Guild Wars 2

nice. quick follow-up question re: BP. so essentially, nearby allies more or less “have” VoR and all added effects as well? i.e. can only assume, if i activate it, then they lose the passive as well?

and i was waiting to see if they’d add healing power to ascended trinkets. but i guess no luck for now. : /// i’ve never really bothered with ascended yet so far either. gonna take a further wait and see approach.

slightly related, wanted to add i finally switched to pretty much almost full clerics and the difference IS rather noticeable. not saying it won’t work without full cleric’s, but it does make a difference. will slowly be working to max out the set now.

akamon.2769:

nice. quick follow-up question re: BP. so essentially, nearby allies more or less “have” VoR and all added effects as well? i.e. can only assume, if i activate it, then they lose the passive as well?

and i was waiting to see if they’d add healing power to ascended trinkets. but i guess no luck for now. : /// i’ve never really bothered with ascended yet so far either. gonna take a further wait and see approach.

slightly related, wanted to add i finally switched to pretty much almost full clerics and the difference IS rather noticeable. not saying it won’t work without full cleric’s, but it does make a difference. will slowly be working to max out the set now.

It’s even more powerful than before in all regards-the passive effect remains even after you use VoR, staying true to the “Battle Presence” name. A heaven-sent for those who love playing and/or role-playing support characters (still using the trait since patch, and quite gladly so.)

And yes, I will wait and see, for what’s the point of spending Laurels on gear I won’t use? Might as well get something else more useful and see how they implement the remainder of missing Ascended gear stat sets.

woah, the passive stays on even after activation? does this only apply to allies? even then, that brings BP to another level for me. i do love playing a supportive character as best as i can. often roaming in small groups more than not recently and can be useful. will have to try it out.

am looking fwd to the ascended gear being further fleshed out. but until then.

akamon.2769:

woah, the passive stays on even after activation? does this only apply to allies?

If you use it you stop getting the regen effect until it recharges, but yes, the folks around you still benefit constantly.

I just want to say that, for the rings, I use Lunaria and Solaria. Works very well tbh.

Solid build, tested it out (just salvaged my cleric set the day before I saw the thread and had to craft a new set …) and am very happy with its performance. I actually like the lower health pool, its pretty depressing when you hit your heal and only see 1/4 of your health bar filled when your sporting higher vit. Only issue is, I have no monk runes, using dwayna for the time being, unless there a better suggestion.

Ty for sharing, been looking for a build like this.

Started trying to use this build on my recently 80 Guardian – I only have 2 exotic armours, Shoulder + Leggings, both are Apothecary’s rather than Cleric’s Dungeon Armour gives less of a choice in stats that way.
I have full Magi Accessories, Amulet, Rings, Backpiece etc., and my Chest piece is only a rare; I should have an exotic one by tomorrow; what I’ll say is that Sigils of Energy are dam well expensive! I have barely anything left after gettin this much armour

It works very well at even this stage, despite being a novice at both Guardian and this build, I managed to win a 3vs1 with it, even with less than perfect gear, which I was proud of, also bested and defeated a Backstab thief who kept tryin to burst me down love the build so far!

What I’d like to ask is if Apothecary’s is suitable, or if I need to save up for Proper Cleric’s; so far I’ve been fine, the only real differences are the Power vs Precision, of which I think the latter is okay, because I get Vigor a lot more often with a higher crit rate, and then there’s Toughness vs Vitality. Does it make a massive difference? As far as I can tell, the only difference is higher health, and that Vit is better for condition damage than Toughness, which holds up better against direct damage, and makes your heals look more effective

Do you guys think I need to change it, or not? If so I will just have to look through and see if I can possibly muster enough for the Sigils along with the new set.

Cleric>Apothecary for his build, the reason is, Apothecary has no power, just condition. So while Apothecary would increase your burns, your weapon attack damage would be pretty poor. As far as healing and toughness, both armor will be equal, so I guess you could use Apothecary, the only thing that would suffer is your damage.

I’m a bit confused about the precision you mention, Apothecary does not have precision.

@Immolator – i am a huge crit fan, but this build virtually has no crit chance at all, so i completely gave that up and tried to focus more on power in order to do dmg. and vigor is good when you get it but again due to low crit chance, that’s why energy sigils are almost a must for this build. you can also look into endurance regen food.

i had a mix of soldier’s (PVT), magi and cleric’s and now slowly moving towards strictly cleric’s. the added vitality was nice from magi’s but the precision wasn’t enough to make a notable difference so just ended up being a “wasted stat”.

vitality vs toughness. i feel toughness should be held slightly higher in regards to this build. toughness might not deal with condition dmg etc but with high healing, you’re ideally able to outheal the dmg you’re taking, so like you entioned, a small health pool is not that bad in this case. though i’d try to balance it a bit. i’m sticking with one piece of soldier’s gear at the moment for the little health buff. and power and toughness is always welcome, without giving up too much healing power. in essence, the high toughness allows you to take more direct dmg, which as a Guard, i feel i take a lot as well. so add that with high healing, and a smaller healthpool, you’re more able to play effectively.

Rhogall.4179:

I just want to say that, for the rings, I use Lunaria and Solaria. Works very well tbh.

Too weighed down with other useless stats, and the healing power loss is too large for what’s left on the rings to cover for the loss of other important stats. It’s my opinion that, if one were to use Ascended rings with this build, they should definitely stick to PTV until ANet (hopefully) gives us Cleric’s ascended items.

Immolator.5640:

What I’d like to ask is if Apothecary’s is suitable, or if I need to save up for Proper Cleric’s

The condition damage on Apothecary’s is pretty much useless to this build. In addition, both you and your retaliation are going to hit like paper bags without any power. So yes, you should try to get Cleric’s.

Okay I completely messed that up, whenever I said Apothecary’s, I meant Magi’s heheh

lol makes more sense now. that being said, again, i feel power and toughness are better stats for this build.

though some have mentioned before they play with a mix of some magi’s and worked out okay for them.

Critting with no power won’t really do that much good. Vigor uptime should be high enough with a 5 second ICD on the trait and the sheer number of attacks we put out (at least one is bound to crit per 5 seconds).

Retaliation also won’t benefit at all from the precision, and that’s actually quite a bit of our damage right there.

just another note – for the above reasons Chris mentions above, i also use sharpening stones instead of maintenance oils (which is what i usually use since all my other builds are more or less crit focused).

btw I guess the cleric armor takes a while to get… so meanwhile, with my new level 80 armor, what kind of armor/weapon I should aim to, something that I can get quite fast, in order to be able to wait for the cleric armor…

Rare Cleric’s shouldn’t be too expensive. You can try to get by with Soldier’s from karma if you absolutely can’t afford Cleric’s right now though.

This is not really a problem of “money” but more of “time”, as I’ll make my own cleric armor, I’ll not buy it, so I need a bit of time to get my armorsmith to 400 (I’m at 325 right now), then I’ll have to farm for the mats.

Where do I get this soldier armor?

Thanks

Karma vendors in Orr, or through dungeons.

I took your build and adapted it slightly so its not copying, been using it for about 3 weeks now.

But I have to say this build is AWSOME!!!! and can survive incredible things, swapping out the clerics accessories for ascendant soldiers has certainly pushed the bar up.
At first I was kind of disappointed with only doing like 2-3k bursting (on the learning curve), but upon the frequency and the addition of burning blocks, perma retaliation and the incredible rolling 1.5k heals we are freaking unstoppable, not had a one shot incident since using it.

My only concern is the worry of a nerf, but highly doubt it as upon a lucky chance of messing up concentration of hitting shelter or another utility at the wrong moment or forgetting to frequently dodge roll I MIGHT die lol

Thank you Christos de Soufre, and everyone else that posted input on this thread

I vote a sticky tbh and surprised it hasn’t been already +1

Glad you like the build, although it’s already sort of eating nerfs in the form of Cleric’s being omitted entirely from Ascended gear. It’s not a huge deal now, but it will be in the future when more of the set is available if there still aren’t any Cleric’s options.

well actually I feel as though using the soldiers Ascended rings has actually balanced the build out a little better for me at least in terms of not enough damage taken and done, I still have clerics weapons and probably will not even attempt to change. But as you say I’m a little bit unsure of what to expect when I get the soldiers amulet, my healing power might take a turn for the worst.
Still its an awesome build and the gear/traits and everything else synergies almost perfectly, its only down to your own reactions to do the rest

Also looking at a shortish period before I get my 1st legendary torn between sunrise and bolt, not liking the fact of them not being clerics stats either lol

I agree about the rings balancing it out, but the amulet will be too much healing loss for my taste. So…I won’t be bothering with it.

And that’s my gripe with legendaries as well. Fortunately, you can xmute them and maintain Legendary status. However, I’ll need to see some dev confirmation that transmuted legendaries will be eligible for the Ascended upgrade when the time comes.

Also unsure if I can put up with the “Sunrise of Energy” thing.

Well it does say in the latest patch notes:
Transmuting weapons now preserves the higher rarity of the two items.

Still it seems people are very unsure that this is the case and are scared to proceed xmuting and if they will auto upgrade????

Yeah its kinda dumb how it doesn’t say “Sunrise of Strength” I mean why the name change with the change of the sigil.

I highly doubt we will be left behind in the ascended armour as in no clerics, they have been trying to push more people to use healing/clerics to some what of a failure.
I do truly hope they sort out the ascended gear, there are few armour titles none existent.

Oh yeah forgot to ask are you still using mango pies? or have found a better alternative?

I have seen some of your movies and i noticed that sometimes you clear two or three conditions without using virtue of resolve, and there is no soldier runes in your build, how do you remove the conditions ?

shouts my friend shouts, pure of voice converts a condition into a boon

Lalangamena.3694:

I have seen some of your movies and i noticed that sometimes you clear two or three conditions without using virtue of resolve, and there is no soldier runes in your build, how do you remove the conditions ?

Pure of Voice and the focus 4 skill.

hi all,

I am currently using the AH build, but definitely want to try this build out. With limited gold fund and Karma, how much would this build suffer if I use scepter / shield instead of sword / focus?

Not much. You’d just lose a little damage and condition removal, but you’d gain some additional defense and range.

Okay after indebting myself to one of my Guild officers, I’ve got pretty much everything down, or to a decent level, Cept I will need some AC runs to get my runes of the monk, of which I only have one.

The count so far is Cleric’s helm, gloves, chest, Magi’s Shoulders, feet, leggings, all Magi jewellery and back, but I’m gonna get the armour part of that sorted out soon. I have my exotic weaps sorted except sigil of Life.

I haven’t had a chance to properly play with the new stuff I got, due to one of the conditions being that I lead Guild WvW Operations then and there, but it’s a small price to pay because I am really enthusiastic about this build. I guess i’ll have to figure it out tomorrow, probably in the JP or just roaming, to find small scale combat to test in. It’s not optimal all Cleric’s and runes, but it’s all exotic and most all didn’t cost me, so I will bide my time with that till I can muster enough to replace it.

i started off with a mix like that Immolator – cleric’s magi’s and even some soldier’s. jewelry was all cleric’s though. and of course, cleric weapons make a big difference. also, i originally ran water x2, monk x2 and major sanctuary x2 for 40% boon duration but after more testing, i eventually went the route of monk3 and water3. you should be okay as well and at least get the overall feel of the build. and then you can keep working towards cleric’s or keep mixing and matching according to your own tastes.

and in WvW, there’s nothing like following a commander that never goes down. ; ))) i’d surely follow you to the ends of the earth heh.

I tried this last night, is insane you just won’t die, period. I had trouble in WvW tho some eles specced for healing are impossible to kill.

Yes you definitely will come across the odd well played player that you just cannot kill, but on the upside if your good aswell, they can’t kill you, so best to just leave them or tempt them into the brutal force of your teams zerg/groups, or have ready your sheild near a cliff :P

Margicar.8694:

Yes you definitely will come across the odd well played player that you just cannot kill, but on the upside if your good aswell, they can’t kill you, so best to just leave them or tempt them into the brutal force of your teams zerg/groups, or have ready your sheild near a cliff :P

Yep, I fought the ele and another guardian for about 10 minutes before they killed me, and only because i made a few back to back mistakes.

Love this build, Christos! I’m hesitant to change the weapons though because I feel all three (Greatsword, Sword, Focus) really create a strong backbone for this build. Greatsword to leap, spin-to-win, retaliation (which you’ve said on multiple occasions is key to this build) and CC; Sword is great for its teleport and ranged block; and Focus for its condition removal and block. All of these weapons cause Blindness which really appeals to me.

Nevertheless, I really love the Hammer gameplay, especially after watching Oozo’s videos. JI with a ring is just pure fun. If I wanted to swap a Hammer in, I don’t know what I would replace or how to adjust the playstyle accordingly. Any advice? Or should I just leave well enough alone?

You can get away with using a hammer with JI over the third utility slot. I do it sometimes for kicks. I usually replace the GS with it.

I’ve never been able to get 1h sword to work for me, but I absolutely adore using GS + hammer with this build. It’s true that you loose out on some DPS and survivability with this change, but it is soooo much fun. I’m surprised by the number of Guardians that only run GS or only run hammer, and not both. When you jump on somebody with the GS, then switch to the hammer to ring ‘em and ping ’em, it’s almost like cheating because nobody expects to see both 2h weapons on the same character

Bullfrog.1324:

I’ve never been able to get 1h sword to work for me, but I absolutely adore using GS + hammer with this build. It’s true that you loose out on some DPS and survivability with this change, but it is soooo much fun. I’m surprised by the number of Guardians that only run GS or only run hammer, and not both. When you jump on somebody with the GS, then switch to the hammer to ring ‘em and ping ’em, it’s almost like cheating because nobody expects to see both 2h weapons on the same character

good to hear, that’s my plan to use GS and Hammer. But why would you say this build lose survivalbility? Isnt the whole point have more healing power supposed to make u last forever as compared to AH build?

Swapping from sword/focus to Hammer loses two blinds, a condition removal, a teleport, a projectile absorb, and a 3-tick block.

healing with swords adding y’r build to my bookmark now!

just leaving this here

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-amulets-and-ascended-items-overall/page/4#post1342141

Noted. Still no time frame though, so I’m not getting my hopes up at this very moment.

rchu.8945:

good to hear, that’s my plan to use GS and Hammer. But why would you say this build lose survivability? Isn’t the whole point have more healing power supposed to make u last forever as compared to AH build?

I just meant that you lose survivability by taking the hammer instead of the sword/focus that Chris uses. You lose out on the blind and 3-block shield from the focus and you lose the blind and (situational) projectile shield on the sword. You gain two (situational) CC abilities with the hammer, though, as well as a spamable blast finisher. In essence, you’re trading some defensive skills for some CC / damage skills.

The survivability of this build is still much higher than that of the typical AH/MF build (at least in my hands), and as long as the hammer is Cleric’s, you aren’t losing any stats

i love playin with hammer and GS in WvW. it’s a lot of fun. though with this build, i prefer to stick to my hammer + mace/shield combo.

with the hammer, argubly, you’re getting a lot more protection, and a bunch of CC’s to boot which can in turn mitigate dmg to a certain extent. so depends how you utilize the weapon sets and if you do so well enough ; )) a lot of retal (AoE to boot) from using the hammer as well. though one symbol / field depends on finishing your chain attack, hammer #5 Ring of Warding acts as one too. and you trap / keep out enemies in the process of doing so too!

rchu.8945:

Bullfrog.1324:

I’ve never been able to get 1h sword to work for me, but I absolutely adore using GS + hammer with this build. It’s true that you loose out on some DPS and survivability with this change, but it is soooo much fun. I’m surprised by the number of Guardians that only run GS or only run hammer, and not both. When you jump on somebody with the GS, then switch to the hammer to ring ‘em and ping ’em, it’s almost like cheating because nobody expects to see both 2h weapons on the same character

good to hear, that’s my plan to use GS and Hammer. But why would you say this build lose survivalbility? Isnt the whole point have more healing power supposed to make u last forever as compared to AH build?

That’s what I run. Use JI to catch them in the ring, mighty blow, then spin to win.

I have to say that I was all in the AH build, and I loved that setup. When I read this at first I thought to myself “Pfft! This isn’t going to be very good.”

Then I watched the video’s… and my draw dropped.

Then my friend and I theory-crafted around with the core concept of this build, and took it into PVP to do tests against the NPC’s you could fight. Even in PVP, it was still working very…. VERY good!

So I decided to create a 2nd set for myself for the “Healway” build – and even after having all but the Runes of the Monk (which I just now acquired), I took this in to WvW…

I must first say that I absolutely SUCK at WvW. If you think you stink at WvW, trust me, you’re better than me. But anyways I was blown away by how great this worked (and not even fully complete at the time!!) I was able to go and WIN against 1v1, 1v2, and 1v3 (although that was barely), and when there were a few of us against them, we were winning! The only time I fell was when I “tripped” and got lost and accidently ran right into a Zerg coming for us.

TL;DR – At first I didn’t think this build could work – but after actually playing it, I’m beginning to think that this is how a Guardian is supposed to work / feel – much more so over the AH or MF.

Anyone tried this in higher lvl fractals yet? I am getting close having the gold for a second set of armor, and i find this build to be intresting.. in specific i was considering using it with hammer / Mace/focus for 100% uptime regen + prot, seeing as poster was ticking at about 500 per tick with healing power, in theory it sounds like it could be a very powerful combo for pve content.

It works well in high level fractals, but it still stops mattering how tough you are at really high levels (you get hit, you go down).

Hey Christos,

As many have said, thanks for this build. Its really impressive and you are a skilled player =). I’ve been following it since you first posted it.

I wanted to pick your brain a little.

I played with the numbers and I came up with a gear setup that I think utilizes the stats better and wanted your thoughts on it.

Soldier’s Helm/Legs/Back/Rings (Rings, back has Exq Sapphire)
Rest Cleric’s
Same Runes, Sigils, etc

After the mango pie, full sigil of life, and sharpening stone your stats should be:

Attack: 2962 Armor: 2925 HP: 16425 Healing Power: 1353

I know there are players that cannot afford the superior sigil of energy what are your thoughts on these cheaper alternatives:

Sup sigil of leeching
Major sigil of energy

I know both are less effective, but they are much cheaper.

Final, question. If you answered this earlier and I missed it, I apologize. When you run PvE or dungeons do you make any changes, since retal isn’t as effective as it is in WWW?

Thanks =)!

Are the Superior Runes of the Monk able to be substituted with Superior Runes of the Grove? The healing stats seem to be the same.

EDIT: I’m guessing it’s because of the boon duration stacking between the two different sets of runes.