Guild Wars 2

Which is best?

With high crit change, does empowering might comes ontop?

PvE I run empowering might for great AH heals and self/team might stacks
WvW I run 2hmastery – I like reduced CD on MB (dont get many auto chains off) and RoW also LoW (I run staff/hammer)

I see, you have a point.

From a pure dps point, withi high crit change, will the 2h mastery rule over the empowering might i wonder.

Also since you are using hammer alot, do you think MB works as mobility assistant (like 2h swords “Leap of Faith” does) ? It actually covers sever meters but it also has an animation pause before and after the leap.

Absolutely, your damage is boosted by 20% because of the reduction. A single stack or even two from EM won’t equal it.

Arken.3725:

Absolutely, your damage is boosted by 20% because of the reduction. A single stack or even two from EM won’t equal it.

No its not.
All you get with 2h mastery is a extra MB every 2 auto chains.
With empowering might it its, auto,auto,auto – MB – auto,auto,auto – auto,auto,auto – MB.. ect… with it, its auto,auto,auto – MB – auto,auto,auto -MB- auto,auto,auto – MB. it’ll boost your dps slightly, but the group wont be getting the might stacks so i think your overall group dps will be lower.
Its not a extra free attack either when you have it, as it still takes time to use.

In pve 2h mastery doesnt improve your dps on stationary targets when using a hammer. If you want to play mobile it does, but top dps is made by spamming the chain. If the target is moving or you need to swap targets often to protect your team then 2h mastery is valid for hammer.

In pvp 2h improves practical dpd greatly imo, as long as targets are moving and/or you need to swap targets 2h adds dps.

One thing that also seems to be overlooked is that MB has a huge aoe so dps versus multiple targets is infact improved when using 2h mastery and this is especially true in dungeons if you have multiple mobs that hit hard and you need to dodge/swap targets often.

So there is no straight answer on this one, its all up to the situation and playstyle.

On GS 2h mastery almost always adds dps and the reason for the difference is that on the hammer the symbol is tied to the chain (no cd) and in the gs case the symbol is a skill that gets improved with lowered cd.

Regarding dps increase thru em you get in average 2 stacks of might running which is 64!? in power. Considering a dps build has about 3k attack in the first place the question is kind of irrelevant.

The reason for using EM isnt dps, its to boost the team with 5*64 and ofc the huge increase in survivability you get thru altruistic healing. If its a dps increase you look for then firefields, sigil that procc might and might duration runes also is a part of the concept. Why not trait EM for more survivability which in retunr makes it possible to use a more offensive gear with less/hp/vitality.

To be clear, i dont think you shoudl pick EM for the dps, you pick it for survivability OR as a small part of an entire concept/build that promotes dps thru might stacking. Anything less then 10 stacks isnt a “might” build imo and for that you need more then EM.

Sidenote, i have a setup with Pre/vit/heal gear and it has over 1200 in healing power in a might stacking build. When i use this one in wvw i have 10-15 stacks constantly running and its a nasty combination of 1300 heals per dodge and 2700 attack.

My point is that a might stacking build is very effective in a build that also benefits from boondurations, and i have chosen my most defensive setup for this and it works great when breechign/defending broken gates and courtyard fighting.

One cannot say without knowing what the rest of your build is and what weapons you’re using.

Brutaly.6257:

In pve 2h mastery doesnt improve your dps on stationary targets when using a hammer. If you want to play mobile it does, but top dps is made by spamming the chain. If the target is moving or you need to swap targets often to protect your team then 2h mastery is valid for hammer.

In pvp 2h improves practical dpd greatly imo, as long as targets are moving and/or you need to swap targets 2h adds dps.

[…]
My point is that a might stacking build is very effective in a build that also benefits from boondurations, and i have chosen my most defensive setup for this and it works great when breechign/defending broken gates and courtyard fighting.

I have two sets of boon duration and one for might (20% increase), and 5 traits into boons, but i rarelly see over 6might stack from EM on a single target. Its usually between 4 and 6 and very rarelly goes over that.

6 might equal to 210 power increase and its an optimal scenario.

Tbh in dungeons i can get up to 11 might while lots of adds are gathered and crit is guaranteed to be, at least on one of the mobs.

The limiting factor on EM is the 1’’ internal CD. Which is very bad for both auto attack (the first two hits from GS are completed in less than 1’’) and for Whirling Wrath.

So as far as i gathered, for straight out dps, the 20% skill reduction will beat the might gathered from EM, but on the other hand EM provides both healing and damage so its more than balanced out.

My other question is, will MB give you a speed increase when using or does nothing to increase mobility while crossing terrain? Because it appears to stop for a split of a second before and after the leap.

Arken.3725:

Absolutely, your damage is boosted by 20% because of the reduction. A single stack or even two from EM won’t equal it.

That’s not how DPS calculations work. It’s not going to be a straight boost to damage unless all your skills are instant and damage comes exclusively from skills with CD, and that just doesn’t happen.

The boost in DPS is going to be the additional damage the skill deals OVER your auto-attack, divided by the actual CD after reduction. For example, WW has 2s cast time and does not recharge till the skill is finished, so CD is effectively 12, but 2HM only reduces CD by 2s, so the CD reduction is actually only about 16%. Skills like Symbol of Wrath and Whirling Wrath will be affected, since they increase DPS, but stuff like Leap of Faith or Mighty Blow won’t, since they… don’t.

Also, skills with CDs that fall in the middle of the swap CD, like Symbol of Wrath, will not be affected. In other words, you normally get one Symbol of Wrath per GS rotation (use it right as you swap, 10s till you swap to your other weapon, then another 10s before you swap back and Symbol is ready again), but with 2HM you still only get one Symbol per rotation. So in effect those skills aren’t affected either.

Lastly, 2HM only affects 2H weapons (obviously). This will effectively lower your DPS, as to get the most out of it you need to use two 2H weapons. However, the guardian’s DPS weapons are GS, mace, and scepter, so if you run two 2H weapons you are forced to take one that is not DPS, or only get the benefit of the trait 50% of the time. This is not an optimal setup.

What all this means is that in effect the only DPS skill that actually benefits from 2HM is Whirling Wrath, as it will give you two whirls per rotation instead of one. By comparison, Empowering Might is effectively 5-7% boost in damage across the board. This affects all skills, not just skills that boost overall damage, and it applies to both 1H and 2H weapons. Whirl admittedly does a ton of damage but I don’t think even a doubling in its damage boost is going to surpass a 5% boost across the board to everything. I could test this, but I don’t really feel like it right now.

Also 2hand mastery will increase your retaliation uptime, since you can blast your light symbol every time it’s up, so that’s something to consider.

The Honor-line has so many great traits … it’s hard to choose
Even things like Protective Reviver are sometimes simply awesome.

This is especially hard, if you go for 30 in honor.
Even then there is no “Simply take Battle Presence”.
There are still many options like Two-handed Mastery and Empowering Might or go for a Writ of XXX trait.

The only “fixed” trait I simply don’t like is Elusive Power – but even this is sometimes great like Dodge > gap-closer or dodge > ranged > attack.

I play my Guardian mostly in dungeons and most of the times I will use Hammer/Staff or Hammer/GS so you can see where my preference lies.

Reason for my weapon choice is simple: CC.

Hammer and Staff have 2 great “line of warding” skills which will totaly negate melee damage when used correctly (I.E. choke points) and H/GS is great for “open field” encounters thanks to blinds and pulls.

So Two-Handed Mastery is essential for my play style and I am so much accustomed to cd reduction I can’t play without it

seithan.4823:

My other question is, will MB give you a speed increase when using or does nothing to increase mobility while crossing terrain? Because it appears to stop for a split of a second before and after the leap.

No overall speed increase (due to freeze in the start and end of the animation) but you get a gapcloser for the damage component, the exact range is difficult to estimate but somewhere between 400-580.

The interesting part is that there is a damage component at the starting point of the leap(blast) and at the landing point so the aoe is huge and shaped as an ellipse..

But no speed increase.