Showing Posts For Lucavern.6829:
If shoulder. . . Possibly fully upgraded fractal capacitor. Posting from phone and dont have link, sorry.
Honestly, it is still in the game. I can specc my Mesmer to facetank most mobs. The trinity is gone in terms of class roles. It is not gone in terms of gameplay.
I can specc my Mesmer to be a healer. Or a tank. Or a supporter. Or a damage dealer.
If you want to play as a trinity, get some players, coordinate setups and builds and you will be fine.I’ve noticed this too. Guardians and Warriors seem to attract a lot of aggro, at least when I run Explorables and Fractals. It’s egregious enough that one starts to think why they bothered to remove only a third of the trinity (healing) and taunt skills. It was probably a last minute design choice, but such things seem to be the defacto approach to development at Arenanet.
I personally find myself torn regarding the Trinity. As a defensive Guardian, I can openly state that I notice elements of being a “Tank”. Nearly without fail, if I switch to my mace/shield setup I end up with mob aggro while I wear it. Ran a fractals group last night and we were making jokes the entire time about how I was tanking everything, even though there aren’t supposed to be tanks.
Personally, because of the mob mechanics that I have noticed, I find myself wishing they had added a taunt mechanic to the game, at least for the Guardian (Warrior possibly as well). If I am already able to jump in a fight with mace/shield and have the mobs attention for the majority of a fight, I feel that there should be a way for me to regain attention when the boss randomly decided to go smack the squishier classes instead.
I’ve been retooling my guardian almost daily for the past week or two, trying to find a combination that works for me, and think I finally found it. I had tried the shout build, but I found myself doing a poor job remembering to activate them even when I didn’t need the healing for the boons. I had also originally started with a symbol build which was really nice, but didn’t do the damage I was looking to be able to do.
Current build is a Meditation build that I am loving.
0/15/30/20/5
Radiance (15) -
II – Signet Mastery – Signets recharge 20% faster
Valor (30) –
I – Meditation Mastery – Meditations recharge 20% faster
VI – Retributive Armor – 5% of toughness given to precision
XII – Monk’s Focus – Meditations heal
Honor (20) –
III – Writ of Exaltation – Larger Symbols
VIII – Empowering Might – Crits apply might for 5s to allies
Gear:
Mace/Shield + Hammer
Soldier weapons/armor, knights jewelry.
Sigil of Accuracy on Shield and Hammer. Sigil of Life on Mace.
6x Runes of Lyssa
Skill Bar –
Signet of Resolve
Signet of Judgement
Smite Condition
Wall of Reflection
Renewed Focus
Rough Stats (at work and don’t remember exact stats)
2.8k attack
46% Crit (41% shown on sheet, bonus 5% sigil)/37% Crit Damage
3.1k armor
16,725 Health/275 Healing
This build works great anywhere I’ve taken it so far. Plenty of healing, even with the low healing power score. Multiple forms of Condi Removal to clear different severities of pressure. Armor/Health pool that allows you to not worry being on the front lines.
I agree that re-entering after death would cause problems. Easy fix though – if fractal is in progress, new players enter completely dead at the current checkpoint. Group can make way to them to raise, or when next full wipe they can stand back up with everyone else. Problem solved.
Guild just tried it, and the patrols seemed to constantly spawn, even while prior group was out. Engaging first golem boss didn’t stop the patrol spawns.
I kind of expected that was the case. I still stand by shields having a block, however.
From some tests that I ran, it appears that the Shield of Absorbtion does not actually count the absorbed projectiles as blocks. I tested this with the Valor Grandmaster 25pt trait Might of the Protector which is supposed to give stacks of Might every time you block an attack. I had tried against multiple different types of projectile classes, but I was never able to see the buff proc from shield of absorbtion.
What really boggles my mind is from the Wiki, it states “The shield is an off-hand only weapon and can be crafted by a weaponsmith. Shields always grant at least one skill that blocks attacks.” I was under the impression that most of the wiki was hosted/built by ANet themselves, but could be mistaken. If that is infact the case. . . there is some serious misinformation going on. As it sits right now, guardian shield does not actually have any block ability.
I would fully support switching shield/focus #5 abilities as the change feels it would bring the offhands more in-line with their theme. Also, the Focus #5 Shield of Wrath animation even involves multiple shields. The description of Shield of Wrath (again from the wiki) -Create a shield to block the next three attacks. If the shield is not destroyed, it explodes and damages nearby foes.
Been running a Mace/Shield + Hammer build lately focusing on tanking/healing. http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcccMM0M0MRFbVMRFbV9MGxGVscabms. I’ve looked into the shout builds, but I just can’t get into that build for whatever reason. So this is my next-best solution to what I want to do.
Currently using full Soldier armor/weapons, and cleric jewelry. Sigil of Water on both mace/hammer and Sigil of Life on shield. I change the WoR and Merc. Intervention as needed depending on the situation.
I am using 6 runes of the Dolyak right now, but I am starting to wonder if they might be overkill. The 6bonus regen is only ~31 hp, and with the weapon symbols and Absolute Resolution I’m not thinking that little heal is making a big difference.
Current stats:
Power 1739 / Attack 2850
Precision 930 / Crit 5%
Toughness 1948 / Armor 3159/3310 (Hammer/Mace-Shield)
Vitality 1652 / Health 18,892
Healing 795
Some rune options I had thought of were Forge, Dwayna, or Divinity. I would be up to mix/match runes if a combination would produce some interesting results.
Any advice is welcome.