Guild Wars 2

So, first of all, I’m talking about something like this:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7;4RFF30M3NG-90;9;4J;0JT16;558-087O-F6h;1ytbUytbU10Fa1-Hef9eqen5oao5pap5q52uVI7330;4F2CsF2Do;9;9;97;8s0;6U-6q
Celestial Gear is worth it. (Because you’re making amazing use of 6 out of 6 stats)
Healing Power is OP with 15+ Points in Honor.
Condition Damage is bad, but not quite as terrible as it could be on a GS Warrior.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
I’d like to point out that you could probably swap out the Supreme Justice, get some actual ascended armor and weapons as well as celestial backpiece.
I’m also assuming that we have 25 stacks of Bloodlust, which are being stacked on a separate set.
Many people will say it’s bad, and will provide the reasoning that you’ll do better with a mix of Berserker and Soldier’s or the likes. Basically, something along the lines that Guardian needs only 5 stats, being:
Power, Precision, Crit Damage, Toughness, Vitality.
They’ll also say that you’re going to lack Power and Precision to make such amount of Crit Damage worthwhile. While that’s true, to counteract this you pack some precision from rune of Lyssa and some Power from sharpening stone, sigil of Battle+sigil of Bloodlust+sigil of Strength at the same time(cool!), and make use of quite the tremendous DPS.
But what about the useless Healing Power and Condition Damage?!
Healing Power – 20 Seconds WvW Encounter
Maximum Possible Heal from Healing Power:
6 dodges+3 PoH Aegis+20 Regeneration ticks + ~150 GS attacks(realistical amount for hitting 5 targets)2 VoResolve Heals, ~18 seconds of VoResolve passive ticks, Active Heal(Signet of Resolve assumed)
6.01.2+2.5+3.0+1.5+1.08(~1.0)1.25 =
16.45 Self Heal per 1 Healing Power.
(1 point in Vitality equals 10 HP)
More Realistical Values in 20 second fight:
4 Dodge Rolls. 3 “Pure of Heart” Aegis(4 Aegis procs – but 1 will proc on full HP and therefore will not heal.). 15 seconds of Regeneration. 50 GS attacks. An Active Heal. 2 Virtue of Resolve Activations, and ~15 seconds of Virtue of Resolve passive.
4.01.2+1.875+1.0+1.5+0.9+1.25 =
11.725 Self Heal per 1 Healing Power.
The key word is Self. Your Allies are also getting Healed.
Condition Damage
Bad Stat, but somehow jumps on the train with Celestial Gear.
Edit:
I’m sorry for the post looking a little bit buggy :{

Is that a random build you let your cat put together or were you using it to make a point?

I’m sorry but I don’t see this build being any good for either pvp or pve.

Low power and crit dmg = definitely not for pve

You can clear a total of 3 conditions every 45 seconds, 6 if you use renewed focus which given the current meta makes it unrealistic for any WvW.

Sooo uuum what is that build for again?

I can show you a far better build in terms of dmg, condi cleansing that has 50% less celestial pieces. Celestial is good, to round your stats and get them in line with what you want. But it’s no means to an end in any case.

Arlette.9684:

I’m sorry but I don’t see this build being any good for either pvp or pve.

Low power and crit dmg = definitely not for pve

You can clear a total of 3 conditions every 45 seconds, 6 if you use renewed focus which given the current meta makes it unrealistic for any WvW.

Sooo uuum what is that build for again?

I can show you a far better build in terms of dmg, condi cleansing that has 50% less celestial pieces. Celestial is good, to round your stats and get them in line with what you want. But it’s no means to an end in any case.

Can you bring a better point?
It stands to question whether having ~2.1k power and a huge amount of might(so 2.5) is really low. You’re also having around ~60% critical chance, too. Just “Round Up” the damage stats with infuisions&sigils&runes&foods.
Using Renewed Focus also clears all conditions if you use Rune of Lyssa. That together with Virtue of Resolve usage twice and Signet of Resolve… Not exactly bad, at least not in my opinion.

it’s better than AH but still bad, damage is lower than a 10,30,0,5,25 build and support is lower (blind spamming on trash). Basically it’s just bad and so is celestial gear

Painbow.6059:

it’s better than AH but still bad, damage is lower than a 10,30,0,5,25 build and support is lower (blind spamming on trash). Basically it’s just bad and so is celestial gear

Damage is higher than 10, 30, 0, 5, 25 at least with greatsword(and greatsword damage is higher than anything else with those traits). Blind spamming is something hilarious to me, you can’t exactly spam your Virtue of Justice even if it’s reset on kills.
Alternatively to my build I could see 20-0-0-25-25 sacrificing a major trait(not too many useful ones to slot in) for extra 10% damage.

Evalia.7103:

Arlette.9684:

I’m sorry but I don’t see this build being any good for either pvp or pve.

Low power and crit dmg = definitely not for pve

You can clear a total of 3 conditions every 45 seconds, 6 if you use renewed focus which given the current meta makes it unrealistic for any WvW.

Sooo uuum what is that build for again?

I can show you a far better build in terms of dmg, condi cleansing that has 50% less celestial pieces. Celestial is good, to round your stats and get them in line with what you want. But it’s no means to an end in any case.

Can you bring a better point?
It stands to question whether having ~2.1k power and a huge amount of might(so 2.5) is really low. You’re also having around ~60% critical chance, too. Just “Round Up” the damage stats with infuisions&sigils&runes&foods.
Using Renewed Focus also clears all conditions if you use Rune of Lyssa. That together with Virtue of Resolve usage twice and Signet of Resolve… Not exactly bad, at least not in my opinion.

I actually can clear the same amount of conditions as your build +3 from purging flames + CoP. Do not presume to know what I’m running.

I’m using 4 pieces of Celestial gear and I’ve done a lot of min maxing before I made them to figure out how to best set my stats to get as much as possible while sacrificing as little as possible. I’m telling you that your gearset/trait spec just doesn’t reflect the current condi meta, nor does it have the damage potential to be good in PvE.

You’re being a defensive little kitten cuz I expressed my opinion that your build is far from optimal in any scenario.

Fix it, don’t fix it… I care not, I’m not the one that’s gonna be lacking with this piece of garbage. But if you can’t bear my opinion don’t post your build in the first place.

Arlette, you’re being far too defensive over this. Saying things like “I could show you a better build” and providing absolutely no feedback and criticism as to how to fix that build proves nothing. Of course he’s going to ask you to elaborate on your stance.

Then when he asks you to, you attack him further and throw more vague numbers out like it’s actually anything constructive.

In the future, I recommend you actually back up your facts and figures and say more than “But I can do it better.” It’s actually how the people that really make builds do it. Because we can see the weaknesses and know how to fix them because we’ve experienced it ourselves.

Darkobra.6439:

Arlette, you’re being far too defensive over this. Saying things like “I could show you a better build” and providing absolutely no feedback and criticism as to how to fix that build proves nothing. Of course he’s going to ask you to elaborate on your stance.

Then when he asks you to, you attack him further and throw more vague numbers out like it’s actually anything constructive.

In the future, I recommend you actually back up your facts and figures and say more than “But I can do it better.” It’s actually how the people that really make builds do it. Because we can see the weaknesses and know how to fix them because we’ve experienced it ourselves.

Point taken.

The constructive post as to why the spec/build is bad and a few ideas on improvement without enforcing my own playstyle and skill preferences (meds) to you.

Let’s start with traits:

1. Having the 5% damage increase from Zealous Blade doesn’t make sense since if you take those 5 points off and put them further into valor you get 10% extra damage.

2. Supreme Justice is (I wanna say useless) not needed you’re better off taking those 5 points off and get another 5 points into Valor for Pure of Voice thus getting extra condition cleanses

3. Two Handed Weapon mastery, it’s a personal preference but for me unless I’m using double two hander I’d rather pick Empowering Might and get Might Stacks. You’ll still have WW recharged everytime you swap to the GS. Alternatively you can pick Writ of the Merciful since you’re running both a mace and gs giving you two symbols and I saw you have the vulnerability minor trait.

4. If you’re gonna be running shouts, Superior Aria is a must have, Pure of Heart is ok-ish but you gotta figure, first Aegis won’t heal you cuz you’ll still be full HP, you’ll get 2-3 at the most depending on when you pop the Virtue while having Stability on 6 secs lower cooldown and “Save Yourselves!” on 12 secs lower CD can be the difference between life and death.

5. Unscathed Contender is PvE (?) or useless if not. You have two options that are far better.
A. you can pick Master of Consecrations which I seriously encourage (will explain why after I cover a few more things)
B. You can pick either Vengeful or Retalitory Subconscious

Let’s move to utility skills:
I feel that picking Healing Signet over Shelter is a good choice in this case (you don’t really have AH or Meds to provide you with the extra healing so you’re relying on your healing skill, the shout and the Virtue of Resolve.

I’m questioning the decision behind Judge’s Intervention, I’ll asume you picked it up as a yet another stun breaker and mainly as a gap closer. I’ll make a suggestion about a good substitute once I cover gear and Rune choice.

Gear and Runes:

Getting the Celestial weapons is plain and simple a waste of good stats, it’s far better to get 1xx of 3 priority stats for you than 79 of everything. Seeing as your trait spec is designed to pump as much damage as possible (all the +% dmg traits) getting PvT, Zerker or even Cleric weapon (if you feel you need the healing power) is going to boost your power by a lot more thus enabling you to do much more damage.
Somebody did the math and at 3k attack, 100 extra power boosts current damage by ~10%. Depending on how you feel about the 10% crit damage you can pick either. Note that high crit damage requires high crit chance, with ~15 seconds of fury and about 37% crit chance (1% more than your current) you’ll be at a pretty good spot in that department, so personally I would pick the Zerker weapon.

Amulet, think of the amulet as an extra two hander on your neck because statwise it’s comparable to one. As such the same applies as with the weapon, don’t waste good stats on celestial, pick pvt, zerker or cleric (I’m running pvt but I also have extra 30% crit damage from the Honor tree so it’s up to you whether to part ways with the 7% critical damage in favor of some pvt).

Celestial Rings are a good choice, I was playing around with them and it’s fine having them there.

Earrings, they’re the least benefitial statwise (of all trinkets) so instead of getting a few stats here and there with celestial you can squeeze in some PvT/Zerker/Celestial. I myself am not using ascended earrings as I’m unhappy with the stats on the ascended Valkyrie (then again you have 300 more vitality than I do so HP isn’t an issue for you) so feel free to go Zerker for those or the Zerker/Valkyrie.

Armor: Having Celestial as your 3 major pieces is by far the most beneficial, based on my observations and tweaking with the character creator. The 3 minor pieces you can use to tweak whatever you’re lacking.

Last but definitely not least, Runes:
Runes of Lyssa are nice, but now that we improved your condition cleansing somewhat there’s a better option, Traveler you’ll lose some of that crit chance but if you picked some of those Zerker pieces you probably made up for it already. Picking the Traveler runes also gives you yet another extra 15% boon duration (so more uptime on your fury, stability and might stacks) and the best part of it, a 25% speed increase which puts you on par with every other character in the game (except mesmers). Now with that extra speed having Judge’s intervention becomes more of a personal preference and this opens up an option that I was hinting at from the begining.

In the Virtue trait line instead of picking the 20% damage when Aegis is up which practically is a split second most of the time you can pick Master of Consecrations then swap Judge’s Intervention for Purging Flames and get yet another 3 conditions cleansed and double the burning duration of JI (not to mention it’s on 17 secs lower cooldown than JI) —> double the uptime of Fiery Wrath.

I think that pretty much covers it all. I took the liberty of running the numbers on the char creator with the update and this is what I came up with:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR5OlYgKDXFyvbCJnhIhg1HiHsHYE81RA-j0CBYfCyZnJLPFNRVQsMsIasqaRWXDT5KpqXAWzDRzgO1SBs1YA-w

As you can see you lost 2% crit chance, 130 Healing Power (which unless you have 800+ isn’t really a game changer) but gained whooping 301 more attack. Following the math I mentioned earlier, your damage increased by ~30% from what it was with your build.

Edit: Feel free to keep an extra weapon with sigil of bloodlust for another 250 attack.

1. Newly Added Zealous Blade heal scaling is what makes it worthy. Up from lousy 25 to ~45 with proper celestial build, I believe. Which is actually decent considering the number of attacks greatsword does, especially combined with 5% damage increase which altogether makes it an excellent choice of a trait.
2. I believe I pointed out you could actually swap it out or even put some extra points in honor.
But nonetheless, with all the condition damage, the burning is going to hit hard. And provide permanent 10% damage increase from Zeal (10) trait as well, exactly because it is applied every 3rd hit up from 5(think about it - it’s almost twice as often - and 3 hits every 1.3 seconds isn’t exactly unbelievable(20% condition duration zeal, 10% lyssa *traveler if you want it*)
3. Mace is my mistake, I’ve actually wanted to put a scepter in. Not exactly sure why I’ve put mace. Nevertheless, Scepter is something I desire to utilize condition duration on it’s (3), as well as utilize Zealous Blade even more with Scepter (2)(lay the field and swap to GS - it will heal from the trait, and presumably will also increase the damage by 5%)
4. My mistake again.
I’ve never wanted to run this specific shout. I’m keen on Judge’s Intervention, though - but I’ll just say (7) and (8) are open to consider.
And I’m definitely liking Smite Condition/Purging Flames a whole lot more than SyG, which only provides useful, but not required stability - retaliation is over the roof already, and stability is not required because you already have 6.5 seconds after using your elite. And of course they would also improve condition removal, something that cannot be a bad thing.
5. Too much retaliation to care about these traits. Unscathed Contender is definitely not the best, but it could tip an edge if you launch a surprise attack(20% of damage is A LOT)
6. Utility skills are something I’ve already replied to with 4. Or so I think.
Gear&Runes:
Traveler 1-3&5 are great. Definitely better than what Lyssa offers.
4 is the same as Lyssa 2.
But where does your math shows the usefulness of extra condition removal and boons from Lyssa? They are strong. Incredibly strong. Insanely strong. Stability, Fury, Regeneration, all of them. It’s what matters. And 25% movespeed from traveler’s? It doesn’t work when you have swiftness! That’s what makes it so unappealing!
Gear:
Moot Point. Full Ascended in your build calculator, meanwhile my build calculator only permits Exotic’s. No wonder your comes out a little bit on top.
Or 30% damage is a lot?
Where did it come from, to begin with?
I don’t really know where it came from. 300 power? but it’s not 300 because of gear point being wrong, and when you count in all the other power bonuses the difference in % shrinks even more. Not to mention your build is going to be a grain of salt behind mine in precision and crit damage - it’s behind even now, with exotic versus ascended.
-20% cooldown duration is a lot. It’s a lot of extra damage dealt. Considering that in combat firstly you try to blow through 2-5 on both sets than spamming 1, I’ll give you a fair estimate of 35% damage done by GS(1). Which means the trait is quite literally increasing the damage by around 13%, not to mention all the other benefits such as more mobility, blinds, et cetera.

Lyssa VS Traveler Showdown:
Traveler:
30 all +6% crit damage
15% boon duration
25% movement speed if you do not have swiftness.
Lyssa:
165 Precision
Extra boon when using a healing spell(Random – could be stability for 10 seconds or Fury, could as well be something like Might for 10 seconds)
Full condition removal
Full boons for 5 seconds( boon duration)
Throwing away 25% movement speed bonus – as that is something you will not benefit from in actual combat – and Lyssa clearly wins.
Of course, it’s great. But how many stats full condition removal and 10 boons for 6.5 seconds cost? It’s hard to estimate. But the Regeneration alone is going to heal over 1.5k with the healing power considered. That’s 150 points worth of vitality. And that’s one of the worse boons, when you consider the potential of condition removal and Stability boon, it gets insane. In other words, something that definitely outshines 15% boon duration provided by Traveler’s runes.
To be honest, right there I think your reasoning for using Traveler’s is that you forget that it does not stack with Swiftness

I’ll comment just on Zealous Blade: It’s only useful and pays off over the 5% dmg increase from the Valor tree if you’re constantly and consistently hitting at least 4 targets, or in other words if you’re running with the train and even then it’s not so useful because as you said Retaliation is off the charts, especially in zergs.

WW = 8x hits, say you hit 4 targets with it, (8×45)x4 = 1440 HP gained. now for that WW wrath you get (8x~250)x4 = 8000 dmg from retaliation. Essentially you’ll be killing yourself a lot faster than you heal. I realize that it sounds great, in theory but… it’s not.

If you’re going to run Smite Condition and JI with Save Yourselves you’re better off dropping the Pure of Voice. With that being said, I reran the numbers and updated the spec even further and also fixed the ascended gear (oops):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR7OlYgKDXFyvjCJnhIhgVFiHcGYE8dVgiA-j0CBYLCyJfCiZPJLRCtMsIasqaRWXDT5KpqXAWzDRzgO1SBs1YA-w

Things to note:
64 power more than your build
Same HP
EXACTLY the same Crit Chance
10% more crit damage
Same toughness

About Rune of Lyssa’s #4 bonus, even though it only has a 10 second cooldown, effectively you will see that boon proc only once every 40 seconds (30 if you go for shelter instead). Also I recall reading somewhere that this boon cannot be Stability.

I suggest you play the spec and figure out how you like it. I’m pretty sure after a while you’ll tweak it out.

Power > Crit Chance > Crit Damage.

I really don’t understand where you get that idea of Perma Swiftness, you have 15 secs of swiftness on 60 second cooldown (unless you get Superior Aria) and a 10 second swiftness on a 90 second cooldown (Renewed Focus via Rune of Lyssa) so that’s 25 secs of swiftness, hardly a thing of legend.

You’re right traveler runes are negated by swiftness but at least you have the speed up at all times and you run as fast as the other 7 proffessions, without it once your opponent starts running, chasing them is like trying to beat Usain Bolt to the finish line.

Well the OP didn’t say best or better then other builds/gearing… so he is right in that it can be good.

Good =/= optimal

Celestial gear is good at many things, but best in nothing.
It’s good for ironing out your stats but no means to an end.

With the Runes ANet provided us with sort of set bonuses without locking us to a specific set, a mix of different sets will always be better than a single set (unless you’re condi spec in which case Dire is the one true god, or if you’re a tree hugger PvE and Zerker is the best thanks to poor mob/boss design)

Please, don’t do that! Don’t stack multiple sigils that have CD on same set or mix on swap sigils with on crit sigils. One will negate the other. All sigils share the same CD.

About full celestial on Guardian I can’t argue about it, if is good or bad.

Arlette.9684:

Good =/= optimal

Celestial gear is good at many things, but best in nothing.
It’s good for ironing out your stats but no means to an end.

With the Runes ANet provided us with sort of set bonuses without locking us to a specific set, a mix of different sets will always be better than a single set (unless you’re condi spec in which case Dire is the one true god, or if you’re a tree hugger PvE and Zerker is the best thanks to poor mob/boss design)

Just so you know my stance, I’m anti-celestial for guardians =). I’m not a fan of it.

Blasino.3128:

Arlette.9684:

Good =/= optimal

Celestial gear is good at many things, but best in nothing.
It’s good for ironing out your stats but no means to an end.

With the Runes ANet provided us with sort of set bonuses without locking us to a specific set, a mix of different sets will always be better than a single set (unless you’re condi spec in which case Dire is the one true god, or if you’re a tree hugger PvE and Zerker is the best thanks to poor mob/boss design)

Just so you know my stance, I’m anti-celestial for guardians =). I’m not a fan of it.

Many people aren’t.

I really hate your retaliation argument(because you’re getting hit by it regardless of what you do, it’s not like because enemies have it zealous blade is useless!) and by over the top retality i’ve meant that I have more than enough of it, not that it’s overpowered. And I do, with Save Yourselves, Lyssa Runes, GS 4 and Virtue of Courage Active.
I’ve decided to compare by removing traits, so I can say what gear does exactly.
So far:
1607 power
1596 precision
1396 vitality
1396 toughness
490 healing power
68% critical damage
480 Condition damage
VS
1958 power(+351)
1489 precision(-107)
1315 toughness(-81)
1305 vitality(-91)
256 healing power(-234)
66% critical damage(-2%)
256 Condition Damage(-224)
It becomes quite obvious, that if we considerate 5 stats as being particularly useful on guardian, your build sounds better – it gains 350 power, and only loses about 110 precision, 80 toughness, 90 vitality, 2% critical damage.
But it also loses 234 healing power, as well as 224 condition damage.
Now condition damage is something I could care about less. And the actual amount of Power won’t feel too weak in my build after being amplified by all the sigils and might stacks either – the difference between 1600 and 1950 sounds much bigger than between 2500 and 2850, now doesn’kitten
But even if I say condition damage is downright useless for me(it’s not), I won’t say the same for healing power. Point-for-point, it heals more than what even vitality provides. And suddenly you’re losing a bundled amount of more than 500 useful stats and 2% critical damage for 350 Power.
And the only difference between the builds now is that your seems better.
If healing power is useless.
But it’s not.
And that’s why it is not better.
EDIT:
Doesn’t / it = kitten. k…

Did you look at hte updated build that I posted for you with exotics? I don’t think you did.

Either way, play what you like, however you like.

Because it can’t

K U T M.4539:

Because it can’t

I think I lost the string of your thoughts

Arlette.9684:

K U T M.4539:

Because it can’t

I think I lost the string of your thoughts

You’re now talking with the wrong guy :P I’m right here.
Yes, of course I did look at your updated build. I’ve just removed traits from both yours and mine to compare, since you’ve insisted on picking up 10 in valor, which is the pure definition of extra stats with the precision bonus from toughness on top of it.
Also, I’ve liked you build quite a bit
It would be possible to make it better(IMO) getting Celestial Greatsword and berserker rings instead of vice versa. You would win 5% critical damage from that while not losing out on any stats whatsoever.
Or getting full celestial to improve on all stats while losing out on power and a tiny bit of critical damage. That would be my build then.
The reason why is that is because celestial rings give 2% less critical damage than berserker ones. On the other hand, celestial GS gives 1% more than berserker.

I was talking to the right guy as I was curious as to hwat he was trying to say.

Again, play what you like, however you like. But everyone here will be able to tell you that there are far better options that going full celestial. It’s a balanced gear/build and as such it will be good at wide variety of roles but not the best at either of them. As long as you’re fine with that, who am I to tell you not to play it. But if you want to kill stuff better go zerker, if you wanna be better support → cleric, better bunker → pvt etc.

Arlette.9684:

I was talking to the right guy as I was curious as to hwat he was trying to say.

Again, play what you like, however you like. But everyone here will be able to tell you that there are far better options that going full celestial. It’s a balanced gear/build and as such it will be good at wide variety of roles but not the best at either of them. As long as you’re fine with that, who am I to tell you not to play it. But if you want to kill stuff better go zerker, if you wanna be better support -> cleric, better bunker -> pvt etc.

I guess being a kitten bunker, support and berserker is not quite as bad if altogether you are more than 1. As for your build, Change GS to celestial and rings to berserker, at least in calculations, and you’ll see the improvement. As about the guy, it’s the standard “celestial sucks” dude. Because it can’t answers to the name of this thread.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS8dnQElGacIuhwHiCJnRBigVFiHcBXPgoIqhA-j0CBYjCyEEQkIBORtIaslhFRjVVjIqWbDzuDwaGzcORG0pWGA9xA-w

If you’re running celestial (especially in solo PvE or WvW), Meditations are your best bet. They give you the highest healing output and the best condition clear and stun breakers out of the utilities while also packing Fury to help make the critical damage on your celestial gear relevant and mobility to keep you in their face.

I swapped the traits around accordingly to (hopefully) maximize the effectiveness of the celestial gear.

Also swapped to Runes of the Traveler because the mobility, boon duration, and small global stat bonuses (especially crit damage) help to complement the gear set and chosen traits.

This is what I run for wvw zergbustin:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUMQJAWSlcgqCnFSMEf4ES2DRCBTQsHYUGtRXFSIA-jkCBoLQ4NAEDQUDAJoKrZPRMBCoyqIasqZER1KbYCB0fCA-w

If your build is meant for wvw, it wont work because:
Toughness, vitality, and healing power are too low
Power, precision, and crit damage are useless for a guardians main role
Need more condi cleanse

Celestial stats work on d/d ele but I think thats about it.
Its a nice concept but it just doesnt fulfill the requirements of a frontliner.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS8dnQElGacIuhwHiCJnRBigVFiHcBXPgoIqhA-j0CBYjCyEEQkIBORtIaslhFRjVVjIqWbDzuDwaGzcORG0pWGA9xA-w

If you’re running celestial (especially in solo PvE or WvW), Meditations are your best bet. They give you the highest healing output and the best condition clear and stun breakers out of the utilities while also packing Fury to help make the critical damage on your celestial gear relevant and mobility to keep you in their face.

I swapped the traits around accordingly to (hopefully) maximize the effectiveness of the celestial gear.

Also swapped to Runes of the Traveler because the mobility, boon duration, and small global stat bonuses (especially crit damage) help to complement the gear set and chosen traits.

Very nice build, but I see some problems with it:
Together with Celestial Gear, Valor and Traveler runes you get 100% critical damage. And yet your power and precision aren’t high enough to complement such an amount – You would probably want to use runes for that, not for getting some more critical damage. It simply doesn’t make sense to get such a huge amount.
Also, if you are using renewed focus and not a book, I have almost no questions that Lyssa runes are better. Even in minor brawls you’re going to have swiftness from save yourselves and aforementioned runes – and if you’re zerging it’s not a problem.
As for the Honor line – It seems to be extremely selfish, main problem is sheer amount of critical damage again, uncomplemented further by Power/Precision.
It lacks the amazing selfless Daring, which heals on par with Monk’s Focus(and is AOE, 1.0 heal scaling = insanity). Most Importantly, it lacks boons – you don’t get defensive boons all that much, at least not in my opinion.
Nevertheless, despite these disadvantages, I’ve took interest in it and I think it is very strong, but would definitely be better off with Lyssa runes(to compensate for the lack of boons) and some more sources of Power.

Stand The Wall.6987:

This is what I run for wvw zergbustin:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUMQJAWSlcgqCnFSMEf4ES2DRCBTQsHYUGtRXFSIA-jkCBoLQ4NAEDQUDAJoKrZPRMBCoyqIasqZER1KbYCB0fCA-w

If your build is meant for wvw, it wont work because:
Toughness, vitality, and healing power are too low
Power, precision, and crit damage are useless for a guardians main role
Need more condi cleanse

Celestial stats work on d/d ele but I think thats about it.
Its a nice concept but it just doesnt fulfill the requirements of a frontliner.

It’s a freaking tank, of course it would be useless to utilize the damage stats on a hammer with a staff! But GS guardian hurts, and hurts a lot. It’s simply a different playstyle – yours is viable, but it’s not about celestial gear, and it’s definitely not the only viable approach to the guardian.
With Celestial Gear I’m trying to make somewhat of a front-line Bruiser(not a Bunker who can’t do any damage), able to take hits(of course not as good as your Bunker) but still dealing meaningful damage.
And if I would have to judge your build, I would definitely swap that Battle Presence out for Pure of Voice. No much point in having AOE regeneration when you’re using the ability to clear conditions – and it’s not working when used. Also, as a big support/tank player, I think you should consider using the tome of courage for all the goodies.
Offtop, do you do enough damage to tag the champions for loot or players for kills with this build?

Arlette.9684:

K U T M.4539:

Because it can’t

I think I lost the string of your thoughts

Not surprising, I did too.

I ran full celestial on my Guard before I retired him and his JI+Hammer 3/2/5 GS 2/5/3/5 combo did about 11000 – 12000 damage, my dodge rolls healed for just under 1250 with 25 stacks of healing power. I ran a 10/0/30/25/5 build or a 0/15/30/20/5 build. They both worked very well with celestial.

Your approach is incorrect, you can’t take the traits out to do the comparison, Traits are integral part of your build. You can’t look at them as two separate things. Traits compliment your gear and vice versa. Everyone has a different approach as to where they want to start (traits or gear) but in the end you have to look at both when making a decision of whether your build will work or not.

About the might stack sigils he’s right, pick either one and stick with it. I’d prolly go with the on swap ones.

Well thats what my guildies and I run on all our guardians.
We take on ~60 every night with our ~25. Must be doing something right.
Not saying there arent other ways of playing guardian, just what I think is more efficient.
/shrug

Stand The Wall.6987:

Well thats what my guildies and I run on all our guardians.
We take on ~60 every night with our ~25. Must be doing something right.
Not saying there arent other ways of playing guardian, just what I think is more efficient.
/shrug

You must be fighting those NNK zerglings, lol

Arlette.9684:

Your approach is incorrect, you can’t take the traits out to do the comparison, Traits are integral part of your build. You can’t look at them as two separate things. Traits compliment your gear and vice versa. Everyone has a different approach as to where they want to start (traits or gear) but in the end you have to look at both when making a decision of whether your build will work or not.

About the might stack sigils he’s right, pick either one and stick with it. I’d prolly go with the on swap ones.

An undeniable conclusion, most certainly. I’m glad you’ve changed your point to it and not decided to argue on the basis of pure stats(meanwhile counting healing power, damage % increases and condition damage&duration useless).
As for sigils, I honestly don’t know which ones(and in which slots) are better, but there is no drawback of running both. Or actually not running any? And instead getting Energy/Generosity/blablabla?

Stand The Wall.6987:

Well thats what my guildies and I run on all our guardians.
We take on ~60 every night with our ~25. Must be doing something right.
Not saying there arent other ways of playing guardian, just what I think is more efficient.
/shrug

<3 verrrry nice xD! It’s refreshing to feel some approval on my gear choice!

Oh no, I’m suggesting that your decision to look at the two gear sets without the traits was wrong hence the conclusion you chose to draw out of it was also wrong.

Arlette.9684:

Oh no, I’m suggesting that your decision to look at the two gear sets without the traits was wrong hence the conclusion you chose to draw out of it was also wrong.

The difference in traits is minor to one’s notice, the only reason I’ve decided to do that because it is your fancy counting in extra 100 precision from the trait meanwhile completely skipping 20% cooldown reduction as worthless(20% cooldown reduction translates to a very solid damage increase), and skipping zealous blade in calculations as well. That’s arrogant and simply silly. I understand that it can be hard to estimate 20% cooldown reduction. But I would say it’s about 10% damage increase in DPS overall without counting any other utilities that come with abilities, obviously(increase in those is obviously 25%, at least if you are using them on cooldown).

Evalia.7103:

I understand that it can be hard to estimate 20% cooldown reduction. But I would say it’s about 10% damage increase in DPS overall

Less than that.

I mourn the loss of spammable aoe blind and vulnerability which gives your group 3 stacks if might.

However the title of this thread is aimed at the gear rather than the spec.
This spec, problems though it has, would be better in zerker gear for pve. Plain and simple.

Bear with me…

I like to open up with a GS as it’s a lot easier to go full offensive at the beginning when your HP is full and get that pressure rolling, If you’re like me you’ll want to swap as soon as you run out of cooldowns on said weapon (GS) swap once, play the cooldowns on your other weapon(s). 10 secs after that you’ll likely be out of cooldowns, if not or you’re in a bad position and you need to dodge roll some and recuperate a bit and are running a more support oriented offset of weapons you’ll still stick with that one for a few more secs at least, swap back and oh look WW has a base cooldown of 10 secs just like your weapon swap. The leap is on 15 secs cooldown untraited, if you didn’t swap immediately, between dodgerolls, repositioning yourself, server delay (even if minimal it’s still there) it will likely be off cooldown, if not it will be pretty kitten close to being off cooldown (1-2 secs). Binding Blade is still on CD (base cooldown of 30, 24 if traited) you rotate your cooldowns till you run out again and swap yet again to your support weapon set (I’m saying support since compared to GS’s all out offense everything else is support pretty much). Basically rinse and repeat the first swap, swap back and here is the tricky part if you traited binding blade will be either off CD right there or be 1-2 secs away in worst case scenario, while otherwise if not traited you’ll have it at the end of your rotation right before you swap back to your support weapon set again.

So in other words, the only real benefit to it would be that you’ll have that binding blade at the beginning of your rotation and not at the end of it (which is again highly dependent on how much you waited before you swap back to the greatsword in the two off weapon swaps. However since you’re so keen on damage, WW and the Leap will still be available to you both times so that damage decrease you’re talking about is just not going to happen.

the 10/5/30/5/20 build that is so popular right now and that majority of meditation guardians are using (including me in a certain variation of it in any case) doesn’t have the cooldown trait and yet we do just find I can assure you.

That trait is really awesome if you’re using double two hander (GS/Staff or GS/Hammer or Hammer/Staff) because you get cooldown reduction on both your weapon sets. Again I mentioned it in my very first analisys of the build that it’s a matter of personal preference whether to pick Empowering Might and not Two Handed Mastery, I’d take the extra Might Stacks any day over the cooldown because in PvP, Spike Damage > Sustained damage. But if it’s such a big problem for you, then feel free to pick the Two Handed Mastery.

The fact is even with the talent, the few little improvements I provided you with are improving your dps by quite a bit. If you don’t like to be proven wrong that’s fine, and it won’t ruin my day. I’m trying to help (God knows why I even bother) here by providing you with ways to improve, but your pride is getting the best of you.

Yea I’m arrogant, just not this time.

Pick the improvements, don’t pick them. I’m done replying to this thread. At the end it’s your character and you’ll be playing with it. Have fun!

Two-Handed Mastery is actually kind of overrated, IMO. You don’t need it on GS, as it’s a high burst, low dps rotation weapon that is meant to be swapped to your other set after you put your skills (mainly Whirling Wrath) on CD. If you’re coupling the GS with a Hammer, the trait becomes useful. If you couple the GS with a Staff, the trait becomes okay, but it’s best with Hammer/Staff, IMO, as both weapons fully benefit from the trait.

A lot of burst rotations use Sword/Focus or Mace/Focus right now, however, which lowers the value of the trait, even though your other weapon set will probably be Hammer, GS, or Staff.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS8dnQElGacIuhwHiCJnRBigVFiHcBXPgoIqhA-j0CBYjCyEEQkIBORtIaslhFRjVVjIqWbDzuDwaGzcORG0pWGA9xA-w

If you’re running celestial (especially in solo PvE or WvW), Meditations are your best bet. They give you the highest healing output and the best condition clear and stun breakers out of the utilities while also packing Fury to help make the critical damage on your celestial gear relevant and mobility to keep you in their face.

I swapped the traits around accordingly to (hopefully) maximize the effectiveness of the celestial gear.

Also swapped to Runes of the Traveler because the mobility, boon duration, and small global stat bonuses (especially crit damage) help to complement the gear set and chosen traits.

Interesting build. But what the Healing power is for? You don’t have Selfless Daring and Monk’s Focus scales horribly with healing power. Maybe a knight/zerker mix would be better in that build.