kind of random.

Pretty good stuff. Funny thing was I was playing around with the new exuberance runes (I know, poor mans divinity rune) looking for a build to help me out in WvW. My old more dps build just wasn’t cutting it against the condition spam anymore. I eneded up getting almost to this build that you posted.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeSlUgyCXFyvDf4ESmiVCBxegRfUHdpgieIA-jQyA4NBRiQgoCgpxioxW1AKqMasqZioadNmBvIa1SBExYA-e

The difference was that I had around 2000 vitality and 1100 healing power. So about 22000 HP. other then that my attack was SLIGHTY higher with my mace but my crit chance was around 35%. However I’m not done tweaking my build and I noticed you’ve got Magi weapons. I’d like to try these out for my build. Where can I aquire them? Thanks for the great ideas. The new (albeit unfinished) build is already working wonders. I just wish I could get more burst.

CMF.5461:

I’ll have to try it out with a dumbed down exotic version of it instead of ascended, but my only question is, what happens if you drop symbols out of it and just rely on meditations?

I have a feeling it will perform similar to what you have now, thus making it a meditation build and not a symbology centered build.
…
What was your focus on trinkets and setting up the stats? They seem kind of random.

Using just meditations is not enough as healing source, Symbol of Faith with Writ of the Merciful at 1000 healing power gives just over 400 healing per second, while fully traited meditations when used every time they are up can reach only 262. What this build actually does is combine those two sources for a greater effect.

My choice of trinkets was affected by the need to stabilise and balance the stats instead of maxing a single one of two. With just clerics, the build had way better healing, but lacked punch from missing extra power and critical. Knights pushed the already high armor over the top. 2x berserker, 2x knight, 2x cleric got the stats just right. You may ignore the infusions, I was just following the single offense, single defense ascended trinket path and they don’t have any significant impact anyway.

NOTE: Getting the gear is somewhat easy, it’s as simple as buying all Lyssa armor parts except for breastplate because it doesn’t have magi stats, you can get that one by buying Dwayna breastplate instead and putting a Lyssa rune in it.

Yeah, I noticed the gear set I was narrowing down to with the balanced variant looked appealing to an offensive Healway set up.

Unfortunately, the only way to get magi weapons is from the following dungeon tokens:

Ascalonian Catacombs, Twilight Arbor, or Honor of the Waves.

Easy enough to do, but gates your time a little bit in gearing till you run those dungeons.

So I finally managed to get at least a half decent footage of my Symbology build – Meditation variant from WvWvW fighting against a thief. I didn’t win this one since I got jumped by two other thieves in the end, but I want to show it anyway to make a clearer picture of the potential this build has.

Except for an elementalist, a guardian and a necromancer I’ve already fought against every other class one on one and haven’t lost a single time, but I rarely win at the same time. Most of the fights end up with a draw.

In small team skirmishes it works rather well with a hammer, but I feel a bit useless in zerg fights.

Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX2H4k7IUNo

Awesome, I’m really glad you are continuing at experimenting with this. I put it on hold as I have been doing SAB and doing more thinking about healing capabilities and how to better intigrate them into builds while balancing damage with it.

I do see what you mean about how the high regen ticks help augment the meditation heals by filling in the gaps in healing.

Thieves are a hard class to lock down and maintain damage, so I don’t know if having more burst hits would help or more healing, but you held your own against two thieves, that third one jumping in kind of sealed the deal.

You could have used up renewed focus and bought yourself some more time for maybe a shelter and let symbols tick, but yeah, wasn’t expecting a whole lot versus 3 thieves.

Good job man!