Guild Wars 2

Title pretty much says it all. I’m looking to make a support/heal/anti-cc/anti-condition for large scale (zerg) WvW combat. I’m not looking for a high dps build, or a roaming build, or a build that’s necessarily good in 1v1.

It’s pretty much down to either a support guardian (honor/valor/virtues) or water elementalist. What do you think?

Title pretty much says it all. I’m looking to make a support/heal/anti-cc/anti-condition for large scale (zerg) WvW combat. I’m not looking for a high dps build, or a roaming build, or a build that’s necessarily good in 1v1.

It’s pretty much down to either a support guardian (honor/valor/virtues) or water elementalist. What do you think?

Note: I also posted this in the Elementalist forum, because I want to get opinions from players of both classes. Please be as honest as you can.

Both going to work!

1, Guardian: I usually run 00644 GS/Hammer(or staff) or 00266 Staff/Hammer (sometimes mace+focus). My gear is soldiers/knights/zerker. In the case of 00266 I aim for around 800 healing power with some clerics-

We all know the strength of a support guardian. Condi remove/stability/CC and heals. Gua gives offensive and defensive sustain. Building a full defensive guardian (nomad/cleric with mace/focus and staff) is a waste of a group spot. You cannot even oneshot critters with this.

2, Elementalist: I usually run 02066 or 06026 LightningRod builds. Soldier/Zerker gear. Healing power is a wasted stat on a support staff elementalist. Most of the zerg’s heal comes from blasting water field which is unaffected by the ele’s healing power. The aoe cleanse is good but you rarely are in close range to your group. So most of the ele’s support comes from fields and hard CC. Offensive and defensive burst. Building a full defensive ele (nomad/cleric with water runes/sigils) is a waste of a group spot too. Go for power/pack or strength runes and beat the crap out of somebody. Use your water fields to heal up between skirmishes/pushes otherwise land your LR stuns or meteors on the enemy.

The main difference is the relatively short cooldown on the guardian’s heal skills like symbols and staff#2. Hell even my 00644 soldier/zerker symbols are healing for 122 a second.

Aggrostemma.1703:

Go for power/pack or strength runes and beat the crap out of somebody.

LetsGoGiants.4962:

I’m not looking for a high dps build

@Aggro, what you’re describing seems to be a glass staff ele rather than a water ele.

@OP, the biggest difference between them is their range. Support eles will stay at long range while support guardians will stay mid range or close range depending on their build (or long range with a tome, but that’s situational).
There are also a other differences of course. For example, guardians generally have more protective abilities (like reflection) while eles have more CC.

Aggrostemma.1703:

Healing power is a wasted stat on a support staff elementalist.

Healing power is a wasted stat in general. It’s only good on very niche builds like regen ranger, and even then the scaling is too weak for it to be worth anything more than a secondary stat.

@Fashion Mage: 02066 IS a water elementalist. Even the Lightning Rod version can be build with 6 or 4 in water. Since we agreed that healing power is usually a wasted stat I was so brave to suggest Soldier/Zerker gear instead. It isn’t a glass build. It’s called “bunker staff” for a reason (I mean the 02066 not the 06062). Water/Monk/whatever runes can work but once you headed down the Power line Strength/Pack gives more oomph.

Agreed on the range statement.

@Black Box: Healer guardian is one of the builds what can use SOME healing power… 300 comes from trait. Put on something like 3-4 hundreds more and you are ready to go. I only suggest this if your havock/zerg seriously lacks WaterFields though. Properly laying down and blasting these fields means more heal than an Asuran amount of Cleric gear…

Aggrostemma.1703:

@Black Box: Healer guardian is one of the builds what can use SOME healing power… 300 comes from trait. Put on something like 3-4 hundreds more and you are ready to go. I only suggest this if your havock/zerg seriously lacks WaterFields though. Properly laying down and blasting these fields means more heal than an Asuran amount of Cleric gear…

The only thing guardian has that has any respectable amount of scaling with healing power is the dodge heal.

But then lol that got nerfed, and so did vigor on crit. Honor is a good traitline, but people don’t take it for the 300 healing power. That part of it is nearly worthless.

@Black Box: you are right. If the OP wants something Healer guardian the aim should be something like 1k heal on a dodge roll. Support this with healing symbols, staff and there you go. This is far enough.