Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, I’m planning to run a zerg support build with hammer/staff and shouts/WoR. Is it better to go for ptv or clerics? Is empowering might + AH the best for survivability or are there any better alternatives?

PTV or cleric works well in zerg. Empowering might isn’t the best way to survive because you’re left standing on one spot, but is a good way to buff your team when you stack again before pushing. Ah is really good for zerg versus zerg since it heals you, and your main way to heal your team is your mighty blow on waterfields, but you won’t really need to have it.

I’d go with 0/0/30/30/10 – a trusted yet oldy staff guardian build.

Another is 0/0/20/30/20 – so you can get the cleansing from virtues.

The TPVP bunker cleric build is also popular now – 0/0/10/30/30

And if you’re still confused, go with the good ol – 0/5/30/30/5

I’m not sure about the level of wvw on your server or the commanders you follow (as i assume you aren’t in a guild). Depending on whether you are restacking and healing or not you’ll have to adjust your build.

In general pvt for wvw is a nice balance between survivability and damage that allows for a lot of mistake, particularly if you use AH. Clerics usually doesn’t provide you with enough vitality to let you survive a good burst by any coordinated group. The maximum i’d go for is food + trinkets, which still gives you ~1000 hp.

To reliably proc EM you’d need a crit chance of 30%+. This would mean something along the lines of food + knight’s trinkets. A combination of EM and clerics will leave you very squishy and too low power.

Thanks for the responses! The zergs on my server are mainly pugs, so when the commander does a flank maybe 50% will be left behind for the slaughter. Will ptv with zerker trinkets be too squishy for small zergvzergs? The zergs on my current server fluctuates between 20-30.

Sovereign.1093:

PTV or cleric works well in zerg. Empowering might isn’t the best way to survive because you’re left standing on one spot, but is a good way to buff your team when you stack again before pushing. Ah is really good for zerg versus zerg since it heals you, and your main way to heal your team is your mighty blow on waterfields, but you won’t really need to have it.

I’d go with 0/0/30/30/10 – a trusted yet oldy staff guardian build.

Another is 0/0/20/30/20 – so you can get the cleansing from virtues.

The TPVP bunker cleric build is also popular now – 0/0/10/30/30

And if you’re still confused, go with the good ol – 0/5/30/30/5

Since when do you have to stand in one spot to use empowering might..? o_O

Vincent Von Demetri.1450:

Sovereign.1093:

PTV or cleric works well in zerg. Empowering might isn’t the best way to survive because you’re left standing on one spot, but is a good way to buff your team when you stack again before pushing. Ah is really good for zerg versus zerg since it heals you, and your main way to heal your team is your mighty blow on waterfields, but you won’t really need to have it.

I’d go with 0/0/30/30/10 – a trusted yet oldy staff guardian build.

Another is 0/0/20/30/20 – so you can get the cleansing from virtues.

The TPVP bunker cleric build is also popular now – 0/0/10/30/30

And if you’re still confused, go with the good ol – 0/5/30/30/5

Since when do you have to stand in one spot to use empowering might..? o_O

It’s empower, which adds might stacks, and we’re talking about guardian. It’s the staff 4 skill. ^.^

If you can move while casting it besides having meditations, it’s pretty nice.

just run the typical 0/5/30/30/5 build with solder armour and knight trinkets. you will have decent power with 25 stack of bloodlust, decent crit chance for empowering might and high amount of armour 3100+ with 19k hp

Soldier armor/celesitial trinkets. Pot of lemongrass poultry/Maintenance Oils. 0/0/30/30/10 : IV-VI-XI/II-IX-XI/VI. Swap Strength in Numbers for Purity if someone else is covering it. GS(soldier)/Staff(cleric). Shelter, Purging Flames, Hold The Line, Stand Your Ground, Tome of Courage. Runes of the Soldier. Bloodlust stacks, and then either sigils of energy or stamina/resto. I prefer Energy.

That’s the build that the vast majority of higher-end WvW and specifically GvG guilds run for almost every single guard. With some more optimized gear and minor modifications, of course.

Just a few comments:

Crit only needs to hover around 25%-30% because of perma-fury. Don’t over-invest. You want close to 20k HP as a guardian. It really helps, and most people underestimate how important vitality is. Healing power is also important, albeit not too much. 500-600 is perfect, and then 800 or so with staff active.

Empowering Might is wholly underwhelming unless everyone is running it. Since you can only really coordinate this in an organized guild, Two-Handed Mastery is better in most situations.

Swap into staff before popping Tome of Courage.

30-30-10 is the most popular choice but by far not the only one. Since the nerf a lot of people switched to 30-20-20 with purging flames if there is a lot of condition pressure (eb pug zergs are the usual example).
Since he’s a pug he won’t have perma fury. ~30% is still enough to trigger EM reliably with staff and greatsword. [I don’t quite get why the self heal out of em is underwhelming]

Since it hasn’t been suggested yet you should give boon duration runes a try.

Sovereign.1093:

Vincent Von Demetri.1450:

Sovereign.1093:

PTV or cleric works well in zerg. Empowering might isn’t the best way to survive because you’re left standing on one spot, but is a good way to buff your team when you stack again before pushing. Ah is really good for zerg versus zerg since it heals you, and your main way to heal your team is your mighty blow on waterfields, but you won’t really need to have it.

I’d go with 0/0/30/30/10 – a trusted yet oldy staff guardian build.

Another is 0/0/20/30/20 – so you can get the cleansing from virtues.

The TPVP bunker cleric build is also popular now – 0/0/10/30/30

And if you’re still confused, go with the good ol – 0/5/30/30/5

Since when do you have to stand in one spot to use empowering might..? o_O

It’s empower, which adds might stacks, and we’re talking about guardian. It’s the staff 4 skill. ^.^

If you can move while casting it besides having meditations, it’s pretty nice.

The op is talking about empowering might (honor VIII). Is nice combo with AH but not a great source of healing, if you have nice critical chance you can take it. It helps in sustainability.

But anyway AH+empower (staff #4) heals a LOT, you get a AH tick for every might stack on 5 players around you plus yours stacks. With 900+ healing power you get almost 90 per tick. Trust me, you get a LOT of self healing with that in low cd.

Cassiel.8762:

Hi guys, I’m planning to run a zerg support build with hammer/staff and shouts/WoR. Is it better to go for ptv or clerics? Is empowering might + AH the best for survivability or are there any better alternatives?

Hi

As stated above it really depends on your particular group and circumstances. I personally abandoned the most popular builds and switched to 0 0 30 20 20.

I of course run AH, reduced shout and reduced consecration CDs. The 20 points in last trait line is critical as it lets me rock 4x group stability.

When in group fights, pop F3 (stability 1), then stand your ground, then Renewed Focus, then F3 again, then Stand your Ground Again.

Utility wise I like runing with Signet of Judgement, Stand Your Ground, Wall of Reflection and Renewed Focus, although I switch them out sometimes I use Hold the Line in place of WoR or purging Flames or Hallowed Ground in place of the signet or WoR, it depends.

Gear Wise I run armor 5x PTV with 1x Clerics and 6x melandru runes
Rings are clerics, accessories are celestial, backpiece is PTV, amulet is knights

Weapons are PTV, mainly staff / hammer, but occasionally I go staff/ GS or staff / mace focus (note, mace focus are clerics instead of PTV)

With this set-up I end up with around 550ish healing, 3300-3500 armor, and around 21-23k health, as I do have some misc jewelry and pieces I switch to adjust my stats a bit. Exception is my mace / focus which I use when we are short on healing. With appropriate sigils and a single trait adjustment (the +250 healing on mace) I can get my healing to about 1100-1200 range at cost of about 150ish armor and 1.5k health.

If our group has difficulties with conditions, then I will switch to GS as my off weapon, as whirl finisher on light fields = cleansing bolts, and heres a kicker for you, WOr is a long lasting easy to see light field, and your GS 2 is an almost spammable whirl finisher. If you have 2-3 guards doing this along with couple other people in your group you will not have any troubles with conditions.

Overall, I would say survivability = priority 1
group Stability = priority 2
cleansing = priority 3
healing = priority 4

this may be different in your group if you lack eles or your rangers and engis dont use and blast water fields.

Also, you may or may not need just a little bit of precision, I personally love using Sigils of Generosity which have a 60% chance to proc per crit. So they proc good even at low crit rates, but in my set up I do need just a little bit of precision, hence the 1 knights and clestial jewelry and I do switch out of them, do not always run them. Your set-up may vary.

urieldhynne.2743:

Sovereign.1093:

Vincent Von Demetri.1450:

Sovereign.1093:

PTV or cleric works well in zerg. Empowering might isn’t the best way to survive because you’re left standing on one spot, but is a good way to buff your team when you stack again before pushing. Ah is really good for zerg versus zerg since it heals you, and your main way to heal your team is your mighty blow on waterfields, but you won’t really need to have it.

I’d go with 0/0/30/30/10 – a trusted yet oldy staff guardian build.

Another is 0/0/20/30/20 – so you can get the cleansing from virtues.

The TPVP bunker cleric build is also popular now – 0/0/10/30/30

And if you’re still confused, go with the good ol – 0/5/30/30/5

Since when do you have to stand in one spot to use empowering might..? o_O

It’s empower, which adds might stacks, and we’re talking about guardian. It’s the staff 4 skill. ^.^

If you can move while casting it besides having meditations, it’s pretty nice.

The op is talking about empowering might (honor VIII). Is nice combo with AH but not a great source of healing, if you have nice critical chance you can take it. It helps in sustainability.

But anyway AH+empower (staff #4) heals a LOT, you get a AH tick for every might stack on 5 players around you plus yours stacks. With 900+ healing power you get almost 90 per tick. Trust me, you get a LOT of self healing with that in low cd.

Ah, I stand corrected.

^.^

I am running Magi mixed with knights for armor and gear using ruby orbs and zerker weapons (GS and Hammer) on a 0/10/30/30/0 for a meditation build, everyone around me gets ~150 health per second, rolls heal for a ton and I hit like a small truck. Shouts only work for 5 people and AH stacks HORRIBLY with healing power (almost as bad as regeneration). Crit chance is 60ish , crit damage is almost 80.

Cleric’s gear is going to have more healing power, which is going to be better if you’re trying to offer support like you said you were.

Purging Flames is bugged to only 1 condi removed. So, until it’s fixed, 30/30/10 with purging flames + SYG + HTL is better.

IMO a zerg guardian must have not less than 800 healing power.

urieldhynne.2743:

IMO a zerg guardian must have not less than 800 healing power.

With a Cleric’s staff equipped, I agree. Otherwise, no. You have to think in terms of what exactly benefits most from Healing Power. In general play with a DPS weapon set, here the main healing coefficients you run into:

Virture of Resolve – 0.75 (heal) 0.06 (passive regen)
Shelter – 0.70
Regeneration – 0.125
Heal Area (Tome of Courage) – 0.50
Altruistic Healing – 0.01
Writ of the Merciful (far better options, but some use it) – 0.075
Selfless Daring (dodge roll heal) – 1.0

If we were to look at the different cases, an increase of 200 | 300 healing power would net you:

Virtue of Resolve – 150 (heal) 12 (passive regen) | 225 (heal) 18 (passive regen)
Shelter – 140 | 210
Regeneration – 25 | 37.5
Heal Area (Tome of Courage) – 100 | 150
Altruistic Healing – 2 | 3
Writ of the Merciful – 15 | 22.5
Selfless Daring – 200 | 300

Keep in mind that you’re losing 200-300 points into a combination of Vitality, Toughness, Power, Precision, and Crit Damage to obtain these extra 200 points. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it to lose those kind of stats to get the above numbers if you’re sitting in a DPS set. However, the perfect place to put in that extra oomph of Healing Power is in your defensive set, which should be staff. You’re not going to be bombing with your staff out; you’ll be focusing on regrouping and movement . So, as I said, since the role of the weaponset isn’t to provide DPS, it’s the perfect place to spec for Healing Power. Keep in mind, as well, that Tome of Courage adopts the stats of whichever weapon you have active. So, before you pop into Tome, swap to staff to get the extra benefits.

I guess that most of this is personal opinion and would depend on the end-user and the comp they usually play in. However, I think that it’s important to realize that guardians are expected, and fully capable of, participating in a hybrid DPS role. They’re also an integral part of bombs, especially with GS2 doing high damage with GS4 providing retal coverage and ticking damage. None of that is trivial and you’d be mistaken to not take advantage of it.

To close this wall of text, I think I’ll just say that, while Healing Power is definitely a core guardian functionality, it’s important to weigh its advantages against losses in other areas.

Alright, here’s the build I made today.
Dont want to make a separate thread.
Any fixes/suggestions?
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgCCHHSNEfIFh9BBWLATBGz41DKmwIC-jEzAYLBZCCA9BiIAn9KiGbtlIasNgqsxUlAqTUlris/IoA-w

I’ll probably use Traveler runes once I get money.

Just use a staff, no armor needed, if u dont want to show off, try the max vit u can get.

Nick.6972:

Alright, here’s the build I made today.
Dont want to make a separate thread.
Any fixes/suggestions?
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgCCHHSNEfIFh9BBWLATBGz41DKmwIC-jEzAYLBZCCA9BiIAn9KiGbtlIasNgqsxUlAqTUlris/IoA-w

I’ll probably use Traveler runes once I get money.

This build is fine if already have frontliners, if you are runing DPS / support from mid or rear. However, it lacks group stability, so even while in the backlines you still have to have another guard to pick up the slack and provide it for your group.

As a frontliner, it lacks armor, lacks health, and lacks mobility. You have zero swiftness generation and zero stability, even self. You will even get owned by necros and hammer warriors in 1v1 and small group encounters.

Renewed focus is also kinda waste because your baseline virtues do not give you anything extra, nor your allies, you are far better off runing a tome.

So, its pretty bad. A mediocre roaming build at best, pretty horrid for organized groups as other guards are necessary to pick up the slack for you.

Tongku.5326:

Nick.6972:

Alright, here’s the build I made today.
Dont want to make a separate thread.
Any fixes/suggestions?
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgCCHHSNEfIFh9BBWLATBGz41DKmwIC-jEzAYLBZCCA9BiIAn9KiGbtlIasNgqsxUlAqTUlris/IoA-w

I’ll probably use Traveler runes once I get money.

This build is fine if already have frontliners, if you are runing DPS / support from mid or rear. However, it lacks group stability, so even while in the backlines you still have to have another guard to pick up the slack and provide it for your group.

As a frontliner, it lacks armor, lacks health, and lacks mobility. You have zero swiftness generation and zero stability, even self. You will even get owned by necros and hammer warriors in 1v1 and small group encounters.

Renewed focus is also kinda waste because your baseline virtues do not give you anything extra, nor your allies, you are far better off runing a tome.

So, its pretty bad. A mediocre roaming build at best, pretty horrid for organized groups as other guards are necessary to pick up the slack for you.

Yeah, tested it for 2 hours. It was terrible. Going back to Healway.