Guild Wars 2

Hey guys so here is my sword and board defensive support/bunker build.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.2.3.5.19.16.21.33.16.16.29.48.30.32.50.8.8.8.78.0.0.93.98.0.110.114.117.0.0.0.0.0.0.15.25.30.0.0

The Skills:
I grab mending for the healing which I feel is pretty par for the course at this point.

Balanced Stance is there to provide a much needed stun break as well as provide stability when you can’t waste time with stomps.

Kick and Bull’s Charge provide some great cc as well as a gap closer.

Signet of Rage rounds it out by providing some extra dps and mobility. This can be swapped out for Battle Standard if you want to play more of a support role.

The Traits:
I grab 15 in Strength for some extra vitality from my major traits, as well as endurance restore on my Burst Skills

25 in Arms provide the dps backbone when using Sword/Shield combo.
I grab increased bleed duration as well as 10% increased crit with sword (useful for getting bleed stacks up)

The 30 Points in Defense was a tough choice but ultimately the relatively high uptime of retaliation from the grandmaster trait made it worth it. This build has high power (discussed in gearing) and retaliation on what can be as high as 33% uptime benefits greatly.

I also grab Missile Deflection and Shield Mastery to round out the defensive capabilities of this build.

Gearing:
I grab a soldier’s amulet for this build for the condition/flat damage as well as the survivability it provides.

The rune of dwayna was also a tough decision, but it keeps you going longer as I have had experience where there is limited downtime defending a point. This helps with that.

The bloodlust rune on the offhand is to give you an advantage as you win the early 1v1s in a match, while the earth rune gives almost 100% chance on crit to bleed.

Usage:
I sit in sword and board a lot of time with this, only switching to mace/mace when i desperately need the extra cc. The raw damage from having high power as well as condition damage gives decent, sustained dps. You won’t, however, be blowing people up anytime soon.

I rotate cc pretty regularly although kick takes a bit of getting used to in order to land. I save Shield Stance while waiting for cd’s to come up or to screw over any ranged dps who decides to pop quickness.

Any suggestions and/or criticism is more than welcome. This is just a build that I have found to be fun to play and hopefully has a place in higher tier tpvp someday.

So I think everyone agrees that something needs to be done with Ranger Pets in order to fix them. There are responsiveness, AI, pathing, and survivability issues. The first three are all bug fixes that will come in time but I think there is an interesting solution available for survivability.

I love the flavor that pets give, and that they contribute to our damage in a meaningful way even untraited. I think that combining ranger and pet health pools could make pets useful without being a hindrance.

There would have to, obviously, be a reduction in overall health of the two. The shared health, however, would make pets incredibly durable but useful. The next step would be up to Anet as well. AoE and cleave damage would become an immediate issue if this were the case. This leaves 1 of 2 solutions.

The first is pet immunity to aoe/cleave damage. This is a bit of a slippery slope in that it could make rangers or their pets too tanky.

The other solution is making rangers and pets immune from each taking damage from the same source (i.e. each taking damage from a single greatsword swing).

This solution, coupled with AI fixes, could make the Ranger pet a fun and fluid mechanic that helps distinguish the class.

Let me know what you think! Constructive criticism always appreciated.