Guild Wars 2

You might be able to get away with different weapons, but you’ll be lacking in the damage department. The sigils of energy are an absolute requirement for this build though.

In other news, I’m enjoying having a little extra health and power through my soldier’s rings, but I’m not so sure I like the huge dip that comes with replacing cleric’s weapons. It’s not going to be fun when I finally pick up Sunrise. I might actually give up the legendary status in exchange for cleric’s stats and just keep the skin. Ergh..

Christos de Soufre.3802:

You might be able to get away with different weapons, but you’ll be lacking in the damage department. The sigils of energy are an absolute requirement for this build though.

In other news, I’m enjoying having a little extra health and power through my soldier’s rings, but I’m not so sure I like the huge dip that comes with replacing cleric’s weapons. It’s not going to be fun when I finally pick up Sunrise. I might actually give up the legendary status in exchange for cleric’s stats and just keep the skin. Ergh..

Yeah, I figured the sigils would be necessary, but I could only afford one set.

Fortunately, any legendary matters I can think of (character selection screen, achievement, etc.) only count equipping the weapon. If you do that, the weapon is soulbound and counts toward everything that counts such things. Afterward, you can transmute it however you like with no ill effects, though people will be confused when you link it in the chat window.

i was gonna actually ask, since you mentioned switching up the cleric’s weapons cause i feel they make up a large chunk of HP for this build i feel.

at this point in time, legendaries are more for the skins. until and if they do implement keeping them best in slot in terms of stats when they introduce ascended gear as they’ve mentioned.

and just to mention @Roy, i’m using hammer and mace + shield or mace + focus now. the build still works lovely, and while i get even more healing with the mace, i find myself having to take longer to kill enemies (as opposed to using the sword) and it then becomes a battle of who can outlast who, and that gives you less room for error – i.e. one small mix up and you could lose more health than you’re able to heal fast enough to stay on top and win.

@Chris, also, someone mentioned this in WvW when you are going form place to place, do you switch to staff to move around faster? i’ve just gotten used to it it gets rough when you get caught by another roamer and you still have the staff equipped. though i guess with your GS, you can leap quite often.

I pretty much never switch to staff in WvW. I get around with GS leap, Sword teleport, SY and sometimes Retreat.

with my previous build, with high enough crit, the staff could hit hard too, but now it doesn’t do a whole lot lol. gonna have to get used to not having it around ; ))

I’ll be swapping from Bloodlust back to Life when I replace my weapons. The additional power from the Ascended items + infusions will cover most of the loss of a full stack of power, and a high enough stack of Life will cut the healing power loss of trading out rings and weapons in half.

Hopefully the additional toughness and vitality also help to counteract the loss.

akamon.2769:

i was gonna actually ask, since you mentioned switching up the cleric’s weapons cause i feel they make up a large chunk of HP for this build i feel.

at this point in time, legendaries are more for the skins. until and if they do implement keeping them best in slot in terms of stats when they introduce ascended gear as they’ve mentioned.

and just to mention @Roy, i’m using hammer and mace + shield or mace + focus now. the build still works lovely, and while i get even more healing with the mace, i find myself having to take longer to kill enemies (as opposed to using the sword) and it then becomes a battle of who can outlast who, and that gives you less room for error – i.e. one small mix up and you could lose more health than you’re able to heal fast enough to stay on top and win.

@Chris, also, someone mentioned this in WvW when you are going form place to place, do you switch to staff to move around faster? i’ve just gotten used to it it gets rough when you get caught by another roamer and you still have the staff equipped. though i guess with your GS, you can leap quite often.

Thanks! That’s what I suspected, but it’s good to hear it. My wife usually plays alongside me with an elementalist, necromancer, or ranger, so additional damage isn’t too hard to come by.

Regarding the staff in WvW, I do use it in my (albeit infrequent) WvW play with my current build, but more for midline support than just for speed. Empower = 12 stacks of Might for 10(+) out of 20 seconds on all nearby allies, plus a nice heal. Line of Warding is cool, too, when defenders race for the door of a tower.
However, note that the “20% faster recharge of two-handed weapon skills” doesn’t seem to apply to the staff, as far as I can tell. With the Honor III and X traits (not a part of this build, but handy with my current staff/hammer setup), Symbol of Swiftness is a nice AoE heal. So, while those traits aren’t a part of this build, they could be swapped in without reallocating points. And if you’re swapping out traits for a change of pace, you could also consider the two consecration traits in the Virtues line and throw up Walls of Reflection and Sanctuaries on the tower walls—that always leads to a good time for me.

But, you know… Don’t tell anyone, I don’t want to get nerfed.

I believe a good alternative for the runes going without monks is 4 superior runes of altruism and 2 runes of water. You keep the boon duration and trade 50 healing for a 15 sec aoe 3 stack of might when you use a healing skill.

I’m one who uses the staff to move around in WvW. The good news is that it does offer group and self speed and a slight AoE attack vs. zergs or control points. In fact, staff 1 with a couple other guardians defending a keep at doors is pretty amazing. The only problem is finding another guadian with a staff However, beyond that I don’t really use it much unless I’ve not swapped it out for something more dps oriented. Well, outside Line of Warding I guess and sometimes #2 (that used to pass through everything in a straight line, after patch it seems to do I’m not sure what now).

Sword/focus, 2 handed greatsword, and scepter/shield are my mainstay in the end. In fact if I’m in a group then the greatsword never gets used. If I’m solo or duo then the greatsword is probably used. Shield and scepter are good with range and pushing people back. This may change though as I gain experience with this build. I’m still thinking my dps should be better with either weapon set (sword/focus or greatsword).

Worst part of having all these weapons is that I’m usually stuck with something I didn’t want outside in WvW and need to get away quick or just die When I have equiped the right stuff then at times I’m actually amazed at what the build does and can only imagine what it does for people that actually key bind and know how to play. This build I’ve actually pulled off some pretty epic fights compared to my previous ones.

Hi there!

My guardian is almost ready to be geared, but I have a question. How would a trait path of 0,0,30,20,20 work? I would think AH would work very well with this build.

Any insight would be great, thank you

I’ve tried variations of 0/0/30/x/x, but never liked them as much as 0/10/30/30. I’m just not a big fan of AH considering how much passive healing, boon duration, and condition removal you have to give up for it.

@Chris – sounds like a good swap with the sigil of life and ascended items. in theory it sounds decent to me. curious to see how it works out! i wouldn’t mind trying for some ascended items but for the life of me, my set up sure loves to DC whenever i step into the fracs

@Roy – ha, we’ll keep it on the downlow. the staff definitely has it’s uses. once i stood behind a gate defending (just two of us), spamming #123 and the occasiional#4 when it ran o ut, and 7 – 8 bags just popped up beside me after a while (why people don’t move, i don’t know why). though with this build, i feel the staff isn’t nearly as effective. and weird that 2hm trait doesn’t count for the staff? i’ll have a check too.

had time to jump into WvW again last night and i think i enjoy my hammer + mace/shield set up. the control/knockbacks/area denial work great. occasionalyl i switched it up with scepter/shield as well for even more control and dmg increase. more often than not, i felt i was able to push enemy lines further than when i was in knight’s gear/AH build. but then the lack of mobility might be an issue, so i have to be more mindful of where i’m standing.

definitely love the flexibility of being able to switch up the trait lines – there are great things in the virtues line! so having a ton of fun being able to experiment with them. agree with wall defending.D

@Crapgame – i would love to run with a few other staff Guardian. lol think what a group could do? hmm maybe something is in order for me to organize on our server. but most of my buddies who play WvW are anything BUT a Guard. O___o

i know what you mean, getting stuck outside when you happen to run into another roamer or small zerg and you don’t have your combat weapons of choice equipped. heh. same here, and i feel we can only get better with this build the more we practice!

@Ozoug – AH might work, but i think AH benefits more from higher crit chance as you can utilize those small heals even more. but that’s just me. like Chris mentioned, it’s a give and take but i’ve heard of other guards using close to full healing gear and playing AH as well.

Nice video. I enjoyed the build but I can’t stop thinking about those 10 points in Valor. Don’t you feel a bit squishy? I mean, I can’t conceive a build without at least 20 points on it. Not saying you’re wrong. You definitely have more experience than me, but tell me about your tanking capabilities.
I’m asking, becouse I’ve always wanted a healing build. The first gear (rare) I bought at 80 was Cleric’s, but I couldn’t make it work. Also, how does that shout build work for small combats, like 2×2 or 2×4 (2 on your side)?

Orson.3265:

Nice video. I enjoyed the build but I can’t stop thinking about those 10 points in Valor. Don’t you feel a bit squishy? I mean, I can’t conceive a build without at least 20 points on it. Not saying you’re wrong. You definitely have more experience than me, but tell me about your tanking capabilities.
I’m asking, becouse I’ve always wanted a healing build. The first gear (rare) I bought at 80 was Cleric’s, but I couldn’t make it work. Also, how does that shout build work for small combats, like 2×2 or 2×4 (2 on your side)?

I don’t feel the least bit squishy. The primary reason I don’t take points out of anything else for more toughness (even though I’d love some more toughness) is because I’ll have to lose healing power, boon duration, faster virtue recharge, health, and/or a useful minor trait in exchange for a relatively useless one (Courageous Return). And while I wouldn’t mind having Purity in addition to burn blocks, I’m unwilling to give up a stronger resolve that also removes conditions OR a 3 second stability and shorter ICD on the passive VoC.

The shouts work about as well as you’d imagine, I guess. It’s fairly consistent regen and protection uptime for yourself and a decent boost to survivability for your allies. SY will sap conditions from your allies to you, which you can consider a blessing or a curse. It’s easy enough for me to get rid of conditions in a group (light fields help), so it’s not that huge of a deal to me. Stand Your Ground helps to secure finishes when you’re outnumbered, etc.

This build carries a metric kittenton of blocks, blinds, and “OH kitten” buttons as well (Shelter, RF, high-powered virtues), so that helps.

Edit: I’m going to dabble with 0/0/20/20/30 and 0/0/30/20/20 just to see, but I’m almost positive I’ll hate 30/20/20. Not sure about 20/20/30.

the “tankiness” of this build comes in two forms from my own understanding:

• 1) The toughness from your gear – in general i go for the minor/major traits down any given line, and the stats increased i see as bonus (it was hard for me to give up valor as well, but i’m really enjoying this build and you do have to stay on your toes more)
• 2) With the enhanced healing, your constant regen, passive healing, boon duration helps you out a lot more than it may show on paper (think, one dodge roll can heal a chunky amount, not to mention it’s an AoE heal as well)

others and OP, feel free to correct me. that’s my take on it after experimenting for more than a few rounds in high level PvE and WvW : ))

regarding shouts, in general it’s quite effective on yourself already, and again, having allies by your side is a bonus (at least, this build doesn’t rely on at least 4 allies around you as heavily as AH does to be effective)

I’ve found x/30/20/20 to be fairly effective, and it may be slightly better suited to medium-large group or zerg combat, depending on how you play. However, this pros and cons list I’ve made, in addition to personal preference, is making me second guess any considerations I may have of switching to an AH build…

Pros of x/30/20/20 vs x/10/30/30
Higher self-heals while in groups via AH
200 more toughness (yay!)
Passive condition removal (1/10 sec)
Might for 7 seconds for each block
20% more Crit Dmg

Cons of x/30/20/20 vs x/10/30/30
Loss of 10% boon duration across the board
Loss of 1,000 health and 100 healing power
Virtues recharge 10% slower (myriad of cons in this bit alone)
- Less consistent might and retaliation from virtues
- Less consistent burning from VoJ
- Longer CD “OH kitten” buttons (VoR mostly)
- Much longer VoC cooldown if using it for clutch stability
Courageous Return is borderline useless
20% more Crit Dmg is borderline useless to this build
Loss of 1% bonus damage per boon (small, I know)
Loss of 10% bonus damage with <full Endurance
Loss of condition removal/extra boon per shout
- It’s only about 50% effective with HTL and SY, but…still

I think the worst part of switching out of x/10/30/30 is that you have to choose EITHER 25% stronger + 3 condition removal Resolve OR an additional free block per minute plus clutch stability (SO useful) in the Virtues line, as opposed to just having both. Losing 100 healing power also hurts your dodge roll heals quite a bit if you’re starting to put on ascended gear and therefore are losing healing power already. This build relies quite a bit on those dodge heals for both survival and team support, so…

Edit: I’m still considering a 0/0/20/20/30 build.

Pros of x/20/20/30 vs x/10/30/30
100 more toughness (yay!)
You get both burn blocks AND passive condition removal
10% more Crit Dmg

Cons of x/20/20/30 vs x/10/30/30
1,000 less health and 100 less healing power
Loss of more on-demand condition removal (sort of)
Loss of 10% bonus damage with <full Endurance
Courageous Return is sooo lackluster…

I completed my set for this build yesterday and doing quite good after needing some time of getting used to it (no more “passive” heals as with AH and movement skills on #3 for GS and #2 for Sword is a bit irritating at the start).

However, i would like to somehow get 5 points in Radiance into this build as i really learned to love the blind on F1. Whether i need to deny a big hit or to protect a stomp, i always had a blind on a short cd i could rely on.

/edit: I’m also getting some swap weapons for my second set as sword is not very usable for our group raids (we usually charge into the enemy and stop on the other side) due to the selfroot on #3. I think i will go with mace for raids and scepter for sieges.

Build is not cookie cutter. It requires skill to operate. Nice build

Kyzen.7452:

Going to try this set up out with 0/0/20/30/20 you should also use Superior Sharpening Stone it stacks with your nourishment

Gain power equal to 6% of your toughness
Gain power equal to 4% of your vitality

Wasn’t there one of those that was bugged? I remember that one of them said “power” but instead increased Healing Power. They may have fixed it, though. If not, that might still be good.

If you want one that increases Healing Power there’s Mango-Saffron Ice Cream.

Setis.4390:

If you want one that increases Healing Power there’s Mango-Saffron Ice Cream.

Yeah, but that doesn’t come with the endurance regen.

If you’re going to sacrifice endurance, you have lots of options to choose from, giving you Vitality, Precision, Condition Damage, or condition removal as a bonus.

Yea i quite like the endurance food. Works quite well with this build and I feel gives me more room to play with for my sigils.

akamon.2769:

and weird that 2hm trait doesn’t count for the staff? i’ll have a check too.

Never mind, I just checked again, and it looks like they fixed that bug. I don’t know when that happened; I checked it within a month of launch, so it’s been a while since I tested it.

How do you feel the reduced duration on buffs effects this build?

Some of the strongest points of this build are its regeneration, protection, and retaliation uptimes. Lower boon duration can mean the difference between a win or loss.

I’m currently using Chocolate Omnomberry Cream which gives +20% boon duration, putting me at 80% overall. Additionally, i’m using Superior Sharpening Stones for a bit more damage.

Is it possible to run dungeons effective with this build? Or would an ah build be better?

This build be fine in a dungeon you actually could spam heal a bit faster on your F2 heal.
Damage won’t be great but you will stay alive and buff people around you. So that makes it ok in dungeons.

You’ll do more damage than straight bunker builds, but you certainly won’t do as much as a glass cannon. It’s somewhere in between…but it works. I’m progressing into 20th scale fractals with it, and I plan to go even further.

Skill ceiling is higher with this build than others in PvE due to health pool, so don’t expect to do great in very high-scale fractals if you’re used to face tanking with high vitality builds. Just have AR and don’t get hit by obvious stuff. You can dodge more than 15 times a minute with this build, so you should definitely use that to your advantage.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

You can dodge more than 15 times a minute with this build, so you should definitely use that to your advantage.

I believe you, but I don’t know how to calculate the maximum dodge frequency. Would you mind walking me through the math involved? How much of it comes from those Superior Sigils of Energy, and what other sources contribute to the endurance pool? What have you determined to be the normal endurance regeneration rate?

I ask this mostly to see what I can do to increase my endurance pool, aside from the sigils and the consumables. The sigils are crazy expensive, but they seem like the obvious choice for almost any weapon in almost any decent (interesting) build. And I’m always looking to improve my dodging.

6 dodges a minute from base endurance regen (5% per sec). 6-7 dodges a minute from weapon swaps. And then a minimum of 16 seconds of Vigor a minute via SY.

To be honest, it’s mostly reflex. If I’m fighting a Warrior, I’ll dodge when I see a KS animation. If I’m fighting a Necro that’s already ripped one boon, I’ll start dodging on almost every non-instant spell animation. I dodge when a Mesmer’s clones converge on me or when they blink to me because I know a shatter burst is coming. If I’m fighting a Guardian, I’ll dodge when I see a spin animation start just in case it’s Binding Blade.

Outside of that, I tend to dodge anytime my health deficit is around 1.5-2k in order to stay topped off with Selfless Daring. I don’t have a very calculated method, heh. You just get used to when to dodge and when to let your regen and blocks cover you.

I’m sorry if this has been brought up already, but I was curious your opinion on different rune match-ups. I know you have your set-up of 3 water/3 monk. I was looking at different ones and wondered if changing them slightly would be a worthwhile tradeoff.

Take say 2 major water/2 superior water/ 2 monk for larger boon duration. (+30% duration to +40% going 2/2/2 from runes ). Or the altruism rune set ( full 6 ), would lose boon duration, but gain ( taking into account boon% increase ), 14s might and 7s? ( horrible at math ) fury to make up for some offense per heal. Also gain 15 healing using the full 6 set, just lose 15% boon duration…which comes out to 1s generally on a boon since the game doesn’t round up,lol

All in all, love the build and much appreciation for sharing it; just curious about minor tinkerings you can do with it :P

I’m under the impression that superiors and majors of the same type don’t stack. Can anyone confirm or deny? Either way, it’s not like trying different runes will break the build or make it overpowered. I just really like the 3 water/3 monk setup, so I haven’t considered swapping out of it.

Just thought I would ask as I lack experience with the build itself still, and putting pen to paper only gives you a numerical path to look from. I’m not 100% on the rune combination with 2/2 water,and just heard of someone that used it; haven’t personally tested it myself however on the stacking thing.

I’ll give it a roll probably and see how it goes ( full 6 altruism set ), and let you know; have money I can burn fortunately :P

Unfortunately, I lack that kind of disposable income. And so I ask:
Would a Sigil of Stamina be a decent substitute for a Sigil of Energy? Or would that depend on the speed with which you dispatch your foes?

If you absolutely cannot afford superiors, you may as well go with majors. You won’t be nearly as effective though…

I’ll be using Cleric’s until I pick up my legendary, and it’ll be a while until then. However, even then I might end up transmuting the legendary skin onto Cleric’s stats (horrifying, I know). I’m finding through experimentation that the build relies more on healing power than I had once thought.

At the end of the day, you CAN probably do without the 180 from weapons, but I really don’t want to.

15,725 health without nourishment, and I still haven’t replaced my second ring.

HEEEEEELP !!! (sorry caps)

i love this build , played since lvl 70 , and for 3 weeks of lvl 80 , map completion done etc…. but …. i want more damage how can i increase the damage? 1 friend lvl 23 kills a mob 2 shots with his worrior and i lvl 80 got many more abilities in at least 10 seconds

Warriors have adrenaline skills. My brother’s level 10 warrior melts most mobs in level-appropriate zones. But…that isn’t the point, is it? The most I can suggest is to get a Sigil of Bloodlust on your focus if you don’t already have one. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt horribly to replace your rings with zerker, but that’s about it gear-wise.

A lot of our damage is from retaliation and burn blocks, so we of course won’t kill things quite as fast as certain damage-speced builds.

@Chris – the 15k seems to be a lot “cushiony” pool.

p.s. when will you have a new video out? oops just saw it! Great fight. Really displays the strength of this build andwhat a well-played Guard is capable of (even though I was rooting for Alpaca ;DDDDDD)

@all – just wanted to highlight the effectivenes of boon duration and retaliation, as well as burn on blocks, on this build. was not my most gloriest moment though lol : pp was running solo the other day on WvW and was met by a thief and engi (iirc). since i didn’t have my usual weapon sets and was in a hurry to get somewhere, i chose flight instead of fight. popped retal and/or protection before they laid any hits on me. all the while the thief was chasing me, he ended up downing himself and the engi was put at around half HP and he stopped to revive the thief. while i was able to survive the initial attacks, i just left them there though and took off.

now to get better at when to use my retaliation and keeping a better eye on it. so this build does take practice but really loving it more and more.

I don’t mind the slightly higher health pool considering it also comes with more power and toughness, but I really wouldn’t mind sapphire clone Ascended rings instead…

as of now, we don’t know what other stat combinations ANet has planned for ascended gear yet, right? one can only hope. that would really push this build even further than you’ve got it running.

have you switched your food choices now that you’ve a larger health pool?

I have not. Mango Pie is really strong.

What about some different Sigils for Superior Life? I think its useless, cause it needs realy long time to stack it up to 25 stacks.

What about:

Superior Force (5% more dmg)
Superior Hydromancy (Freeze nearby foes for 3 sec, when swap to this weapon)
Superior Leeching (next attack steels some health, when swap to this weapon)
Superior Battle (3 Stacks Might (20sec), when swap to this weapon)

I use Bloodlust currently to make up for missing damage. I’ll be moving back to Life later when I change to Soldier’s weapons for higher power and slightly more health (unless they give us Ascended sapphire rings). I don’t have a problem getting stacks with a zerg before I end up having to fight people alone or in a small group.

That said, I haven’t even considered trying anything else.

SkipOne.8430:

What about some different Sigils for Superior Life? I think its useless, cause it needs realy long time to stack it up to 25 stacks.

What about:

Superior Force (5% more dmg)
Superior Hydromancy (Freeze nearby foes for 3 sec, when swap to this weapon)
Superior Leeching (next attack steels some health, when swap to this weapon)
Superior Battle (3 Stacks Might (20sec), when swap to this weapon)

Hydromancy, Leeching, and Battle would all conflict with the Sigil of Energy. Having two on-swap sigils will cause only one to work(main-hand) so none of those are options. If you’re looking to up your damage Force or Bloodlust stacks are the only sigils that would work with the build.

Right; so if you don’t feel like building stacks, I suppose you could just go with Force.

I have been curious about a few weapon options in regards to your build Christos:

It would appear (at first glance) that the mace may be a good one hand weapon variation to the sword (doing less damage than the sword I believe) but adding another block option as well as a heal on the third strike (symbol as well but I am unsure of its usefulness outside of PvE).

Do you feel GS and S/F are the best because of their balance within the build? Or do you use them because of the blind capability as well as mobility? Do you think changing the sword for the mace would hamper your capabilities to the point that the healing and blocking added by the mace would lose its value?

i can hopefully shed a little light – i actually use hammer + mace/shield with this build. all weapons cleric’s. and given i’m still practicing and improving on this build, i feel actually way more survivable than any AH build i’ve played. in certain 1v1 or 1v2 situations, the mace does add some needed healing at times, and it by no means does it not deal dmg. surely, not as hard as the sword could be, but it provides good utility. i love mace #3 as well block + AoE? the shield i chose for the knockback on 5. very useful in WvW i feel. but i imagine the mace + focus combo would be extremely tanky as well.

i’ll let Chris answer the questions from his POV as well of course. though one thing, i definitely am not as mobile as using both GS and sword. though i get by and enjoy the “tanky” playstyle of the hammer and mace.