Guild Wars 2

Just did some playing around with traits in the new dungeon, thought I’d share my findings..

For the record: Full clerics gear, 1 clerics ascended ring, ghastly greatsword of life. traited: 25/15/0/30/0, focus on symbols / vuln / blind

It only heals 25ish per tic. With healing boosted you won’t notice much of a difference.

With skill 5, then skill 2 with a pull mob pull, this will heal you more than Staff’s Empower will on it’s own. It brought me from 1/5th health to almost full and I still did damage / burning / etc AoE. Useful change to the trait.

It still isn’t as easy or generally useful as AH, but it’s an option without traiting into toughness (which, even on a Guard I find almost useless in PvE) Just my 2 cents..

Any others?

What if you combo it with AH on a 20/0/30/20/0 setup?
Something in the lines of
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQFAxkUgyCXFORUpIeAATBGh/1DHSRGC

I found I prefer to run with pure of voice with ZB gain some nice power and can still remove conditions.

Zealous Blade does not scale with healing power at all.
It has a fixed 25 healing pr. swing. I believe it will grant you health for every foe that you strike.

I was thinking about giving the new ZB trait a spin in wvw as soon as i get back home.

20/0/0/30/20 with full clerics might throw in 1 knight piece to get vigor on crit more reliable, boon duration runes. Stronger VoR and omnom pie or mango pie. Will BE interesting to see if ZB is worth the 20 points =P

Laceration.4290:

I was thinking about giving the new ZB trait a spin in wvw as soon as i get back home.

20/0/0/30/20 with full clerics might throw in 1 knight piece to get vigor on crit more reliable, boon duration runes. Stronger VoR and omnom pie or mango pie. Will BE interesting to see if ZB is worth the 20 points =P

I’m working on it… and the answer is: no, it’s not enough for 20 points in zeal tree…
Now i’m reworking on an alternative AH build focused on “strenght in numbers” and “big damage with great resistence” … build is still 0/0/30/30/10 but the equip and trait choice will make the difference

roachsrealm.9284:

(…)
It still isn’t as easy or generally useful as AH, but it’s an option without traiting into toughness (which, even on a Guard I find almost useless in PvE) Just my 2 cents..

Any others?

Useless in everyhing, changed from a bunker(23khealth and 3700 armor and arround 2.9k atack) to zerk/valk 2h guardian now i can win 1vs3, armor in this game is almost useless, and feels like game only have one true build thats is dps or some sorta of high damage carrier.

At this time i feel gw2 mechanics more dumb than any other mmo..

I’ve been using it in sPvP and so far I’ve been pretty surprised at how nice it is. 25hp per hit seems low, but for some reason it seems to work well with more offensive-based builds for a little extra sustain + extra pressure.

I probably wouldn’t ever take it in PvE, but that’s a bit of a different ball game.

As KrisHQ.4719 but some didn’t read or understand, putting on clerics gear or increasing healing power will not improve the heal from zealous blade.

To do that is a waste.

Now take that into consideration if building to use zealous blade, healing power bad, but don’t have heals to keep yourself alive? What else can you use that works well without healing power to increase sustain?

Answer is again AH or MF………

This will provide more consistent healing between the gaps of using meditations with MF or supplement the little heals you get from AH through boon application.

ZB is in a power tree and an offensive trait, they are trying to incentiveise us to go more damage by making that more obtainable. Up to you if you think it matches your playstyle, but it “of course” won’t have the survivability that a more tanking build would have. So don’t get disappointed when you can’t tank things with ZB…because you are using it wrong.

Also as mentioned earlier, it heals 25 for each target struck, so it benefits off AE situations…but diminishes in effect with less targets around.

One other synergy is that Greatsword drops a symbol and we can trait for heals with symbols. You could double up AE healing with ZB and Writ of the Merciful, for some extra staying power.

Again, not a face tanking trait, but can be powerful in burst situations.

@CMF You forgot about something…
yes zealous blade isn’t scaling with healing power.
but our passive health regen do.
so even when we are taking zealous blade cleric’s stat don’t have to be waste
(also we can still have gs build with some boons and healings that scales with healing power)

as for now I see much more synergies that don’t require even one point into that toughness+crit trait tree

I find that it works best to supplement an already DPS-heavy build with ZB to cover your mistakes and when you get hit. It’s especially nice with enlarged symbols and using another symbol-handy weapon like Staff or Mace; you can drop a symbol with those weapons and then immediately swap to Greatsword and reap the HP from it. Pretty neat. The HP is also nothing to sneeze at, you just have to get over the fact that it scales with enemies rather than allies.

Lord Trejgon,
Yes, the other sources of healing increase with healing power, but zealous blade remains the same. It is not worthless per say with healing power, as it supplements your primary forms of healing, but it is not as effective pairing it up with more heal centric builds.

ZB is meant to be an offensive, minimal heal.

By all means, if you find a way to think outside of the box and make it work differently, then I am for it. I love innovation and breaking molds.

Writ of the Merciful – 0.075
Pure of Heart – 0.1
Zealous Blade – 0
Altruistic Healing – 0.01
Monk’s Focus – 0.1
Virtue of Resolve – 0.06
Faithful Strike – 0.18
Regeneration – 0.125
Shield of Absorption – 0.2
Selfless Daring – 1
Sanctuary – 0.05
Empower – 1

The above are the healing power coefficients for each skill. I am unsure if they are out of date now with the new patch as I haven’t read through it all just yet.

So the closer to a whole number, each of those skills get to, the better with healing power they become.

This is not the whole picture though, because you have to think about frequency of use.

You could have a skill that is on a 1:1 ratio with healing power, but you could only use it once every 60 seconds, then have a skill that is only getting 50% of your healing power, but it procs so frequently that it out heals the previous skill.

So experiment away

Great compilation of the coefficients, thank you!

I like the fact that Zealous Blade opens up alternatives to using 30 in Valor. It’s not as powerful as Monk’s Focus while solo or Altruistic Healing with a party, but you only spend 20 points for it (compared to 30) and pick up a considerable damage boost.

you definitely can’t be using Zeaous Blade as a “main” heal (other than 6). it will still offer sustain though.

one thing i’d like to think how it helps us Guards is to learn to play more aggressively and be on the proactive offense. you NEED to hit your targets to get heals. and the more targets you hit with one attack the better. i think it’s good training. being aggressive vs beign passive i want to say is one of the main factors of a win or lose in any given battle.

of course, don’t jump in a large crowd blindly going “WHIIRLLING WRAAAA-” downed. play smart, but aggressively smart. smartly aggressive. caus eif you don’t get your hits in, you don’t get your heals.

which at the end of the day, will only supplement and give you some breathing room.

@CMF thanks thats all I try to do – I rarely base on builds from forums when it comes to gw2 – always experimenting with mine own builds.
I also though lastly about greatsword shouter build based on 20 zeal and 30 virtues. but this is not completed because i’m not pretty sure where place rest points to make it best…

@Lord Trejgon, if by shouter you mean shouts, then i’d imagine at least 10 in Honor would be beneficial for Superior Aria. i might even go full 20 into Honor as well. but it will depend on what’s the goal of your build : ))

CMF.5461:

Writ of the Merciful – 0.075
Pure of Heart – 0.1
Zealous Blade – 0
Altruistic Healing – 0.01
Monk’s Focus – 0.1
Virtue of Resolve – 0.06
Faithful Strike – 0.18
Regeneration – 0.125
Shield of Absorption – 0.2
Selfless Daring – 1
Sanctuary – 0.05
Empower – 1

The above are the healing power coefficients for each skill.

Just would like to know how / where you got this list? Where does one find other coefficients?

They can be usually found in the skill descriptions on the wiki.

FWIW I changed-up from a standard AH build to a 20/25/0/20/5 build and am finding it to be a blast. Mostly knights gear/4xDivinity+2xEarth runes give enough protection with hammer if I need it. Zealous GS and omnom pies offer enough heals in-between heal skill. My damage is so much higher it makes PVE seriously fun!

CMF.5461:

…
Pure of Heart – 0.1
…

The above are the healing power coefficients for each skill. I am unsure if they are out of date now with the new patch as I haven’t read through it all just yet.

Pure of Heart is 0.25 now, so with 1k HP, you get about 900 healing every time Aegis breaks

stevelim.1649:

CMF.5461:

Writ of the Merciful – 0.075
Pure of Heart – 0.1
Zealous Blade – 0
Altruistic Healing – 0.01
Monk’s Focus – 0.1
Virtue of Resolve – 0.06
Faithful Strike – 0.18
Regeneration – 0.125
Shield of Absorption – 0.2
Selfless Daring – 1
Sanctuary – 0.05
Empower – 1

The above are the healing power coefficients for each skill.

Just would like to know how / where you got this list? Where does one find other coefficients?

You can solve for healing coefficients by:

Find the base healing number without any healing power equipped by taking damage and then healing yourself with that skill. The tooltips are sometimes incorrect or misleading. Then, figure out how much it heals with some arbitrary amount of healing power, whatever you have handy. Set up an equation like this:

(Amount healed with healing power)=(healed without healing power)*(coefficient)

So say it’s like this:

1100=1000 * (coefficient)

Solve for coefficient:

1100/1000=(coefficient)

Which gives you 1.1. You would call this a coefficient of .1, since the whole number 1 comes from the base healing in addition to your bonus healing from your healing power. You can do this for any healing skill.

Edited to clarify: The use of this number is that you can then multiply your healing power times the coefficient to then figure out how much additional healing you’ll do for a given skill, by saying (total healing)=(base healing) + (healing power * coefficient)

The 25 healing from this DOES scale, but it does not scale much at all. If you get over 1500 in healing power you will heal for a mind-boggling 26 per hit. It can be boosted, but it is not really worth it.

Not that healing power is by any means useless; there are simply better applications.

It’s kind of strange actually, I don’t have any healing power beyond like 5 points in Honor and I was getting ticks of 27 off it.

thats odd.. my healing power was 3 points shy of 1700 at one point (life stacks and cons), and I was getting 26.. What was your power or overall attack at? It may dual scale the same way life stealing does now too.

Uhhh, I guess whatever 2200 power + 25 might stacks is.

What do you mean about life stealing dual scaling?

Perhaps it’s scaling works off a different stat though I can’t think of a logical reason why.

Scaling off something other than healing power is not unheard of, as the DoT from Binding Blades scales off condition damage and not power.

I just did a test with 30 in each trait line while using Zealous Blades, and none of them increased healing over 25 per a hit with Great Sword.

So if it does scale with a stat, it needs to be over 300 at least.

Interested to hear more, but it sounds like a lot of stats just to get 1-2 points of healing. Not worth it at initial observation unless it has some synergies we can pull off from that much stacking of a stat.

I think someone mentioned before that the healing it does is affected by the WvW bonus. Would explain why it heals different amounts for some people.

Oh! That makes perfect sense. I had that during the middle of the week so we had a decent bonus.

KrisHQ.4719:

Zealous Blade does not scale with healing power at all.
It has a fixed 25 healing pr. swing. I believe it will grant you health for every foe that you strike.

It also applies to the symbol hits, and things like smite condition. Provided you have the GS out when you use it I believe though.

akamon.2769:

@Lord Trejgon, if by shouter you mean shouts, then i’d imagine at least 10 in Honor would be beneficial for Superior Aria. i might even go full 20 into Honor as well. but it will depend on what’s the goal of your build : ))

yep I mean shouts.
as for now I’m testing variant with all 20 points packed into honor.
so current version is something like:
20,0,0,20,30 but I don’t remember what was name or number of traits – burning on aegis removal, new version of Zealous blade, Superior aria, not sure what to take for second major trait in honor, ground targeting for consecrations, resolve have condi removal on active, and passive justice is burning AoE instead of target.
weapons are gs and shield+scepter skilla are “stand your ground”, “hold the line”, wall of reflection, healing is shelter and elite is tome of wrath.
the goal is somekind of aggresive first-line supporter, with shouts and some counter to glass canons shooters.
but that is still under testing – if I find my build usefull and find some way to make a vid (need free program to capture it that wouldn’t lower my fps) I’ll post it