Guild Wars 2

Great post OP. I never looked at it this way. It’s so true, Guardian as a class is based around design trade-offs for “class fantasy” yet all the things it should be doing (i.e Tanking/Healing/Supporting etc) has been given to other classes that would normally have no place doing those things (i.e. Ranger, Mesmer).

Firebrand looks good and is a step in the right direction, but it’s way too clunky. It’s trying to juggle too many mechanics all at once and it’s hard to play it effectively or intuitively.

OP, I think your suggestion for the tomes + thief initiative makes complete sense. IMO tomes shouldn’t replace your weapon skills, they should replace your utility skills, and you should be able to toggle between all three virtues/tomes to fulfill a different supportive role.

That being said, the firebrand looks amazing, but it feels clunky and has zero identity. It’s a miss mash of too many different things and its trying to juggle all these different mechanics at once, which makes it difficult to play.

At this point in time, so close to release, nothing will change though sadly

I think Celestial works really well on Guardian. I’m using Celestial right now for a tanky/dps/jack-of-all trades build that can be used in any type of content. I’ve used Celestial gear to pug fractals all the way up to Tier 4.

This is the build I’m running:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJASRnsABFChddCmCBEEhl4BrKAslqXYLh/zWQe/1/WgA-TBCBABnpEMgLAQe6AwSZApq/YmSvo3fAgHAQAAEgbezAAA-e

This is my secret: I equip Celestial on everything EXCEPT for my Weapons, Amulet, and Backpiece. Those three pieces of gear that are not Celestial can be swapped to give me more stats of a desired role I want to perform. In this case, I run Beserker for a more power-oriented build, but I still have very well-rounded base stats to fall back on.

If I want more Healing Power/Condition Damage/whatever else, I can just stat swap the non-celestial pieces of gear, and I will have a noticeable difference in stats that lets me perform better in a different role.

Another important part of the build is Rune of Exuberance. This adds a bunch more stats to help compensate for Guardians’ low HP, while also boosting DPS stats/survive-ability.

tongpo.3184:

azureai.9764:

My major gripe with the elite specs is they introduce a whole lot of things and synergize with NOTHING. If you liked any aspect of your previous build – congrats! – there’s nothing in the elite tree for you. They should have done a better job integrating traits from other trees into supporting the new shineys from the elite tree.

Thats a balance issue. If they made all the elite specs work with other trees, then the synergy could become so strong that the only viable spec is to have elite spec always activated. So then other builds become obsolete or niche. And I get that there is always a meta spec in every game, but you don’t necessarily always want the elite spec to be the meta build because for the new players that are coming up won’t have access it the entire tree right away. Meaning, they will need to grind to 80, then grind out the elite tree before they can enjoy looking into gearing up for higher end content.

Elite spec should really just be another option for a class to play, not the only option. And if you make them too synergistic, it becomes the only option for which the only option would be to nerf. For which, both those scenarios are bad for the game.

Yes and no. The trees we have now are balanced against one another, even with all the synergies that currently exist. There’s no reason why a new tree couldn’t be made to have more synergy with existing builds and still be balanced.

The important thing is the fact that elite specs introduce a new weapon as well as a new trait tree. I think that’s what makes it harder to balance. If the devs focused on making the elite spec separately from the new weapons, I think it would be better for balance overall. New weapons should be baked into the core class, with existing synergies in mind. Then the elite spec can be free to enhance or introduce a conpletely new playstyle without having to worry about weapon balance + spec balance. All it has to worry about is spec balance.

azureai.9764:

Well, Guardians aren’t supposed to be great at ranged, so…maybe not? When Longbow was first released, I understood LB Guardians to be playing the game on “easy mode”.

My major gripe with the elite specs is they introduce a whole lot of things and synergize with NOTHING. If you liked any aspect of your previous build – congrats! – there’s nothing in the elite tree for you. They should have done a better job integrating traits from other trees into supporting the new shineys from the elite tree.

Yeah I 100% agree with this. There’s nothing in the Elite tree that makes it worth using LB except the one knockback ability. And Scepter gets a CC without having to trait for it.

It’s kind of odd that the Elite Weapon is nowhere near as useful to Guardian as its non-elite counterpart. This is why they should remove Elite Weapons from Elite Specs. If a weapon is added to a class, it should be incorporated into the core class, not the Elite Spec. Because now our Elite Weapon has no synergy with core Guardian, and on top of having no synergy, it does less damage and provides less utility.

I think it does, at least for PvE. I’ve been playing with Scepter/x, and Scepter is just way more useful. It synergizes extremely well with Symbolic Avenger and Writ of Persistence, so you basically have a permanent symbol pumping stacks of Might and increasing your damage by a nice chunk at all times. Granted the enemy needs to be within the symbol, but that’s usually not too big of a deal.

Not only that, but your offhand offers more utility + shorter CD’s when compared to Longbow #4 and #5.

Are there any situations in PvE that Longbow performs better than Scepter/x in terms of damage or utility?

I would personally change Longbow #2 to cast while moving, and reduce the cooldown on Longbow #4 and #5. That would make it on par with Scepter/x IMO.

While I love the idea of Elite Specs changing the way you play your class, i’m not a fan of tying the use of additional weapons to Elite Specs.

For example, my Dragon Hunter has only one trait in the entire tree that has anything to do with the weapon associated with the Elite Spec (Longbow). This makes me feel like my elite weapon is completely arbitrary and has little reason to be associated with the Elite Spec it is tied to. Not only that, but many Dragonhunters don’t even use Longbow anymore (in PVE), opting for Scepter instead as their ranged weapon because it is higher DPS, offers more utility, and it benefits from traits in other trees, as well as “scepter-specific” traits that straight up buff Scepter when it is equipped. If the Longbow was removed from the DH spec tomorrow, the spec would play and function the exact same way as it does today. From a design standpoint, this makes the Longbow feel like an appendage and not really part of the Dragonhunter identity. The longbow is definitely a useful weapon, and it’s still used in PvP, but in terms of design and synergy with the DH skill-tree, there’s not much in the tree that is specific to Longbow except for that one trait.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to remove Longbow and other weapons tied to Elite Specs, and just bake them into the core profession? That way, future and current Elite Specs can be designed to increase the effectiveness of a specific play-style with new skills and abilities, rather than focus on incorporating weapons into their design that more or may not end up being used.

This would accomplish a couple of things:

1. You would still have relative freedom in choosing what weapons you would like to play with, without feeling pigeonholed into one choice. If there is an optimal weapon use, then that is still okay, but the point is that Elite Specs should enhance what you want to do by giving you new skills and abilities, not new weapons. In essence you get to choose “the type of Guardian you want to be” (Damage, Support, etc), and you can mix and match weapons for the right combo that works for you.

2. It makes the “core” class design more versatile. If you don’t want to choose an Elite Spec, you don’t have to, and you would still be able to use the new weapons that your class is able to use. Elite Specs by design are a bump up in power/utility from the “core” class, so giving more options to the “core” class would only be viewed as a positive thing.

3. It gives players choice. If you don’t spec into Dragonhunter and you really want to use a longbow (which is a situation I find myself in very often), then you should be able to. Given how little synergy the Longbow currently has with the DH spec, it would make perfect sense to me to untether the Longbow from the DH spec and bake it into the “core”.

What do you guys think? Am I the only who feels this way? I don’t have an intimate knowledge of other Elite Specs, but do you guys feel like your class would benefit from the type of design change that i’m describing?

Here you go.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Tank-Healing-Guardian-Build/first#post6316398

Honestly, I wish that post could just be stickied. So many people ask if Guardian can tank or heal and I always need to link that thread haha.

Just gunna leave this here. I think you will find everything you’re looking for here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Tank-Healing-Guardian-Build/first#post6316398

Phoenix the One.4071:

Thanks for all the answers
I think I gave up support guard, due to that I feel elementalist are better.
But that celestial stuff looks rather okay.. always thought it was waste.. jack-of-no-trades, master of none, kinda stats.. but it seems rather ok.. would try to bump the power up to 2k if possible though. Not bad.

If you just change your weapon to Berzerker, you will go from 1950 Power —> 2100 Power. A lot of people like to diss non-zerker builds, but Celestial is actually really good for classes like Guardian who are designed to do a little bit of everything. As long as you are okay with not being the best at just one-thing, but still good at everything depending, then this is a great build. You can even tank raids with it, with just a few changes. I’ll link the build that Narc used (he’s in DnT guild) for Vale Guardian fight.

I Highly recommend this build. I used to run full clerics, shout guardian. But honestly, I’m having way more fun with this build, because I can actually do damage and still provide support. Definitely not as much support, but at the end of the day, that kind of support isn’t even that viable in stuff like Fractals. At the higher tier fractals, you kind of need that damage more than the extra healing you get from Clerics.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJASTnsABFChddC2CBEEhlFi6KA+yBA7CWuTQ+4T+pH-TBCBABnpEMgnAgZK/IV9HAuEARv/QeaCSUHAA-e

This is what you want to use for damage/support. Celestial stats are the way to go. They give you a good base to start with, then you can change you Weapons, Back-peice and Amulet to whatever other stats you want to lean towards.

Basically, the best way to support as a guardian is to auto-attack with hammer to give permanent protection, coupled with the Writ of Persistance trait to give healing to everyone in the symbol created from the hammer auto-attack. Then you can take altruistic healing which gives you even more healing for every boon you get. And you get a lot of boons from Empowering Might, Hammer auto-attack, #2 skill on hammer that can blast your auto-attack symbol for retaliation. You will still have decent damage thanks to the well-rounded Celestial stats. Plus don’t forget that we have increased condi damage with Celestial as well, so don’t just look at Power as a gauge for how strong this build is.

If you don’t need the extra healing from Altruistic Healing, take Zeal for more damage traits.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I think i’m going to stay full Celestial, and put zerker’s on my weapon and back-piece, and maybe my amulet/other trinckets. That way I will lean more towards damage, but still have enough stats elsewhere to easily switch into support.

Thanks!

Hey guys,

I’m leveling up my ranger and I want to grab the Druid Elite when I hit 80. I saw the nerf to the base healing amounts of some of their spells, as well as the increases in scaling.

Is there a recommended minimum amount of healing power that I should attain if I want to go Druid? I won’t be playing in raids, mostly open world PVE, maybe some dungeons.

This is an example of the gear setup that i’m planning on getting

I’m looking at a jack of all trades setup, leaning slightly more towards support/healing. I have legendary weapons and back-piece, so i can switch out stats for more DPS if I need to.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

Orminis.6983:

So how is the build after the last patch? I would like to try more supportive play with my DH but I am not sure how to build it.

The patch buffed us with the Condi Cleanse on Virtue of Resolve, and the mace changes.

I personally have been running the Celestial version of this build, and i’ve been going more offensive. This is my current build

It’s just a really good all-rounder build. If you don’t have the money for ascended, just make exotics instead. Ascended isn’t a huge difference, but it definitely helps.

If you need more support, just switch out Zeal and trait into Honor or Virtues. And if you really need the tankyness, go for the cleric’s setup in the OP.

1. Scepter 2 ability gives Might when you stand in the symbol, which seems weird to me because this is a ranged + ground targeted attack. You want to cast this at range and you want to stay at range – this is the reason why we’re using ranged weapons in the first place. So i’m not sure why it’s required of you to walk in your symbol after you’ve cast it on a target, placing yourself back in melee range, in order for you to benefit from the Might stacks. Seems unintuitive to me. My suggestion here would be to provide one stack of Might for every time those fists deal damage to a target. Probably just your main target, not targets in a radius. This way you can cast the symbol, stay ranged, and still get the Might stacks.

2. The reduction in range from 1200 yrds —> 900 yards. Again, doesn’t make sense to me considering this is a ranged weapon. Makes even less sense considering everything I just said about Scepter 2 ability. The reduction to 900 yrds further promotes going closer to melee, which again, doesn’t seem like that’s what I want to be doing with a ranged weapon.

3. The changes to Scepter, IMO, feel like the only real viable “ranged” weapon is the Bow. If I choose a ranged weapon, I shouldn’t feel like my effectiveness is reduced unless I get closer to melee. This seems like bad design, because if you want a real “ranged” weapon, now you need to spec for it. This is something we’ve already been doing, but this change only pigeon-holes us that much more. And it’s not exactly fair because what happens when more Elite-specs are released and we no longer spec into DH. That means we lose our only ranged weapon by default.

The bow doesn’t make any concessions when it comes to being effective at maximum range, so why does the Scepter? Am I the only one who feels this way?

This situation is very similar to the original World Boss farming that was happening close to launch. People were guesting on other servers so they could loot more per character/account or whatever. No one got banned for doing that. Anet simply changed the parameters, made it account bound + daily, and all was good in the world. I foresee a similar outcome to the current AB farm.

Seera.5916:

cletiscake.9173:

AB multi is not an eploit in any sense of the word. It was designed so that you can loot chests from each instance of a map your on. If there were controls set in place that prevented you from doing this, and you happened to find a way around those controls and you used that method to farm several map instances, then THAT would be considered an eploit. No one is getting banned from doing this as it currentyl stands.

The main issue is not really about the economy. It’s about the reward:time ratio. There is currently nothing better in the game than AB multi in terms of rewards:time spent. You can drop in, loot everything you can till the timer runs out, and you can walk away with 20-30g depending on how luck you get with eotics, jewels, and ectos.

The problem is that it’s not balanced. The rewards are hugely disproportionate to the amount of time you put into it. So little time invested for such huge rewards is not what the developers will be okay with in the long run. Because in the long run, yes, you need to worry about the economy. In the beginning, it wasn’t hurting the economy too much. As of today, Ecto prices are 40-45 silver now, down from 50-55 silver. You can bet the AB farm has had something to do with it.

Personally I don’t care what they do with it. I know it’s going to get nerfed somehow. The dev’s simply want a balanced game and this presents imbalance.

Sometimes an exploit involves no extra work. Back I think in late 2012 early 2013 they updated the game and a typo was made on some karma gear that made it really profitable to take it and salvage it or mystic forge it to something else. Those who had purchased a huge number of them were banned. So don’t think that just because the game allows it, that it’s not an exploit.

Granted, I don’t think the current situation is an exploit or one worth banning over if ANet thinks it is an exploit.

Your ezample does not prove what I said is untrue. The gear that had the typo on it was an anamoly. It was different than all the other gear. Players took advantage of something. They were able to get around “the control”, even though it required no effort on their part.

What i’m saying is that there is no obvious control right now for multi-map farming. Players are able to do this freely, and it just so happens that the rewards are so good for doing this, that players are organizing around it. No one is ezploiting anything. If they were ezploting, i’m certain Anet would inform the playerbase that they consider this an ezploit, in which case everyone would stop doing it. If Anet says nothing, then it’s fair game until they say otherwise. And it would be very very very bad PR for Anet to ban the people who are doing this without giving the community an official stance on the matter first.

AB farm is not a bannable offense. We’re just playing the game within the design paramters set by Anet. If they didn’t intend for us to play the game this way (which im sure they didnt) then they will change it.

AB multi is not an eploit in any sense of the word. It was designed so that you can loot chests from each instance of a map your on. If there were controls set in place that prevented you from doing this, and you happened to find a way around those controls and you used that method to farm several map instances, then THAT would be considered an eploit. No one is getting banned from doing this as it currentyl stands.

The main issue is not really about the economy. It’s about the reward:time ratio. There is currently nothing better in the game than AB multi in terms of rewards:time spent. You can drop in, loot everything you can till the timer runs out, and you can walk away with 20-30g depending on how luck you get with eotics, jewels, and ectos.

The problem is that it’s not balanced. The rewards are hugely disproportionate to the amount of time you put into it. So little time invested for such huge rewards is not what the developers will be okay with in the long run. Because in the long run, yes, you need to worry about the economy. In the beginning, it wasn’t hurting the economy too much. As of today, Ecto prices are 40-45 silver now, down from 50-55 silver. You can bet the AB farm has had something to do with it.

Personally I don’t care what they do with it. I know it’s going to get nerfed somehow. The dev’s simply want a balanced game and this presents imbalance.

One change I would make is to remove Stalwart Defender (Master) from the Valor Tree, and move Altruistic Healing (Grandmaster) in its place. Then I would bring Pure of Voice from the Honor Tree, and move it to where Altruistic Healing used to be. This solves a couple of problems.

1. Guardians in the Honor Line very rarely choose Pure of Voice over Writ of Persistence due to the enormous benefit of providing permanent protection via Symbol of Protection+Writ of Persistence.

2. A common complaint is that the Guardian is being outshined by other classes when it comes to providing boons, condi cleanse, and DPS. By moving Pure of Voice in the Valor tree, Guardians who would be taking Pure of Voice normally, can now also benefit from being able to take Writ of Persistence + Pure of Voice + Altruistic Healing to provide strong group support and hopefully solidify Guardians’ role as a bunker/support once more.

Off-topic here. In general, I think Trait Trees are fundamentally flawed due to the placement of traits working against the players’ desire to create specific builds. I love the fact that we are lucky enough to have a skill tree to customize our builds, but sometimes I just wish for Tree Lines to have more passives that give you the ability to do something unique to that Tree, and then all the choices you make in choosing traits simply augment/enhance the way you do things in that Tree. Think of it as every Tree giving you a “job” or a “role”, so to speak. You can have a Tree for “Conditions”, “Power”, “Protection”, “Healing”, and “Virtues”.

For example, a Guardian going into Protection automatically gains the Writ of Persistence ability as a passive. Or a Guardian going into Conditions gains the Amplified Wrath ability as a passive. This way, I think it would be easier to define roles for classes, and it would be much easier to properly create builds that are viable for those roles. I still think it would be cool to be able to choose 3 out of 5 Trees.

Narc from DnT made this video, plus a game-play video of him tanking VG. I don’t raid so I don’t know if people even consider Guards as tanks or not, but it is possible.

bearshaman.3421:

Just looking at ideas for a pve party support/healing build. Any suggestions/links to builds?

Not sure if you’ve seen my post, but this is about as tanky/supportive as a Guardian can get. It’s probably the best and most effective way to truly “tank”, as you are pretty much sacrificing all your personal DPS in favor of being able to stay alive to virtually everything that gets thrown at you.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Tank-Healing-Guardian-Build/first#post6230203

Jack Skywalker.5674:

You could experiment with this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWlsAhqhY/OwRIwPEHJE1dZDgLAvBPXZm3v/LAB-T1RDQBAwEkc0HYJ1fcy+DaUpxrUCGFlZBAOA88zP/8zP3yLv8yLnUARM0C-w

That’s actually a really good looking build stat-wise, but the big issue is that despite your high stats in power and ferocity, you have zero crit-chance and zero healing power. Without crit-chance, you’re never going to take advantage of the high ferocity level, and without Healing Power, you will never be able to heal enough to sustain yourself through damage, even with Symbol of Protection. This build relies on Healing Power just as much as Toughness and Vitality to stay alive.

bearshaman.3421:

Why does the DPS build use Invigorating Bulwark (i think I got the name right, but I’m referring to the mace trait), when you don’t have a mace equipped on that build?

Otherwise very interesting build. I have a thread running that is looking at a similar build.

Oh wow, i didn’t even notice I had a Greatsword slotted instead of Mace/Shield. I fixed it now, and the build should be showing Mace/Shield as a secondary weapon.

I’ve been playing with the DPS version more and more. It’s really fun because full Ascended Celestial allows you to be really flexible. You can trait to play more defensively or offensively depending on what you need, and its pretty sweet. I keep the Cleric/Nomad gear on hand if i’m playing with a not-so-experienced group that needs me to play full support.

Awesome, thanks for the info. I’ll wait to hear what solution Anet has come up with before I purchase any of the 5/5 infusions.

So I want to start doing Fractals, ultimately with the goal of acquiring the Legendary Back-peice. I also currently have zero AR, and i’m really confused on how to achieve the necessery AR required for high level Fractals.

I want to go infuse my gear with “Fine Infusions” so I can min/max my gear, as they provide a +5 stat boost in addition to AR. But to get a high AR, it seems that the recommended approach is to slot the +7 AR in every gear slot (not the +5 Fine Infusions), and then use +12 AR in the infusion slots.

So, my question is, are the “Fine Infusions” an oversight on Anet’s part? These things cost a lot of money, and if they aren’t the optimal way to achieve high AR rating, why haven’t they been changed to provide 5 Stats/ 7 AR to bring them in line with the newer infusions?

Or is it unnecessary to have such a high AR if i’m going for the Legendary? I’m not sure what the AR required for the Legendary is. Can anyone help me out?

Thaddeus.4891:

cletiscake.9173:

Thaddeus.4891:

Ok first of all Narc never ran your ’’DPS’’ Variant. He ran 2 differents specialisation out of 3 and use zero of the same skills as you. The only thing the two builds have in common is Writ of Persistance + Hammer + Celestial gear. Very different builds.

What i don’t understand about this build is the use. I mean, Hammer healing guardian can be a thing for difficult group content, but you have very poor support. You concentrate mostly on your own survivability (too much if you ask me). Personally, I don’t mind about non meta build as long as it’s not only selfish survivability. But if that’s how you like to play go for it.

Youre right Thaddeus, that was an oversight on my part. Narc didnt run the exact same version of the build i posted, though he did run a similar version. Thats an important distinction and ive edited my post to reflect that.

Ive also edited my post to be more clear in terms of what the point of the build is. Youre absolutely right in that it doesnt offer much besides surviveability. But its important to understand that this build offers a TON of healing and mitigation not just for personal survivability, but for the group as well. Virtually every heal/block/boon applied to myself is also applied to allies around me. It is truly a tank/heal build.

The build also had a shout-heal alternative before the pre-HoT patch which allowed you to provide lots of boons to your allies. That is no longer viable with the current trait setup, so the alternative was to take healing meditations for more personal surviveability. Increasing our personal surviveability allows us to stay alive almost indefinitely, which allows us to provide Protection and AoE healing to allies.

But you should really take the Healing Shout for that build.

Yeah, I would love to take the Healing Shouts, but then I lose the healing from my Symbol of Protection, which allows me to function as a “Tank”. It’s unfortunate, but there’s no other way around it, unless the Devs switch up some of the Traits, like I suggested in my OP.

JudgementUponTheThrone.5798:

this is my first time posting on a thread, i consider myself a noob lol, i created a guardian and decided to build him as a tank – majoring in toughness , so he can take more hits. that’s one of the main roles of the guardian right, being able to take hits? i also have his vitality and healing power up there as well, though i don’t know if vit. and heal. power would make him a great asset to a group and / or myself lol. i am also having trouble deciding which traits to upgrade to make him an essentail, dependable and survivable character, can someone please help me level him up the right way?

Hey Judgement,

What level are you right now? That would help me give you the best possible recommendations.

In general though, I find that the best way to build a well-rounded Guardian (from my experience), is to trait heavily into defense/support trees, while using Weapons/Armor that provide you a mix between damage/survive-ability.

One of the staple Guardian builds since Launch has been to take Hammer/Greatsword, and combine it with the Pure of Voice Grandmaster trait + Altruistic Healing Grandmaster Trait. Then you can equip Shouts on your utility skills, and they will function as healing + condition cleanse + group support.

Lastly, if you look at my build, i’m geared for full tankiness + healing. You will basically need to copy my exact build if you want to go that route and be effective in that playstyle. It is very effective, and if you want to be a “proper” tank, then I would recommend my build. If you want a little more damage, but still be tanky, have a look at the “DPS Version” of the build I posted, and modify it to your liking. It’s difficult to craft Celestial Armor due to the time-gating, but you can easily craft the Exotic Celestial armor, you will just need to wait a while due to the time-gating of materials.

Hope this helps!

Sylpheed.8163:

I had my hopes up for a non-meta healing-tank build for pvp/wvw. Rip.

Im not much of a pvper, but ive wanted to try the celestial version of my build in WvW as a Medi Trap Guard. The stats look good enough and you would have amazing sustain and condi cleanse. Empowering Might would allow to really get that DPS going. What do you think?

Thaddeus.4891:

Ok first of all Narc never ran your ’’DPS’’ Variant. He ran 2 differents specialisation out of 3 and use zero of the same skills as you. The only thing the two builds have in common is Writ of Persistance + Hammer + Celestial gear. Very different builds.

What i don’t understand about this build is the use. I mean, Hammer healing guardian can be a thing for difficult group content, but you have very poor support. You concentrate mostly on your own survivability (too much if you ask me). Personally, I don’t mind about non meta build as long as it’s not only selfish survivability. But if that’s how you like to play go for it.

Youre right Thaddeus, that was an oversight on my part. Narc didnt run the exact same version of the build i posted, though he did run a similar version. Thats an important distinction and ive edited my post to reflect that.

Ive also edited my post to be more clear in terms of what the point of the build is. Youre absolutely right in that it doesnt offer much besides surviveability. But its important to understand that this build offers a TON of healing and mitigation not just for personal survivability, but for the group as well. Virtually every heal/block/boon applied to myself is also applied to allies around me. It is truly a tank/heal build.

The build also had a shout-heal alternative before the pre-HoT patch which allowed you to provide lots of boons to your allies. That is no longer viable with the current trait setup, so the alternative was to take healing meditations for more personal surviveability. Increasing our personal surviveability allows us to stay alive almost indefinitely, which allows us to provide Protection and AoE healing to allies.

Thanks for reading Warlito!

I actually totally forgot to include my healing skill in the write-up, so ill add that in now.

It’s personal preference, but i like the condi removal from the signet over any of the other options. Shelter would be my next choice for the blocks + synergy with our Runes that it provides. I haven’t even tried Littany of Wrath yet because the condi removal has been really important to me, lol.

I feel that the Signet wins out overall though. Blocks are really important for those big hits, but this build is designed for you to be able to take those big hits to the face! If you really need blocks though, you can always just switch over to mace. Unfortunately, condi cleanse is usually in short supply, especially when your solo, which is why ive stuck with my Signet.

Thanks for asking that

Hello fellow Guardians.

I’m going to be sharing a very anti-meta, tank/heal Guardian build. I don’t take credit for this kind of build. I’m sure there are players out there who run this type of build, but I just wanted to post my take on it and bring a little bit more general awareness for these kinds of builds.

So let’s address some things before moving forward. I see a lot of talk here on the forums about players being unhappy playing with a Hammer. Personally, I am in the opposite camp, and I think Hammer is perfect the way it is. It caters to a very different kind of play style, and I’ve built my Guardian around the Hammer. In fact, i’ve only had success with my build due to one crucial element: the Symbol of Protection from the Hammer auto-attack. Without this symbol, my build falls apart, and I will probably cry and quit the game lol.

The build:

This build is strictly designed for one thing only: to be an effective melee tank/healer, keeping the pressure off your allies so they can pew pew without worrying about dying. This build has very little damage output and focuses solely on personal/group survivability. It does however provide lots of utility through frequent blast finishers, blocks, healing, breaking break bars, and all of the other good stuff that Guardians do. There is a version of this build that sacrifices tankyness for more DPS. I’ll post that and talk about it too. So without further ado, here are the builds.

An Exotic version of the build

A min-maxed Ascended version of the build

With this version, you can slot in extra Nomad’s Trinkets (the Amulet would be best) to achieve 17k HP if you desire a bigger health pool.

The DPS version of the build

Here’s a video by Narc from DnT who’s running a similar, but different version of the DPS build

He takes DH over Virtues. I prefer Virtues for the buffed Virtue of Resolve.

And here’s a video of Nemesis from before the HoT pre-patch

The purpose of this build

This build is designed for you to take aggro from mobs and provide constant Protection and AoE healing for you and your allies. Virtually every heal/block/boon that you provide for yourself is also applied to your allies. This build is going to provide amazing damage mitigation + healing for you and your allies.

The Pre-HoT patch removed the viability of running shouts over Meditations due to Pure of Voice now competing with Writ of Persistence. Unfortunately, this has to be compensated with by running Meditations, a much more selfish set-up. The benefit of Meditations comes in their ability to act as mini heals, helping you syrvive burst damage and being able to stay in the fight to provide your Protection and AoE healing.

How it works:

So lets get into it. There are three main factors to the success of this build.

1. Writ of Persistence – Grandmaster Trait in the Honor line. Symbols last longer, are larger, and heal allies.
2. Symbol of Protection – proc from the third auto-attack in your hammer auto-attack chain. Grants 33% damage reduction.
3. Superior Rune of the Defender – Provides a huge personal heal after you block an attack.

The whole play style revolves around you being able to just run in to a group of mobs, and start auto-attacking with hammer until you proc your Symbol of Protection. Your symbol will grant you Protection and heal you at the same time. For this to work effectively, you need to stack Healing Power, Toughness, and Vitality, to varying degrees. When you are properly geared and traited, you will be able to come out of most fights with a full health bar, or a very close to full health bar. For example, you know those Veteran Giants in Orr, the ones that spawn grubs all over the place? Yeah, you can solo them with ease by just autoattacking and cleaving everything down while healing yourself. You know those one-shot mechanics that kill you instantly if you fail to dodge? Yeah, you can live through those, and with a good chunk of your HP still remaining. Sounds good so far?

Playing with Mace/Shield is a bit different. It’s plays more heavily on “active mitigation”, and it doesn’t provide Protection like the hammer does. Where the Mace/Shield combo shines is with its ability to heal. Instead of applying protection on the auto-attack, it heals for a small amount. The “2” ability places a symbol on the ground that grants regeneration. Not only will you gain regeneration, but the symbol will also grant its own healing amount thanks to Writ of Persistence. The “3” ability is a block, which will proc the heal on your runes (which I will go through in the next paragraph). This heal is substantial and can heal you almost to full in a pinch. So Mace/Shield is great for Condi Heavy fights or times when you need a quick heal with the regeneration symbol. Hammer is still your best weapon though.

So I need to talk about the runes i’m using, the Superior Runes of the Defender. It provides Aegis after you use a healing skill, and it also triggers a substantial heal after you block an attack. These abilities proc off one another. Not only that, but Guardians get passive Aegis applied to them every 40 seconds. So basically, you get a huge free heal every 40 seconds after your Aegis blocks something. This has saved my life many times, especially when I get knocked down.

Gear:

(Exotic)
Weapons: Cleric’s Hammer and Mace/Shield.
Sigils: Superior Sigil of Water/Superior Sigil of Purity.
Amor: Cleric’s.
Runes: Superior Rune of the Defender.
Jewelry:Cleric’s Amulet, Nomad’s Rings and Accessories.
Back-piece: Magi/Sapphire Jewel.

(Ascended)
Weapons: Nomad’s.
Sigils: Superior Sigil of Water/Superior Sigil of Purity.
Amor: Cleric’s.
Runes: Superior Rune of the Defender.
Jewelry: Cleric’s Amulet, Nomad’s Rings, Nomad’s Accessory + Cleric’s Accessory.
Back-Piece: Same as Exotic setup / whatever else you prefer for min-maxing.

You want enough Healing Power that your healing does not become insignificant, you want enough Vitality that you don’t get one-shot, and you want enough Toughness that you’re always holding aggro. I think at minimum you want 15k HP, 1300-1400 Healing Power, and 3200-3400 Toughness. These are the stats you want if your running without a dedicated healer. It’s great for open-world, fractals, dungeons, and for soloing all of the HoT areas. If you have a dedicated healer, you can opt for the DPS version of this build, or simply slot in more Nomad’s gear for the extra Vitality.

You can obtain the Ascended Nomads from completing achievements in Living Story Season 2. You can obtain the Amulet, Accessories, and Rings this way. Go to Dulfy.net for guides on completing the achievements. They don’t take too long, and can usually be completed solo.

Skills:

I use Meditations because they are great for Condi cleanse + they act as a Heal when traited with Monk’s Focus. You get burst healing on a relatively short cool down, and amazing condi cleanse. I sometimes also take Signet of Judgment for the extra 10% damage reduction if I need to be extra tanky.

My heal skill is Signet of Resolve for the passive condi removal. Shelter is also really great because of the block it provides and the synergy with our Runes, but i prefer the consistent condi removal from the Signet. Litany of Wrath can be an option here too, but I honestly havent even tried it because I love Signet of Resolve so much.

Lastly, my Elite skill is Signet of Courage. I’m really glad they changed it to a passive heal effect. This is going to help our sustain by a huge amount and provide even more healing to our allies.

Important Traits:

Strength of the Fallen: Lose conditions at a set interval.
Monk’s Focus: For healing meditations.
Writ of Persistence: For healing Symbols.
Absolute Resolution: For stronger Virtue of Resolve passive + Condi Cleanse.
Battle Presence: Nearby Allies gain Virtue of Resolve’s passive effect. We want this for AoE healing.

There are a lot of traits that I’ve picked for my own personal play style. A lot of those traits give me extra blocks, or do things for me passively. You can change those around to what fits your play style, but the 5 traits listed above are pretty crucial to this build.

How it all comes together:

Dodge rolls, Auto-attacks, Armor Runes, Weapon Sigils, Symbols, Regeneration, Meditations, Virtue of Resolve, and Signet of Courage are the sources of healing for this build.

With the ascended version of this build sitting at 16k HP, 1400 Healing Power, and 3400 toughness (3550 when accounting for strength in numbers), we have become very very good at mitigating damage.

Here’s a chart on damage mitigation as toughness scales up

We have passive 48% damage reduction at all times. When we put Protection on ourselves, this become 81% damage reduction. If we put signet of Judgment on our skill bar, this become 91% damage reduction! (I think my math is right?)

The DPS Version:

The DPS variant uses Celestial stats. Why? Because Celestial stats are actually amazing for Guardians. We are built to be able to perform many different types of roles, and Celestial allows us to deal damage and still be an effective tank. We have a decent amount of Healing Power, a much higher Health Pool, and pretty decent toughness as well.

A big part part of this build comes from being able to trait into Empowering Might. We can have 45% crit with Celestial Stats, which would allow us to build stacks of might on ourselves, increasing our DPS. Its a very simple yet synergistic build, and you can build your Guardian any you want from the ground up with Celestial Stats. This is just an example of how you can pseudo-tank with Celestial. Narc does it in his Raid video, but he has a dedicated Healer. I don’t think you can be a raid tank running Celestial without a healer though.

The Drawbacks:

We do absolutely no damage. It takes a long time to kill things, and this can be frustrating when out in the world by yourself.

We are also very vulnerable to interrupts and knockbacks because we have zero ways to apply Stability to ourselves. Anytime we get knocked out of our Symbol, we lose protection and the healing it provides. Furthermore, fights that have consistent interrupts and knockbacks (or even just fighting too many mobs at once), can prevent you from getting your auto-attack chain off, which means you get no healing and no damage reduction. This is really bad and you can die very easily this way. What I do in these situations is pop my Meditations because they heal me for a couple thousand HP and I stabilize until I can get my auto-attacks off. Or you can switch to mace/shield and plant your symbol for the Regen.

We also have very low HP compared to other Plate-wearers. This is off-set by the fact that we have access to a ton of blocks. I also compensate my build for this by choosing Runes of the Defender on my amor. It gives me an extra block and an extra heal, which effectively doubles my HP depending on how hard-hitting that blocked attack was + the extra heal I just received.

What I would like to see changed around in the traits to better support a Tank build:

Moving Pure of Voice into the Valor tree, which would replace Altruistic Healing, and Altruistic Healing would then replace Might of the Protector (a major trait) in the Valor tree. This allows Guardians to opt for a shout-healing build with both Pure of Voice+Altruistic Healing, without having to compete with Writ of Persistence. That was the build I ran before the HoT pre-patch, but then they switched around the traits. You lose out on the free heals from Meditations, but you provide more group support with your Boons. Not only that, but you can then run Stand Your Ground, which would grant you Stability.

In conclusion:

I think Guard is the best profession to play as a tank. Not so much as a healer, because we can’t sustain the insane amount of healing that a Druid can do, but we are still effective at keeping ourselves up, as well as any other melee around us. The fact that we can keep up Protection + Heal ourselves is the reason why this build can work. We’re the only profession that can do this. Without the Protection, this build would fall apart. It doesn’t matter how much healing we can do if we can’t keep up Protection, which is why we are unique in this regard.

Going forward, I really hope the devs see this kind of build and choose not to change the way the hammer works, and instead choose to support something like this. It’s an unorthodox way of playing the game, but I really enjoy it. I don’t like the twitchy dodging and stacking high amounts of DPS to kill enemies. I like to play the sturdy, self-sustainable support role. Whenever I party up with people, they are amazed at how easy it is to kill things with me around. I take off all the pressure, and it makes pugging a breeze. I’ve never raided with it, so I don’t know how it would fare in a raid environment, but if Narc’s video is anything to go by, I’d say it looks like it would do fairly well.

I came back to the game because I saw that I could still make a build like this. I initially left the game because the HoT pre-patch dismantled certain aspects of my build. I was relieved to be able to build it close to the way it was before. I’m having a blast with this build, and honestly, if it stopped working the way it does for whatever reason, I don’t see myself playing the game anymore! I think we really need to push for builds like this to stay, instead of turning every other build into some derivative of another DPS build.

If anyone has questions, i’m happy to answer. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’re inspired to go and make this build for yourself!

Anyone else feel the Dragonhunter is just plain lackluster when compared to the other Elite Specs shown so far? I was utterly blown away by how cool and awesome the Reaper is. The visuals, the flavor, the theme — It was all there. I have to say, the Reaper is an excellent execution of an Elite Spec.

Dragonhunter just seems “tame” to me. My only character is a Guardian, and I love everything about Guardians as a class. I expected to see an Elite Spec that would transform the Guardian into a Stalwart Defender, an elite Soldier of Dwayna, an Avatar of Light, you know, something that is a logical extension of the flavor and theme of the Guardian.

Instead, we become Dragonhunters? With a bow that lays traps? Remember the picture that was teased a couple of days before the Dragonhunter was officially revealed?

This was it.

I had immediately fantasized about a Guardian who supported his allies from afar, who shot healing/cleansing arrows, who shot symbols in the ground that buffed allies and cripples enemies, who could turn into an avatar of Dwayna (with wings), and you know, do more cool Guardian things (maybe shouts?)

I just feel that the Reaper and Chronomancer seem like they fit the overall theme of their respective classes much more than the Dragonhunter does. I also feel that they seem much more fun to play, mechanically speaking. Visuals, flavor, and mechanics seems much more cohesive and complimenting of each other with those two Specs. I don’t feel this way with the Dragonhunter.

In fact, I feel like there is a big disconnect with all three of those elements in the Dragonhunter. I don’t quite understand the flavor of the Dragonhunter, nor do I understand how laying traps with a bow is fun and/or attractive to anyone who identifies with the Guardian class. Traps should be symbols instead. They should also inherently provide support to allies, because that fits the flavor of the class. Visually speaking, I don’t see anything as impressive as the Reaper or Chronomancer. Which is to say, nothing cool is happening from a mechanical standpoint with the Dragonhunter, so nothing cool is happening from a visual standpoint. And it shows. There’s nothing flashy, colorful, or exciting going on.

It sucks to work on something and have someone comment negatively on all that hard work. I’m only speaking about what I see and how it makes me feel as a player. I really want to play a Chronomancer and a Reaper, but I don’t want to play a Dragonhunter at all. I’m simply not interested. Which is fine, because not everyone will want to play every Elite Spec, nor can they identify with every theme of every single Elite Spec. But the Dragonhunter doesn’t seem to have the amount of positive feedback that Reaper and Chronomancer do. I just feel like the Dragonhunter deviates too much from what a Guardian “is” as a class, and what a Guardian “does” during combat.

Thanks for reading.

Everyone needs to remember that there will be additional Elite Specializations somewhere down the road, and you can bet that the naming scheme will be tailored to fit the theme of those Specializations. All the archetypes that everyone keeps pushing for (like Paragon, Light-Bringer, Crusader, Sentinel, etc) don’t even match the theme of our Elite Spec in the first place. I would much rather reserve names like Paragon or Sentinel for future Elite Specs that are more “support-oriented” (Paragon: Spears and Shouts), or “defense-oriented” (Sentinel: Healing and Protection).

Everyone is losing their minds over a name and pushing for a different name that doesn’t even fit the theme of the Specialization. Please stop. Don’t force the devs to waste a good name like “Paragon” on this Elite Spec. We will all get the “Paragon” that we want, it’s just not going to happen right NOW. I want a “Paragon” spec as much as anyone else, but I want it done properly. I want to throw spears, I want lots of shouts, and I want to be supportive. I want a “Paragon” to be the exact opposite of what the “Dragon-Hunter” spec is.

I would agree that splitting it up and making then major traits would satisfy both parties. Honor could have symbols that provide healing and 2s duration increase (which is important for perma protection on hammer) and zeal could have the duration increase and size increase? A part of me really wants the size increase to be made baseline, just to make symbols better in general.

Before the consolidation of WoP in HoT, there were 3 traits within the Honor line that improved symbols. This goes to show that symbols are not Exclusive to Zeal. It makes sense this way, because it allows symbols to remain relevant whether you are a DPS Guardian or a Cleric Guardian. In HoT, WoP is a trait for Support Guardians who use symbols, and SA is a trait for DPS Guardians who use symbols. This setup promotes diversity within builds. You can’t take away WoP from Honor, because it is crucial to support/healing builds. Symbols (when traited) are the ONLY source of relevant and consistent healing that a Guardian has. If we had another relevant source of healing, then symbols wouldn’t be as critical as they currently are. But as it stands, symbols are all we have.

I do agree that it shouldn’t be a GM trait. It should be a Major trait or else it will compete with Pure of Voice, which will diminish the effectiveness of support/shout builds. I think that trait that heals you when Aegis is removed (Pure of Heart, I think) should get removed as a major trait, and WoP should take it’s place. That way, support/shout builds can be preserved as they are now, without competing with PoV. And no one takes Pure of Heart anyways, that’s a very lacklustre trait.

Arken.3725:

If anything, Hammer is a dps/cc type of weapon, not support. Zeal IS the symbol line, this is a fact that cannot be disputed so it only makes sense that WoP be moved there.

But the symbol traits have been part of the Honor line since launch (unless i’m wrong about that), and they have allowed Cleric Guardians to exist due to the healing the symbols provide. If you take that away, then the only “tanky-support/healing” build we have will be lost. Lots of people run this build, there’s even someone who uses it to tank fractals with it

Guardians already have several DPS builds, but in terms of support builds, it kinda boils down to variations of the same kind of Support Build (shouts, healing, etc). Losing the healing part would render these builds useless, because if we can’t heal, it makes Cleric Gear and the entire healing playstyle (that has existed since launch) obsolete and useless. If I can’t be the same kind of Cleric Guardian that I am now, I can’t see myself sticking with this game when HoT comes out. I’m happy with what I have now because I get to play a support role (primarily through healing). If they take that away from Guardians, not many people are going to be happy about that. The Devs want to encourage players to use different builds, not just DPS. Gutting a crucial element of a Cleric Guardian’s build is not how you would go about encouraging the use of more diverse builds.

Ben, stick with your cleric gear! Cleric Guardian is an amazing setup, and one that is really under-appreciated and under-used. This is the Build that I’m running

Here’s the rundown: Use your hammer auto-attack to generate symbols every third hit. Those symbols provide Protection and Healing (the healing comes from the trait). Use your shouts to cleanse conditions and put boons on you. You get alot of healing from this thanks to Pure of Voice. Your dodge rolls will heal you for a large chunk, so do that when things get hairy. Basically, all that, combined with a high toughness + Signet of Judgment (-10% damage), you will be mitigating a very large portion of the damage that is dealt to you, and you will be able to heal through the rest of whatever damage you take. The whole point of a build like this is to provide Protection, Healing, and Cleansing to your party. It’s really fun and you should try it out.

Don’t let people discourage you from doing this. You can’t face tank everything, but you can take those BIG one-shot hits from Champ bosses and still survive when everyone else around you dies. Your healing will allow to recover and still stay on those bosses. It’s not foolproof though. You still need to dodge regularly because there will always be instances where you can’t heal through damage, but for the most part, this build is excellent for anyone who wants to be an “anchor” for their team.

Arken.3725:

Synergy being the key, Writ of Persistence should be moved to the Zeal line as a Master. If the only real argument for it being in Honor is due to the healing aspect of it, remove it then.

Heavens no! Writ of Persistence should stay within the Honor line because it is crucial to us Cleric Guardians! We need the larger symbols/healing symbols as part of our build to function, and those traits have always been in Honor because they compliment the symbols created with Maces and Hammers, which are support-oriented weapons. Honor is all about support, so the theme fits. I actually just wish the Writ of Persistence trait was moved to a Major trait in the same tree, and I think it should replace Pure of Heart (aegis heals when it blocks) because no one uses that trait at all. It also makes sense this way because none of the effects of the redesigned Writ of Persistence were ever GM traits, they were all minor and major traits. I think putting it as a GM trait is wrong. It would actually detract from my current build because I’m able to run the Healing symbol setup + Pure of Voice. Now I have to loose Pure of Voice because my build won’t function properly without the Healing symbols.

Totally agree with this. Im largely in favour of the new system, but it cant ruin existing builds. WoW Has had the exact same talent setup for a couple of years now, but the difference is that the talents you choose dont “define” your build. They simply add utility, enhance a certain playstyle, etc. They add flavour to your either your role as tank, healer, or dps. It seems were getting a similar system, which is great imo. Im super excited for this. But my only apprehension comes from the fact that our ability to create a certain build is limited to where those traits are located in the tier. And if they compete with another trait that is inportant for that build to work, theres going to be issues.

Guys, if we make dungeons harder, then the average player suffers that much more. The average player joining a pug is going to have a miserable time in an uncoordinated group where the content is even more difficult. Not everyone runs premades, and not everyone uses a voice chat. Raising the bar for everyone does not simultaneously increase the viability of other builds, nor does it promote a Meta with less reliance on Zerker stats.

Making things more challenging without increasing the scaling of defensive stats means that defensive stats will be even more worthless than they are now. Zerker gear is the best because POWER, PRECISION, FEROCITY scale the best. TOUGHNESS has diminishing returns, HEALING POWER might as well not exist, and VITALITY doesn’t matter because of one-shot mechanics.

If the solution is making AI better, and content in general that much harder, how does that promote diversity of builds? Won’t more and more people gravitate to Zerker Meta because as we all know, blocks, blinds, and protection are available irregardless of the gear you are wearing. This is the reason why Zerker Meta can exist. It exists because you don’t lose out on being able to provide those important protective boons which are much more valuable than defensive stats from Gear. As long as this is true, Zerker will always be best, especially for organized groups.

And not to mention that running harder, longer content should also provide more valuable loot. There’s many variables to consider, and blanket statements like “X and Y should change” cannot be made without considering how to change the other parts of the equation.

I see a lot of people here saying that the only way to kill the Zerker Meta is to make dungeon content harder (less stacking in corners, and less DPS stats), forcing people to run builds with more survive-ability instead of full Zerker. This isn’t the solution. Have you ever tried going into a dungeon with “tankier gear” instead of Zerkers?

Assuming that the entire party runs a more Tankier setup (more HP, more Armour, less DPS) it’s safe to also assume that the fights will last longer. Less DPS means Mobs will grind you out longer than you can grind them out. In current content, this is what happens when fights last longer:

a) You have limited amounts of dodges and blocks which means you will take more hits over a longer fight. Because Mobs hit so hard, it’s more efficient to run Zerker and kill everything quickly before you run out of ways to avoid damage.

b) Not stacking in corners is simply not feasible. Because there is no reliable aggro mechanic, and no reliable way to “tank” damage (due to limited blocks and dodges), fighting mobs becomes a chaotic mess. We’ve all been part of those fights where everyone is everywhere, no co-ordination, different mobs attacking different players, players getting downed all over the place. Combat is a mess unless you stack neatly in a corner and nuke everything. This isn’t the players’ fault for exploiting. From what it looks like to me, it seems as though there is no design intent when it comes to Dungeons. The players simply came up with the best system to combat an otherwise very disorderly and chaotic mess. I don’t know what Anet’s original design intent was, but I don’t think they intended for us to “not” stack in corners. It’s too chaotic if you don’t. This is why people ask for the Trinity back. Because at least there is order to the chaos with a Trinity.

c) The Zerka meta has been a thing for a while now. If we tried to run anything different in current content, we would soon realize that Dungeons are indeed designed to be pretty tough. We think Dungeons are easy now because we can cheese through them with Zerker Gear, but we’ve forgotten that the bar has been set pretty high already. If we demand harder content in HoT, we will set the bar even higher, and we will get utterly destroyed in dungeons. You want mobs to hit harder? How would that invalidate Zerker Meta in any way? The whole point is to kill Mobs before they kill you, and in this new hypothetical Meta where Mobs hit harder, they will be able to kill you even faster, and that puts even more reliance on Zerker Meta.

Here’s the thing. Our characters are balanced around the fact that skills have a recharge time, we have only 2 dodges available to us, and we have a single Heal on a long cooldown. By design, we are a closed system. We are like a pre-built computer and it’s impossible to upgrade or improve the specs because our CPU/Case cannot support any new parts. Coincidentally, the one thing that CAN improve is our DPS. Right now DPS is the best scaling stat, because its the only stat that pushes our characters beyond the confines of “limited dodging, blocks, and healing”. Once we go through our rotation, and we’ve used all the tools at our disposal, the only thing that matters at that point is how much DPS we can produce. Zerker gear takes advantage of this “closed system”. Essentially, Zerker gear allows us to dish out as much damage as possible before we run out of utility, and by the time we do run out of utility, the Mob should be dead. Yes you can increase your armor and your HP, but when you can’t dodge or block anymore, you need to kill that Mob before it kills you. That is how the game is designed. There’s no way around that.

The only way to improve the Zerker Meta is to simply allow other stats to scale better, change the way Utility is used, and design encounters with more order to them. The developers need to allow other builds to emerge. They need to give us a better way to “tank” damage, and also a way to “heal” through it. No one is going to run Clerics Gear when it scales so poorly. It simply doesn’t work in this “closed system”. It’s counter to what the current design philosophy is with the whole “no trinity” thing, but it’s time to realize that this experiment of “no trinity” has detracted a lot from our game play.

Anet really needs to communicate to us how they want us to play the game. They need to talk about it openly. IF they truly don’t intend for us to stack in corners, they need to describe to us how we are supposed to cope without a Trinity. And if they want to lessen reliance on DPS, how will they go about doing that?

Do you guys think it could be a good idea to remove the tiers on Traits? So going forward, there would be no more Adept, Master, or Grandmaster tiers, and instead, we would be able to pick any trait (that is specific to that tree) regardless if we invest partially or fully into that tree.

Essentially, it means that Grandmaster traits could be picked up if you invested 2 points in the tree, instead of the current 6-points of investment.

I don’t know if this would break the game or not, but I thought it would add a little more build diversity. Think about it. None of the Traits are particularly game-changing or spec-defining, and there is no single “best trait”. They all contribute incremental increases to either DPS, Control, or Support, but by very nature of the system in place, we are encouraged to use different traits for different situations.

Imagine if you could expand upon that even further, and produce unique Support builds that are still able to almost fully invest in Support, but are also able to pick up some DPS traits that might have been out of reach before. The same goes for all types of builds.

It wouldn’t be Power Creep either. You can’t get much more powerful than a full zerker build with 6/6/2/0/0. At the end of the day, current builds may not be able to benefit much from a change like this, but it would open up the opportunity for new builds that could take advantage of traits that were previously out of reach.

What do you guys think?

This is a versatile build that I’ve been min-maxing for a while, and i’m trying to optimize it for both PVE and PVP. It’s not a Meta build, cuz I hate the Meta. There’s an exotic version for this as well, i’ll post both. Here’s the Ascended version. Here’s the Exotic Version.

The Ascended variant allows you to trade away some Knight’s Armor for some Berserker peices while still maintaining a decent armor rating. You gain a nice boost in DPS as well.

The one thing I don’t like about the build is the fact that I can’t use Runes of the Trooper. I really like the combo of Trooper Runes + Force of Will for the extra 3k HP + condi removal. If you want condi removal in a build without Trooper Runes, you need to trait for it and lose out on that extra 3k HP.

There’s other variatians to this build as well. You can go 0/3/6/4/1/ for extra blinds and stuff. That’s what I’d recommend running for PVE. Or go full Meta and go 4/5/0/0/5 with GS + Sw/Focus. There’s a Meta Hammer build as well, it’s 3/5/0/4/2.

Of course, you can have 2 sets of armor, one for PVE and one for PVP. Keep everything exactly the same, except the runes. Trooper for PVP, and Exuberance for PVE. But that’s just insane. If I had the time and money, I would do it. But then again, the new expansion is coming and it may shake the Meta up a bit and potentially invalidate current builds for being the “best” and hopefully make other types of builds/play-styles even more viable.

Hope this tickles your fancy.

So I took the Ascended version of the build I posted and I re-traited for 4/5/0/0/5 and put a Sigil of Mischief in the weapons (I meant to include Sigil of Mischief in the original build, but I forgot to change it). This is it. The whole point of my build is that you can simply re-trait for whatever content you want to participate in and always be able to do meaningful DPS without sacrificing too much survivability.

The Big problem I see with Rune of the Pack is the fact that the Fury uptime revolves around you getting hit. This runs counter intuitive to the “active defenses” gameplay that most builds rely on. Mind you, if you can have that Fury uptime on you for the majority of the time, it’s a nice boost in DPS, but it’s not worth it IMO.

Sigil of Mischief is much better. It enables Vulnerability much more often, which in itself becomes a much better damage increase because it’s consistent, and it provides the added benefit of protecting you and your party members more often. Apply this to Open-World PVE or even WvW, and you got yourself a pretty durable/protection-oriented build that can still output Meaningful DPS when traited correctly.

I’m glad you asked! I came up with this build myself, and its perfectly adaptable to lots of different situations/content. The best part is that I was able to get the stats I was looking for without any Food/Maintenance Buffs.

Behold Perfection. (Ascended)

Behold Lesser Perfection. (Exotic)

It’s set up for the perfect split of survivability/damage when roaming around or playing with groups that aren’t super organized. If you want to tailor the build more for dungeons (that are more organized and require more DPS), just run the 4/5/0/0/5 trait setup and you’re good to go. Greatsword + Sword/Scepter is pretty standard, but just play with whatever makes you perform better.

Play around with the build editor and find something that makes you happy. It took me a while, but I finally nailed it and got the exact build I wanted.

Do you guys think it would be a good idea to have NPC’s be able to join your party for dungeons, just like we had in GW1? I’m a returning player. I haven’t played for over a year and I want to get back in to all the things I missed, but it doesn’t seem like a lot of people are running dungeons these days. Not even my guild runs dungeons it seems. Everyone focuses on WvW or World PVE. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but what about when you just want to go for a dungeon run?

The LFG tool only showed maybe 1-2 groups for a handful of dungeons, and then some dungeons didn’t have any groups forming for them at all!

Would it be a good idea to have NPC’s just for the convenience of being able to fill out a 5-man party to do dungeon runs?

@ Black Box, i didn’t know “hybrid” meant power+condition. I just assumed it meant being a jack of all trades kind of thing.

Anyways, I’ve taken the time to look at Obal’s guide and some other videos/guides that I’ve seen online, and yeah, having more DPS and pro-active gameplay is a much better set-up. I’m really digging the GS/Sword+Focus gameplay so far.

This is the new build that I want to go with down the road: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApUo9CxOI8DRBARkjdBYGPf9UaGA-TBSBABQv/AWK/WUJIe6Gm4CAgp6PacQAA4JAEAAB4m3Mb2mBH9oH9oH9otzduzduzdGA-e

I tried to keep it as DPS as possible, and stopped trying to worry about how high my HP would be. I’m staying with the Knight’s Armour because I’m just not comfortable with the full Zerker set-up. I suck at dodging, and I don’t have pre-made groups to run content with me, so I need to give myself a bit of a safety net. I chose Valkyrie trinkets over Berserker trinkets because the tradeoff is just a little bit less Precision for a BUNCH more Health. And I’m still sitting at over 50% crit-chance unbuffed.

So here’s the thing. This is a build that uses the 4/5/0/0/5 Trait-setup in conjunction with my gear set-up from the first build. This is a trait-setup I intend to switch to when I want more DPS.

And here’s the other thing:

The only “loss” that occurs from switching to 4/5/0/0/5 is going from 204% Crit-Damage down to 184% Crit-Damage. Everything else stays exactly the same. I go from 204% to 184% due to my decision to stick with Knight’s Armor. If I opt in to the 4/5/0/0/5 build, how much of a DPS-loss is 184% crit-damage relative to the increase in other stats+modifiers that I will be picking up in those trait lines?

I will be gaining +200 Power, +250 condi Damage, +5% GS damage, +10% Sword Damage, +10% damage against burning foes, +10% damage against conditioned foes, Perma-Vulnerability to foes, and +1% damage for every Boon I have.

Does all of that stuff offset dropping down to 184% crit-damage?

Thanks so much for all your input guys.

Hmmm, so does that mean there is no room for a Hybrid build in the current meta? Is it all just DPS>>>everything else? What are decent stats to shoot for? When I played a year ago, there was a lot of hybrid builds going around. Have those just fallen out of favor completely?

Side note: I play by-myself, so I will be pugging for groups and stuff like that. So I generally won’t find myself in highly organized groups that need highly optimized builds. That being said, how “bad” is the build I posted as far as hybrid builds go? I’ve got might stacks going, shouts, high precision and crit-damage, and a base power of 1800-1900. Is that still not good in the context of the current meta?

Thanks in advance.

So i’ve taken a break from the game for about a year, and i’ve decided to come back and try things out a bit. Back when I was still playing, the “Anchor” build was pretty popular for guardians, but it seems those “AH” builds have generally fallen out of favour for more DPS-centric builds (at least in PVE anyways).

So I got to work on some theory crafting for a good hybrid build, and I came up with a couple of variations. I don’t really intend on doing high level fractals or anything, I just want to enjoy all levels of content as best as I can.

So here are the variants:

An exotic version: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQFARlsApVo1CxfH8DNRCBl1+x+DPPFXHgLcAA-TxSBwAUeAAFV6sT9HtKDUYCJiSQU6Aou/ACTXHVCB4CAEAABgbGAA-e

And the Celestial counterpart: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARSlsApVo1CxfH8DNRCBl1+x+DPPFXHgLcAA-TRSBABU8EA0SZwVKhwSpziKBpa/B80Fgp6PAcJACAgAczbmNvZgje0je0je0u5Nv5Nv5NDA-e.

Both of those builds sacrifice some HP in order to have a base crit-chance of 44% which allows me to squeeze in a Superior Sigil of Force for +5% damage. For all intents and purposes, you could call this the “DPS-centric” variant of the build.

Now, I wanted to see if I could rearrange some of the gear to give me higher stats elsewhere. This is what I came up with:

The exotic version: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQFARlsApVo1CxfH8DNRCBl1+x+DPPFXHgLcAA-ThCBwAVeAAGV6xT9ntKDWpDQiSQAXAgq7PkwkXbTBBAQA4mBA-e

And the Ascended counterpart: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARSlsApVo1CxfH8DNRCBl1+x+DPPFXHgLcAA-TRCBABV8EA2TXwWKDwSJEAXCgsU6woSwq2fIT1fCAgAczbmNvZgje0je0je0u5Nv5Nv5ODA-e

These builds sacrifices the Sigil of Force (5% extra damage) and utilizes the Sigil of Accuracy in its place (7% extra crit-chance). Furthermore, I was able to squeeze out +1k Health while keeping the same stats as the first build.

So on paper, the net result amounts to:
-1k HP/+5% damage for the first build
+1k HP/-5% damage for the second build

So what do you guys think? Is it worth having that higher HP pool? Or is the 5% damage better? Empowering Might is also a thing, so the healing I get from Empowering Might + Sigil of Strength stacks + Altruistic Healing might be enough to offset a lower Health Pool.

Thanks Guys!

You’re absolutely right, we can’t compare a new game to an old game in absolutes, but we can definitely discuss what works for this game and what doesn’t, and what could be improved and what could be tuned down. If we didn’t have a point of reference (GW1), then this game wouldn’t be called GW2.

GW2 has a ton to offer, but the forums are littered with the same posts concerning end-game content, dungeons, viable builds for classes, posts about the sky falling, etc. And all the while, none of these posts receive any feedback from the devs. What can the players do but continue on with their one-sided discourse, hoping that maybe the issues that are concerning everyone will be addressed? This is why so many comparisons are made between GW1 and GW2, because that is where the majority of players are coming from, at least that’s what I think.