As it stands right now, Consecration abilities are amazing in terms of what they do. But, they suffer greatly due to the Cooldowns. I would love to build a Ranged/Consecration Support Build, but it’s very very situational due to extreme cooldowns. At the moment, I’m setup to be Altruistic Healing/Shout (Boon), and it’s far more potent as a build than a Consecration Support Build. But, I really enjoy the Consecration builds in terms of support, and I think ANet would be wise to lower the cooldowns on the Consecration abilities in order to make that build a more viable option.
The shout builds are useful 24/7, whereas, the Consecration builds are extremely situational. I see no reason to go a Consecration build, as long as the Shout builds remain Superior.
The cooldowns themselves on the Consecration abilities either need reduced, or the trait [Master of Consecrations] needs to have its cooldown reduction increased to 30%-50% (up from 20%).
The result would be (@50% reduction):
Sanctuary: 60second Cooldown (original 180s) <—This one is absolutely ridiculous.
Hallowed Ground: 40second Cooldown (original 80s)
Purging Flames: 20second Cooldown (original 40s)
Wall of Reflection: 20second Cooldown (original 40s)
*Note: I see balance concerns with a reduced cooldown on Wall of Reflection.
Furthermore, there’s another trait which is useful, but awful in reality. That trait is [Absolute Resolution] in the Virtues Line. It grants a condition removal (x3) upon using Virtue of Resolve, but it also increases the potency of the passive healing effect on Virtue of Resolve. With 1300 healing power, and this trait equipped, it only appears to do about 200hp/tick. While that’s a great amount of regen, do you understand how much you have to sacrifice in order to use that trait? That’s a lot of trait points, for a very minimal increase (40pt. increase [up from 162hp/tick).The tooltip increase on Virtue of Resolve, when using [Absolute Resolve], shows a multiplying effect where it doubles the healing output. But, it appears to only be doing about a 40pt. increase on the regen itself.
The Virtue of Resolve can also be paired with the [Battle Presence] trait in the Honor line, at the cost of 30 points. It’s very useful, but then again, the cost of doing so isn’t even worth it. You have to spend 60 points (30 honor, 30 virtues), just in order to improve this regen & make it apply to nearby allies. Yes, that’s 60 points for 2 abilities that are poorly scaled for level 80 fights. That isn’t worth the cost, for such a minimal increase. You have to gear around 1300 healing power, which by itself, is a stat that scales so poorly. Then, you have to waste trait points, just in order to have a decent group regen. The issue is that at level 80, 200regen isn’t a lot (at all). The scaling needs to be increased substantially in order for this to be a worthwhile trait. If it was ticking for 400-500hp/tick @ 1300 healing power, then I could see the traits being worth it at 80. That’s not all, with [Battle Presence] equipped in the Honor Line, which makes your passive effect apply to nearby allies. It’s also severely limited in the sense that it doesn’t apply to other Guardians due to their personal Virtue of Resolve passive effect regen. That’s not all either, because I’m not even sure if multiple Guardian’s running this trait will conflict with one another. Personally, i’ve never seen another guardian run those traits besides myself. So, if you and 1 other guardian are close to each other, and if these don’t stack. That means one of you is completely making the other guardian’s trait investment factually worthless.
I know Banner/Support warriors who have regens stacked, and they regen up to 700hp/tick. So, they get equivalent armor, higher base HP, and they can heal themselves just as well (if not better) than a Guardian. The more I play my Guardian, testing out all the specs, gear combinations, and builds. The more it becomes obvious that if you want to roll a true support, you’re almost better off running a Banner/Shout warrior. Higher Damage, Higher HP, Better Ranged Damage, Better Survivability, and Banners are amazing.
Unless these traits(and others) become improved, the Guardian class is going to continue to be pigeonholed into Shout (Boon) builds for support.
(edited by Haseno.6417)