Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I’d like to share and explain my build that I use when I run with a small group. I’m very satisfied with its performance, especially after the changes to sigils and runes. The title of the build is self explanatory: it makes your party stronger, offensive and defensive wise. Feel free to make a comment.

Quick link

Summary

• Priorities: Tankiness -> DPS -> Non-heal Support.
• A lot of condition cleanser, for you and your party.
• A lot of boons for your party, with +30% boon duration from Virtues trait line.

Greatsword and Hammer
You can change either one to Staff, if you prefer; but GS and Hammer makes serious AoE damage. Sure you only have 1 leap and no ranged attacks, but 180 radius around you is a blinding red zone for enemies. 100% Swiftness up-time (Pack runes) does a decent job keeping your enemy close anyway.

Soldier’s Armor and Weapons
Simple, soldier’s has a very good balanced offense/defense.

Knight’s Trinkets
Even though it has balanced offense/defense, soldier’s lacks of precision and too much VIT is wasteful; so we don’t want to go full soldier’s. If you use exotics, use the normal knight’s, but for ascended, I suggest its alternative (PREC, pow, tough).

0/2/0/6/6 Traits

• 2 in Radiance: I like traited Signet of Resolve better than Shelter. The most annoying thing about Shelter is if it gets interrupted, it goes on full cooldown. I also like AoE blind better than Aegis.
• 6 in Honor: This trait line is full of great things, especially its minors (compared to Valor)! PoV is simply perfect for this build.
• 6 in Virtues: Again, the minors in this trait line are great. Virtue of Retribution and capped Retaliation duration stack make Vengeful trait worth the investment. Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage to strengthen your Virtues and extra condition cleanser and boons.

“Hold the Line!”, “Save yourself!”, “Stand Your Ground!” Utility Skills
Since you have invested in condition removals and boon duration, these three shouts are simply the way to go. Having a lot of other condition removals, SY becomes much less dangerous.

• Why not trait consecration and take Purging Flame? You can if you want; but usually small havoc group (at least mine), the members don’t always stay in one place.

Generosity, Purity, Rage, and Bloodlust Sigils
Generosity and Purity on main weapon gives extra self condition removals. They are useful if you get into trouble after pulling conditions using “Save Yourself!”. Rage is a very good sigil for secondary and slow weapon. Once it triggers, your warding becomes much faster and you can quickly switch to GS to spin. Bloodlust is simply for extra damage.

Rune of The Pack
Perfect rune for this build. With +30% boon duration, your party gets up to 65% up-time of might & fury, and 80% up-time of swiftness. That’s a lot extra DPS and movement boost for your party.

Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup and Sharpening Stone
Sharpening Stone is for additional power. Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup is pretty OP in WvW. Just another thing to cleanse conditions.

I will make a list of boon up-time on the next post soon.

Reserved for boon up-time list

might try this out, thanks for the info

I’ve run a similar (but very cheap) build in coordinated WvW zerg groups. I shoot for slightly different priorities:

1) enough healing for ~1k dodgerolls
2) ~ 20% crit to proc vigor on every staff#1 (on average w/ 5 targets)
3) boon duration food for a total of 65% boon duration (not really worried about condi duration in a big group w/ lots of cleanses)

and yes I actually like the hydromancy sigils, they are cheap and very useful on a class with no kitten soft CC

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJAWSlsApXotCxWI8DNBFBl9HS/6xOBLYCXFAA-TlCBABQp8jjnAgg7Pkj6PAcJAcw8TKaaSwE0EKBlRHApA8aZE-w

GreyWraith.8394:

3) boon duration food for a total of 65% boon duration (not really worried about condi duration in a big group w/ lots of cleanses)

Im always worried about conditions since that the weak spot for Guardians. So i personally feel safer with Force of Will instead of Pure of Voice for the extra 3k HP and Lemongrass Soup for the -condi duration. Your boon uptime drops to 45% although thats still sounds pretty awesome.