Guild Wars 2

I wonder what the current thinking is on Vitality vs Heal for Guardians.

I play a Hammer/Staff Virtue/Consecration Area Control and Support Guardian in WvW. This is rather tanky and geared towards group survival, point control and opportunistic offence with the Hammer.

I have 5/6 of the Orr Karma Power/Toughness/Vitality set and a Cleric Helm (Power/Toughness/Heal). My weapons are also Cleric (P/T/H). But I’m not sure whether to fill out the trinkets with the WvW Invader set (P/T/V) or stack more healing power.

Would the extra Vitality or Healing be better suited to my role?

Vitality is better for surviving burst damage. Healing is better for sustain. I’ve never really found myself in need of excessive amounts of health, around 15k HP has been a comfortable value.

Healing isn’t so much for personal survivability as much as it’s for group support. Really, it only is worth it if you find yourself using staff and/or mace rather often. If you’re primarily using hammer, then the healing power isn’t going to pay for itself and you should be stacking vitality and toughness instead. (Some exceptions might exist. If you’re using Writ of the Merciful, then it might be good, but I still wouldn’t bother unless you’re also using staff or mace in your other weapon swap and have a healing utility or two equipped.)

So, basically, it’s apples and oranges. Vitaility/Toughness is for personal durability, healing power is for group support.

Eh i found if you dont need crit that cleric jewelery with soldier armor and weapons gives you a good balance. Lots of toughness/power, moderate vit/healing power. If you use soldier runes as well you stack even more hp and toughness.

Have to agree with Grakor, its better to stack on stats for a specific role rather than mix and match. From what i experience trying to spread out your stats is detrimental to your role, so you either stack all cleric for bigger heals or stack all Vit/Tough for survivability.

It is never a bad idea to get a piece or two with some vitality on it since our HP pool is so low compared to other classes (with the exceptions of the thief and elementalist). You don’t want to detract away from your healing power too much because your healing over time will equate to much more effective hp than stacking vitality.

Ideally, you want to get just enough vitality to survive a burst comfortably and then rely on your healing power to sustain you through the rest of the encounter. So, as others have said, do not spread yourself thin, but make sure not to skimp on at least some vitality.

Animus.6073:

It is never a bad idea to get a piece or two with some vitality on it since our HP pool is so low compared to other classes (with the exceptions of the thief and elementalist). You don’t want to detract away from your healing power too much because your healing over time will equate to much more effective hp than stacking vitality.

Ideally, you want to get just enough vitality to survive a burst comfortably and then rely on your healing power to sustain you through the rest of the encounter. So, as others have said, do not spread yourself thin, but make sure not to skimp on at least some vitality.

So what would be a good target HP pool for this? What do you consider the minimum in PvE if you already have a fair amount of toughness too?

~15k HP is a comfortable value for Guardians.

Morelia.6835:

~15k HP is a comfortable value for Guardians.

I agree. All guards should aim for 15k. Then build from there. 15k seems to be the sweet spot though.