Guild Wars 2

Thanks all for answers. Will start crafting my Cleric’s.

I’m looking to build my full tank/support armor set, so naturally I looked to Clerics, but after examining a few builds and reading forum posts, I saw that most builds tried to maximize Boon Duration. So I was wondering if the Giver’s exotic armor (Toughness, Boon Duration, Healing Power) would be more appropriate than Cleric’s (Healing Power, Power, Toughness). Essentially trading 244 Power for 6% Boon Duration, and swapping the HP and Toughness stats.

Has anyone tried the Giver’s armor and can comment on its effectiveness?

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMcocz0z0MrnomMrnomaxp0VMoaqoz

This is the build I’ve been playing with lately, and have found it very pleasing. Some things work really well, and it powers up Virtue of Justice incredibly, which is amazing in pve as it’s constantly resetting from Renewed Justice. The playstyle differs a bit from yours, as this build benefits from using 1h weapons, specifically sword, as opposed to GS. But I think sword/torch is easily as good as GS, if not better depending on the situation.

I’m using Zerk accessories and Knight armour, although I’m lacking in vitality, so I might be switching some of that soon, to balance a bit better. But anyway, this makes crits huge and very frequent with the Crit Damage increase from Valor/Zerks and Right-Hand Strength (Rad XI)

I’m using Strength runes, but something like Fire/Flame legion also works great if you want to keep up damage. Or you can switch to something more defensive. I take the strength runes to prolong Might and increase damage from Inspired Virtues, but ditching it for Monk’s Focus will increase your survivability a lot, as you can have a lot of heals, or Altruistic Healing if you’re in a group situation.

Anyway. The way it works is, hit VoJ which blinds, burns, grants 3 stacks of might. Then Flashing Blade (sword 2) to initiate.
Blinds inflicts 6 stacks of Vulnerability from Justice is Blind (Rad 5)
10% increase in damage from Fiery Wrath (Zeal II)
5% increase from gaining strength and activating runes (Virt 5)
10% increase from Radiant Power because of conditions (Rad 25)
And 5% damage increase from Powerful Blades for choosing sword. (Rad X)

So altogether that’s 36% damage increase from the get go. This sets you up for some pretty good burst, and as already stated, Guards have pretty good sustained damage. Especially because most of these things are always active. It’s pretty rare that you don’t have might and/or your target isn’t burning, right?

Still pretty tough by using Valor, but I do advise some Vitality if you’re attempting the harder dungeons and don’t have someone doing heaps of condition removal, because there isn’t as much as in this build. In Lion’s Arch using my sword/torch, my stats are:
Attack: 2961
Crit: 69% (reads 54, but Right Hand Mastery is not displayed in tool tip) and 61 Damage
Armour: 2,745
Health: 11,055

So as you can see my armor is fine, but I probably should switch some precision to vitality as I’m pretty glassy atm. Especially as I can get my crit % even high through a perception sigil.

As for utility skills, I just put what I use for sPvP/tPvP because it’s good for chasing people down. But you can really put whatever you prefer. Switch Meditation Mastery for Purity for cond. removal, or Mace of Justice when using a mace in tankier situations etc. And I use Shelter to activate Might of the Protector (Valor 25) which is great when a warrior opens up with Hundred Blades or you’re in a big group of trash mobs. Your might just jumps up. But I’m always changing utilities.

I haven’t been using it for long, and came up with it myself and I don’t know if it or something similar has been all over the forums or not. So let me know what you think?

Same again. Seems like a whole bunch of people are in the very large boat as us. Hopefully we will get something in good faith. But on the bright side, there’s a lot more rares/exotics/precursors in the game no, so prices should drop!