W.I.P. PVP-Celestial Spirit Bunker
If you’re aiming to do damage, take two points out of Honor and put them in Radiance (take Blind Exposure).
Apart from that, I doubt it’ll be a very effective build in sPvP. Spirit Weapons simply aren’t that good and in order to maximize you need to cast them before combat, which means you often lose several seconds of their uptime or lose the entire duration of the enemy ends up not engaging you.
I’ll try it out tomorrow, but I doubt it’ll do all that much for you.
“Come on, hit me!”
Yea I want it to work, and more likely than not it’s just a pipe dream of a build concept. I am trying to work with it though as I feel it could be effective and fun. Something different to break up the norm.
Use staff to pump up your hammer and heal you. Use scepter to apply steady damage and immobilise to land hammer. You can take sword instead of bow for more damage.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
I thought about the option to use staff, I think I’m just too fond of GS gameplay to really see it as a viable alternative in pvp. I’ll give it a shot though as I still have plenty of tweaks to work out on this build.
I use a SW guard build (64202) to reasonable success. Soldier or celestial and flame legion runes. Works decently against the build I specifically want to be able to kill (cele engineers…god kitten tired of nades). However it definetly has some key weaknesses. Evasion built thieves are one of them. However it wrecks other thieves. Its honestly a really wierd build…. And thats after a year and a half of playing it so id say I have more experience with the build than most.
My biggest issue has been ironically fighting meditation guards. They have enough stun breaks and self heals to eat my favorite combo. Despite the fact that that combo lets me fight fairly evenely even against D/D ellies u.u
Ghost Yak
(edited by Shadelang.3012)
I think it’s worth mentioning that AH works with Spirit Weapons.
There’s some good points made here, a couple of them such as AH helping, and what the build lacks. I noticed a lot of my issues so far have been stability so I put stand your ground on the bar with shield for the added Aegis, and hammer. So far I’m having the most effective results with this and Staff/scepter/focus. I am still playing around with things to get it to work the way I like, such as rune choices, and trying to get GS to work with it instead of staff.
If nothing else, it’s a fun project for now.
I played a match with it (didn’t have time for more) and it works pretty well when you can only focus on killing opponents that can’t really run away. The build is decent in group-fights, but goes down easily when you get focused.
“Come on, hit me!”
Some of the major flaws I see so far after some ranked and unranked testing: Stability or you never get your spirits off when you want, and lack of trait options to make that possible while keeping the trait points for spirits…(which is in 3 trees), and is the burning if traited for it even worth it?
Looking for advice or thoughts on these things mostly so far. Weapon choices seem to be very flexible for the most part.
Megastorm I today started testing a 60206 build. Taking reduced cooldowns,fiery wrath, and + SP damage. However in the virtue line I took no only hte SW trait but supreme justice and amplified wrath. Using burning in this build is mostly due to the 17% damage increase I get on burning targets. So far with a soldiers amulet it wrecks kitten while still being tanky. I havnt fought a few builds however so I cant say itl work for all of them.
Having the burning being focused on me made it easier to use my SWs as burst platforms instead of the pseudo me’s I had them as before.
So far it works better than my previous 64202 Setup.
Ill be testing to see if amplified wrath will work better instead of spirit weapon damage. Although I have a feeling that will only work better in WvW and PvE areas. Where spirit weapons need to be used for there immediate effect instead of relying on them long term like you need to in TPvP.
Ghost Yak
I’ve made some adjustments as I’ve been testing. So far this seems a little more of a step in the right direction. It gives me condi cleanse, stability, and more damage at ranged which seems to help out more than I thought it might.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApVoVBxOI8DNR+Ql5Z8hW+AJQ1FwAEAA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwFBoYZAA
The Scepter is definitely the right call. Together with the Greatsword it makes for a decent balance between damage and control. Slotting in “Stand Your Ground!” is probably a decent idea (lack of stability did hurt the previous spec) but I do feel it makes the whole build weaker. I must admit I’ve underestimated the Bow of Truth a bit and I’m thinking of trying out a dedicated healing spec just to play around with it.
Having played a few matches with the Spirit Weapons did highlight their problems again. They can be unpredictable and they aren’t that hard to kill. Especially the Sword is hard to control, since keeping track of it in the middle of a big melee is pretty hard (especially when you have the two other Weapons up) and it’s the only of the weapons that doesn’t target.
Another problem is the cast-time. I understand that this needed to balance the weapons, but having a cast-time for both summoning them and using the activated ability is a bit much, I think.
Conclusion about the build: It does decent damage in 1v1, but goes down too quickly in group fights. The build is also highly dependent on its cooldowns to the point that I’d advice running away if all your Spirit Weapons are on cooldown. This makes the build rather suited for skirmishing, but pretty bad for fights on a point.
Edit: Also, the amount of traits you need to take for the Spirit Weapons to become sorta viable is ridiculous and hampers the amount of possible builds.
“Come on, hit me!”
(edited by Ynna.8769)
I must admit I’ve underestimated the Bow of Truth a bit and I’m thinking of trying out a dedicated healing spec just to play around with it.
I’ve used it quite a lot. It’s difficult to aim (in PvP anyway) and people have a tendency to dash out of it, but the heal is very strong for a utility ability. It’s effective when used to heal bunkers since they usually stay on point, and are thus much easier to hit with the heal. It’s not bad when used to heal oneself either, of course.
Personally I prefer using Wall of Reflection in most situations, but I’ll switch to BoT when there aren’t many projectile users and/or my team has a lot of bunkers.
As for spirit weapon traits, I agree, spirit weapons have a bit too many traits. Some of those should be combined into one trait (like expeditious spirit into spirit weapon mastery or improved SW duration). With expeditious spirit combined, A Fire Inside could be moved to the power tree, and spirit weapons would be a lot easier to trait for.
(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRApf7dlsApMotCxOI8DNh8QlZd0iW2BXQ1TQA8AA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwJBoYZAA
The evolution continues, and it seems to actually be worth doing still for whatever reason. It’s getting to be an actual build that’s fun and reliable for the most part in small group fights, or 1vs2 fights.
Feel free to try it out, and give some feedback, good or bad. Realize..that I’m not trying to crack a code here, or break anyone’s precious meta. Just something different and usable. Still mainly for capping points.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRApf7dlsApMotCxOI8DNh8QlZd0iW2BXQ1TQA8AA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwJBoYZAA
The evolution continues, and it seems to actually be worth doing still for whatever reason. It’s getting to be an actual build that’s fun and reliable for the most part in small group fights, or 1vs2 fights.
Feel free to try it out, and give some feedback, good or bad. Realize..that I’m not trying to crack a code here, or break anyone’s precious meta. Just something different and usable. Still mainly for capping points.
Why are you using Wrathful Spirits and A Fire in Inside, if you’re using the Bow and Shield, that is pointless since neither does damage. Well, the command on the Shield has a slight damage aspect but still, those trait points are better spent else where.
Guardian WvW Guide!
Heavens Rage
Heavens Rage
(edited by Harbinger.8637)
You bring up valid points Harbinger. I am exhausted, and drinking right now. I havn’t had a chance to double check myself yet so thank you. Still tweaking things and testing. Don’t take my lack of sleep as a sign of stupidity please, as I do actually know what I’m going after haha. No offense taken, nor given.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRApf7dlsApMotCxOI8DRh8QlZd0i21B1OBBAWNBA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwJBoYZAA
Still working on these beers after a bad day, but here is a better setup with the same idea that I would like some good guardian pvplayers to try out at the least.
I’ll give it a shot tomorrow, but I’m not sure if “Stand Your Ground!” is worth losing a Spirit Weapon over. When your SWs are active, you don’t need to do all that much yourself :-)
I’m thinking about trying out the Hammer instead of the Shield.
“Come on, hit me!”
^Well, the only SW active that requires one not be disabled is Bow of Truth’s active, so stability doesn’t seem that necessary in a SW build to me either.
From my experience with spirit weapons, I think can confidently say that the hammer is probably the best one. The amount of CC it pours out is amazing, and the damage of its command ability isn’t too shabby either.
I tried out that build, but I felt it was decent regardless of the Spirit Weapons, not because of them. It’s a solid weapon combo so that makes it work.
I’m now trying out this build, for a more offense-focused style. It’s pretty good for roaming in PvP, since moving from point A to B negates the downtime issue the Spirit Weapons tend to have.
“Come on, hit me!”
Thanks for the input, and I do agree with the hammer being an awesome choice. The only reason I took it out initially was due to stability issues when trying to pop my spirits while engaged on points. The 6/4/0/0/4 setup is nice, and I am liking the way it plays out with the points, and small group fights.
If anyone has a different idea for spirit pvp setups, I would like to check them out also. It’s fun having the guard’s lil’ pets to play with.