Guild Wars 2

Something to also mention about this build, Make sure for the 1h build you either carry a scepter, a hammer, or both. I completely forgot how annoying kiting is against classes like condition shortbow ranger, and p/p mine engineers. (yes I got owned by one earlier and was not too happy, owned him back though!) Scepter completely negates any kiting aspect a class might have on you, as long as you can stay somewhat close, which you should be able to do. However, scepter obviously has it’s issue when fighting multiple enemies, which is why I always suggest running gs/hammer as none of the 1hs handle multiples very well. If you do run scepter/hammer I also suggest you drop vulnerability on blind and pick up signet mastery and switch your heal to signet of resolve.

After a bit of testing on a dummy, I have come to realize that shortbow and long bow ranges are all higher than their marked skill ranges. On a warrior without any range increasing traits, the longbow skills were hitting at about 1150 range, while my rifle was the normal 1200, This was also confirmed by having my friend AA with a shortbow on a ranger, compared to the AA of a guardian, both are listed at 1200 range, however my Ranger friend could hit from a pretty heafty distance away. (I am assuming close to 1500 range) where my guardian needed to be much closer. This seems to be from the actual arc of the arrow projectiles compared to the straight projectile path of others. (any skill that fired straight out without the arrow arc would not hit) I was wondering if this was a bug with the bow weapons, or if this was intentional. I tried searching the forums but came up with nothing on this subject.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Is this really a thing?

+1? with you on this.

+1 to OP, so sick of hearing all these people complain. Im rushing to get the meta done myself just because i want the shattered wings, and even with rushing I feel no need to complain like the other people. The weapon skins look horrible in my opinion, and even if I did like them, i would just go through my coffers instead of selling them to try to get a ticket instead of buying them for real money.

Animok.2789:

Why would I want to spend my gaming time farming gold?

There seems to be a portion of the community that have piles of gold. Most of my friends who play have <30g. If you’re a casual player who wants to say get the tier 3 race armor, that’s a sizable gold sink right there. I’ve been playing since beta and still don’t have a full set.

…. I don’t know… maybe because it is the currency for the game? I don’t have much gold myself, nor do I have a legendary, tier 3 armor skins, or a commander tag, but asking for handouts because your too lazy to farm for it is stupid.

If you really want the stuff off the gem store without spending money, FARM GOLD. I really do not get how people can sit there and complain about stuff on the gem store when you can get gems for gold.

Half of this thread is complaining about RNG boxes which can be bought with gold to gem transfers…

Blasino.3128:

Hey Bash,

Akamon told me about your build, because I told him I’ve been running 4 citadel, and 2 vamp with my WWW symbol build. Works like a charm. I use sigil of blood instead of leeching for the extra damage and it also procs off of symbol pulses.

Right now I just use Orrian Steak Fritters, I haven’t changed over to pies.

I understand your point of needing to get hit for vamp to be worth it. I do get targeted and hit a lot. Maybe because I run staff, mace/torch. So generally, it has been worth it for me.

Your leeching idea applies to many builds.

Yeah, that is the nice thing about it because the leech itself all comes from sigils/food, so it can work with a variety of builds. I mainly built this build around it due to the fact that it has added sustain, but still does good damage when paired with the leech.

My issue with the vamp runes is that it heals for just shy of 4000 every minute, and that is assuming best case scenario, activating after the 15s cd. In zerg vs zerg, this might work fine, but even then the random chance for 1000 health compared to a constant 110 power, 14 perc, and 2% crit chance just doesn’t feel like it compares. It was honestly the same reason why I dumped 4x vamp runes, as the proc off heal only activated twice because of our CDs on our heals.

akamon.2769:

heh, been seeing more talk on Rune of the Citadel lately. not just here, or mayb this is where it spurred from. the fury procs and long duration is definitely something note worthy.

i like the addition of the Water / boon duration runes, Bash. i personally wouldn’t opt for Rune of the Pack for this build. though like you mentioned, the 1h build should still be more than fine. i have Pack on my standard go to WvW set, but debating if i shoudl switch it up. ; ))

and the wife is an RRR ranger now? what happened to thief? :OO

Yeah. I ended up going with foofad’s idea for 5+ ruby. The extra 25 healing wouldn’t really do much, and an extra second on save yourselves wasn’t worth 110 power, 14 perc and 2% crit damage. I will update all the builds to show this change.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

No is exactly what would happen during a inc Lucentfir.When you charge you take some damage and you can be focused easily (A front-line soldier is the one who take the major damage ) You surely can have protection for damage mitigation and stability when you charge but at the same time you risk to be dazed-stunned or immobilized in just 1 second because there are mesmers that play a lot of times Null Field on first line , you will lost stability and you go down for the multiple attack.
I hit 3k-3,5k to heavy armored class and from 4,5k to 6 k on the others.When I charge with my ally we always stack might and buff and I can go easily to 4150 attack with 60% crit rate (thanks to warriors shout , 40% without it) and 57% crit damage with 3 k armor and 20 k Hp.I will do a screen later to demonstrate it (I have sigil of fire too on hammer so I doa little bit more aoe damage ) It’s late now and it’s time to go to sleep for me xD

A) this is assuming someone is charging completely alone, and without anyone else, which is stupid and that person deserves to die.
B) this is assuming the person does not run in using shelter, renewed focus, or dodge rolls, which is once again kinda stupid.
C) Still assuming the person is just going to run in standard and not use a gap closer like flashing blade or leap of faith, both of which AoE blind making the people you land around miss you completely. Also JI which is awesome because you can just jump past the front line and cause havoc, and also allows you to completely bypass any fields laid in front.
D) You are also assuming that everyone in the zerg is going to target the same person, which once again with multiple people charging in, is very unlikely.

Yeah, deleting this post, pretty much the same thing Lucentfir says below, My wording was just horrible lol.

Teamkiller.4315:

Hubal.8571:

For me personally if there was a way of for example sacrificing 30% of power to gain 30% of health i would take it, because it fits more my idea of guardian, but I can imagine for others this would be absolutely
unacceptable.

You are correct, I find that notion very unacceptable.

^^^^

I like my damage builds thank you.

Eh, it depends, in big group fights I notice it proc often, but compared to citadel where it stays on for 30s when it procs, it just doesnt seem as effective as you have to pray for to the RNG gods to get to make it happen alot more often. I think you might be right with just going 5 + jewel though, the 90 power will be nice along with the jewel stats. I don’t really run enough boon duration stuff to make the water runes worth it, and I already have good fury up time as it is.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

Lucentfir I play since beta with guardian , everytime people sayd that healway is better but everytime you post a roaming video.I have said that for roaming AH build suck!!You have just to imagine that your battle are just a skirmishes respect the real WvW, with your Hp in a large battle (like 25-30 vs 50) with just 1 error you go down, try to do a little bit real WvW.I’m not sayng that your build is not good or that you are not good with your guardian but simply that is more oriented for skirmishesthat zerg fight.

Playing since beta means nothing… if anything it means you started playing on an outdated version of what we have now… I never understand why people think it means anything.

I want to point this out real quick, but you do realize that healing power scales much better with more toughness and a lower health pool compared to less toughness and a higher health pool correct? The smaller the hits you take, the easier it is to heal with a large healing power amount.

At 1200 healing power, which I think is close to what he runs, dodge roll heals for 1329 per roll, to all allies, regeneration ticks for 280, Virute of resolve passive ticks for 156, along with mango pies ticking for 88 per second, thats a total of 524 per SECOND. without dodge roll, virtue of resolve use, healing skill use, or any other outside healing. That is double his health pool per minute before other heals. AND the build gives massive AOE uptime on boons, along with AoE stun break on virtue of courage use, and also aoe condition removal. Please explain to me how AH is better in ANY type of gameplay compared to this build.

So I have decided to switch out the 2x vamp runes, as they really dont proc enough outside of zergs to make them useful, and dont heal enough in zergs to make them useful. At the moment I think I am going for 2x water runes to help boost fury duration even more, and also help give more boon duration on the shouts, I have also been looking at rune of the pack more, but not sure If I am willing to give up the huge fury boost, which helps with survivability from the omnom pies. With the 1h build I do not believe it would be an issue, but with the 1h build the loss of 15%+ crit is easy to notice

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

No Christos’s build is not more supportive then Ah build , the only thing that He do better is the amount of dodge-heal but he suffer a lot more than me condition damage , In a 20-20 or more he dies surely before of me ‘cause you can be focused a lot more than simply from 3-4 characters.People you just don’t have to be suprised of the videos of the other , they never post all the time that they loose…

….. /facepalm Can’t tell of just trolling at this point, or is so obsessed with AH that there is no other build in the game for him.

Naranek.3467:

Amins.3710:

ODB.6891:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

GUARDIAN:
“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

Sounds like a DPS class to me.

• see how ridiculous that comment was Naranek?

Not really. I mean, assuming that line about “brilliant tacticians” is more than just flavor text, I would think it’s referring to crowd control, not DPS. And the “devoted fighters” bit I looked at before deciding it was ambivalent; is that devoted to their role as fighters (DPS), or devoted as in loyal to a group/cause (support)? As for virtues, two of the three are defensive, only the least useful being offensive, and all three can be activated to support nearby allies.

And now that I think about it, isn’t this the same source (profession descriptions) that refers to rangers as “masters of ranged combat”? If that’s the case I would invite you to go to the ranger forum and see how well they like longbow’s autoattack.

A) Amins, you make me laugh

B)Naranek If you think FIGHTER means group support… just wow. And the best part is that your trying to base your original argument off bolded text in the class description, yet you say we can’t follow that based on the ranger description… It must be great to only follow things when it suits you, and also to take fragments of it completely out of context.

The point is, guardian is NOT just a support class. We have damage, we have support, we have defense. We can balance any of these any which way we want. So stop trying to act like our whole point is to support people when it isn’t

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

Christos you haven’t demostrated nothing , the build you use is the same that I use on Spvp for the point holder , cleric items with a lot of dodge for a 1600-1700 every time with sigil of energy when you swap weapon for the 50% endurance recharge.Nothing new.I prefer to use AH build for wvw and yours for Spvp , MF build and your build are surely better for dueling but peolpe that say that guardian have a lot of viable builds are crazy…I just want to remember how are ours spirit weapons for example…

Yeah, giving up on this one. Opinion =! fact. Christos and I run small guild groups in WvW and are fully capable, with smart tactics, at being able to face pretty harsh odds. his build is honestly supreme in group combat compared to AH as he gives out just as many boons, heals for even more, and is almost unkillable. Not only that but his ability to dive into groups to draw attention and live is a huge bonus at it allows the rest of the group to easily come in and pick people off. If you can’t realize that there is more than just the AH build in WvW that is viable then you really lack any creativity outside of a cookie cutter zombie build.

Not liking them does not mean anything about if they work or not. If the AH build works for you thats fine. Im just sick of people acting like it is the only viable build when it is obviously not. Alot of it has to do with people being afraid to try something else. And that has nothing to do with health amounts, but more the fact that other people discredit every other build for no reason other than personal opinion.

Danicco.3568:

But that’s only if you use 1 handers (and pick Right Handed Strength). For Greatsword and Hammer, Zeal wins flat out.

Not really true, 10/25/x/x/x will net you more damage because in groups virtue of justice use means perma burning on bosses, which means a flat out 20% increase to your damage. Radiant power trumps GS power easy and between the 5% extra damage and percision you get over it for every weapon you use not just GS

Its been tested and is listed as a bug on the wiki. Not sure if it is under the specific superior sigil of blood page or just the sigil of blood general page.

Except you dont? Look at my most recent build thread, there is more than one way to get the self healing without AH or MF. And people do try non AH/MF builds, its just a point that more people really need to get out there and try something other than those two.

Edit: trying to fix typing errors, hate posting on a phone :/

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

A real AH guardian don’t use consecrations ‘cause the one that use that is the guardian-cleric (in our parties) , a AH guardian give reta aoe with the shout and simply clicking 1-1-1-2 with the hammer , so we don’t need the extra reta you have ‘cause we always give that.Honor is a selfish traitline?If the possibility to spam shout 20% faster , larger simbols for more protection (and damage) aoe and pure of voice (the trait that give you the possibility to change a condition to 5 person to 5 buff every shout you know that?) plus the extra healing of Selfless daring ( heal aoe simply ’cause you roll) is a selfish traitline you really have to learn something man. You want to do to much thing man , using consecration-using meditation – using a shout so the heal you take for your meditation is not the same of a guardian AH with 3 shout.The error that a lot of guardian do is that you can do ALL with the same build , you have to concentrate on something and doing that the best that you can because you don’t play alone .If you don’t play consecration another one have to respecc for doing that , this is optimization.

Mistyped and corrected to valor traitline. Also consecrations are beyond amazing, a pulsing condition removal fire field, a pulsing stability fire field, and a wall that reflects all projectiles isnt group based? But besides the fact, start a new thread if you want to discuss the goup centric behavior of traitlines since it has nothing to do with guardian Hp

You do realize you can still run hold the line on a meditation build right? Also, the whole valor traitline is a selfish traitline. If you were honestly looking for group support virtues is a 100% better line between massive retail uptime and spreading, stability on virtue use, condition removal on virtue use, and better consecrations. So please, tell me what group support the valor traitline gives. In comparison.

Also, you have to learn to give and take. Can a meditation build still support? Yes. But maybe not as good as other builds. But it can do things other builds cant as well. You cant expect to have everything in one build.

There are ALOT more ways to benifit your party than just running shouts… The whole virtue line would like to say hello, along with our radiance line with blinds and aoe vulnerabilty. Besides AH is just as selfish as any other build considering it only heals you. You can still easily run meditation and still support. Once again, hop off the AH train.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

I really want just to say 2 things.Who sayd that a guardian have a lot of viable build have to try to play as a guardian.In wvw there are 2 viable build for a guardian , a full shout with AH (the one that I use) and the one that use some cleric item for a better support healing with the dodge.All the rest is really useless…why??’cause the low hp pool the guardian have.People that play full bunker use that build mainly (maybe only) in structured ’cause the only thing we can do well is to play as a point holder.
The people that said that warriors are not good on damage mitigation like guardians have to L2P , try to use a full shout warrior build… 10 k hp more that a guardian (20 k vs 30 k) , 1500 heal aoe for every shout (and 1 condition healed) with a lower recharge rate respect to a guardian and more damage respect us.The regen and protection problems? Warrior have them thanks to the guardians that are playng in front line with them so how can be our damage mitigation better now? A lot of people have really to learn to play , guardians give buff to other 4 characters , stop to see things like a 1 vs 1!!!

No, there are more than 2 viable builds, but nice try. Once again, there is more than just AH out there. Think outside the box for once.

As far as compared to a warrior… yeah no. Monk’s focus heals for more than a shout warrior, and is also far more useful, and also 1 meditation removes ALL conditions, turns them ALL to boons, and is a stun break on top of it, as well as smite condition which is on a 16 second traited CD, removes a condition, and does mass AoE damage when removing a condition. Traited to heal they heal for just under 2k.

Seriously, people need to hop off the AH train and actually try to do something else.

As far as giving guardians more HP? No. We have so many ways to just completely ignore damage that we do not need more HP, Aegis completely blocks attacks, Blind makes an enemy completely miss, amazing protection up time that reduces damage by 33%, massive regen up time for added healing, A passive version of regen specific to our class, Easy access to self healing through monk’s focus and AH (both of which do not even require healing power to work extremely well) And also High armor, and a unique signet that reduces damage by 10% (This is the ONLY signet that does this, instead of just increase toughness for a minimal percentage.)

As far as conditions we have pure of voice to make shouts remove conditions, a healing signet that passively removes them, a trait in radiance that doubles the signet effect, a trait in radiance that makes signets remove a condition on use. 2 Meditations that remove conditions, one does mass AoE damage when removing, the other removes ALL conditions and turns them into boons. And also a trait that allows Virtue of Resolve to remove 3 conditions on use. This isn’t even counting the ways through gear like Melandru runes + lemongrass soup, generosity/purity runes, and also runes of lyssa with elite skill use.

The point is, that Guardians have such low HP because we have massive amounts of tools to negate that damage. between straight out reducing it through armor, healing through it with our massive self healing, completely shutting it down with smart aegis/blind use, and easy condition removal, to which conditions are the counter to high toughness low health builds, we have a huge variety of ways to make our low HP work, and adding more to it would literally make us OP.

MidnightCorutin.7084:

Ranger: Mass crowd control and damage – Rangers are, at the current state, broken. They are able to do mass damage while being able to evade almost every attack with the right weapon setup. Now if they aren’t running their evasion weapons they can just use their immobolises and pets to put a ton of pressure on. Can guardians send a pet that deals a general 1750-2500 attack? Can they send out a animal that can take punishment from mutiple people while they sit back and do mass damage? The answer to these is easy. No

….. LOL are you kidding me? Rangers have almost literally ONE viable spec. which is about to get nerfed because of people like you who say they are broken and pets do too much damage. Did you know that pets always have to literally stop to attack, and if you just keep moving, 75% of their attacks will not land? Also, WTF? why the hell are you even comparing guardian to a ranger? COMPLETELY different classes.

MidnightCorutin.7084:

I’m a healing/tank and I disagree with this. Yes we have multiple skills and virtues. Which also have a massive cooldown in an intense fight. One of our ultimates may renew those virtues they still have a long cooldown. Now look at elementalists. They have 4 different sets of skills which each grant massive bonuses towards them. Pretty much every class has excellent mobility skills. What do we have? A few shouts and 1 swiftness skill. That’ll do good in a fight with people leaping and teleporting to you. Warriors don’t need any skills a guardian has because guardians are for supporting and soaking damage so classes like the warrior can deal as much damage without being shot down.

Guardians are not just for supporting, people need to get this the hell out of their head and actually explore some builds and learn to play things other than AH/EM

MidnightCorutin.7084:

Damage guardian isn’t what a guardian is suppose to be. They’re the defensive heavy role that combines – a cleric and a knight. They do mediocre damage with high survivability.

Once again, step out of the AH/EM box.

Streps.9784:

ok im gonna say it again just because no one seems to notice the fact that
I DON’T WANT TO BE A BEZ GUARD THIS IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT IM TRYING TO FINED A MIDDLE GROUND THAT GUARDS DO NOT SEEM TO HAVE

Try actually looking for builds on the forums, there are a TON of different builds and variants of builds, some are damage, some are tank but alot are hybrids.

Ray.3780:

what do you think of superior rune of the pack x4/x6 instead?

It could work as well, I honestly love runes of the pack and run them with my sPvP build. With that being said though, the buffs are only 5s long, and are on the same 5% chance, and a 15s CD. This would mean that just to get each buff for 20 seconds I would need to get hit on average 80 times over the course of a minute, where the average for citadel is 20 hits for 30 seconds of fury on a 1 min cd. Also, this makes it alot easier to get close to 100% fury up time with this build.

SchuMidas.4782:

i was wandering your 2h build
Radiance XII :
Perfect Inscriptions Signet passive effects are improved

the only signet is resolve , what does it improve ?

or does “Blind Exposure: Applying blind also applies vulnerability” make for better choice ?
atleast for F1 and greatsword leap causes blind

It makes signet of resolve remove 2 conditions every 10 seconds instead of one, adding 2 more condition removals, and possibly allowing for a bit more play on utilities. I went with it for the fact that Radiance does not have much other that signet play and 1h synergy, However if you wanted to you could drop the 5 points out of radiance and put them into virtues. I was more or less just giving a way to be able to stay 2h on the fly without having to reset your traits every time.

Bah you edited the last part in lol,

As far as the cleric’s gear, Healing power effects the dodge roll, regen boon, passive Virtue of resolve, active virtue of resolve, and your heal skill. The big reason for it was mostly the Dodge roll to be honest though, as it scales on a 1:1 ratio. Also if you do opt for sigil of blood it also gets 10% of your healing power, however it isn’t as useful due to it being on a 5 second timer as discussed above. You could honestly go With mostly DPS trinkets if you wanted, however I feel that survivability would be dropped significantly due to that, and it would become a more solo minded build instead of being a good all around build for zerging, group play, and solo.

akamon.2769:

NICE. been looking forward to this. ; ))

bed time now, but will take a closer look soon enough.

before i jet, i highly recommend gw2skills.net. they’ve updated it so you can use it for PvP, WvW/PvE. i really like it and most of the stuff afaik is pretty up-to-date. gw2buildcraft was kind of outdated on multiple fronts, so maybe that’s why it’s down? oops! just noticed the backup links. it’s late!

aaaand we’re in diff matchups : ((

Christos with his build, and Bash with this. as if Guardians has a hard time dying already! XDD

My wife is also running the RRR bunker ranger build, Should be fun as a small roaming group :P

It still pulls does it not? Guardian pull acts the exact same way. Also, I have seen multiple people be pulled off the wall without being on the edge before, It depends on the positioning of the curtain on the wall and the person on the wall., not if the person can attack you or not.

I think alot of it comes down to people really just need to try out new builds, and actually see what is out there for themselves. I did that with my most recent build and originally cringed at my low 33% crit damage. However, after playing it and testing it for a bit, the damage is still there, not as high as before, but still there.

Alot of people just instantly go “this build is garbage, it doesn’t have x,y, and z” but that is all a matter of perception and how you gear, and also how you play. I know most people prefer the AH/EM builds because they offer a good amount of survivability, and are not willing to let that go, but it is honestly very easy to get survivability out of different areas without relying solely on one trait set up.

The three key areas I always look at are damage, condition removal. and defense (mainly armor/self healing) And as Amins said, there are alot of combonations that people still have yet to look at to achieve said balance.

Buildcraft is back up, but I do agree it is slightly behind (doesn’t have the settler’s gear and whatnot) But I do prefer it just because of the neat and basic layout. Also for the effective power/effective health to help show how much power and health a build really has. The only issue with it is that effective power can easily be cheesed with damage % because it assumes you have all available sources, where things like unscathed contender do not really last long. However the only ones I really use are ones that are easy to keep on a good part of the time like radiant power and the damage from low endurance traits.

Uh….. Mesmer wall pull?

Anyways, it is because the mechanic it uses. The actual blade attack that then allows you to be pulled is a projectile and can be obstructed, however the actual pull is a debuff on you, that as long as you are in range, pulls you. Similar to the Mesmer wall pull, in which the pull is not a projectile but a single source that pulls everything around it in range. The difference is that guardian has to land the initial attack first.

I have been playing with Shield more in my build recently and have been liking it more and more. I think the biggest issue I had originally was the the long CDs on shield, even when traited for it. However, When you realize that most of your damage comes from your main hand either through auto attack or abilities, It becomes alot easier to handle the longer CDs and use them only when you really need to. I do miss the extra blinds/blocks/possible burst damage from focus, and the possible long range burst from torch #4, but the extra damage reduction/aoe damage on shield 4, and the pushback/heal on shield 5 are very handy when used correctly.

As far as being on topic. As I have said before, 1h Sword is pretty good as it is, the only changes would be increase flashing blade damage, and maybe a bit wider arc on zealot’s defense so it could hit a bit easier at a longer range. Oh and also either fixing the tooltip or fixing the mechanic for projectile absorb so they actually match one way or the other.

I have edited in links to the builds for the Gw2 skill editor site since buildcraft seems to be down at the moment. They are located in the first post of the thread.

fishergrip.4082:

Runes of the citadel are the most underrated runes in the game imo. I’ve been using them for 6 months or more. The fury buff is amazing for guardians who have few other sources of fury. With my build the proc gives me about 43.5 seconds of fury. Add in save yourselves and you’re talking near 100% fury uptime. The bomb does decent AOE damage (1500 or so on crit) and seems to proc more often than 5% of the time, although it is a bit hit or miss since it spawns on your location. The bomb is especially good for fighting NPCs like guards who just cluster around you.

I like the idea of using sigils of leeching for a roaming type build. For some reason I didn’t think that they dealt any damage, but dealing 900 some damage and healing at the same time is great. I also like how you can “preload” life leech by swapping once as you come out of a combat.

Yeah, I have been thinking about just going 6x runes for some added power and the bomb, I just need to figure if the 2x vamp rune is worth it or not, and if I really need it to survive or not. And yeah, Leach is very nice as it not only heals you, but deals damage. The Fury uptime is indeed very nice, as I can keep it up about 75% of the time in group fights due to the proc and SY. Add in Inner Fire for fury on burning application, and its up 100% of the time against anything that does burning. The only way to stop it is through boon removal/steal, but with SY it has a decent chance of still staying on you due to all the boons you have.

Apparently The gw2buildcraft site is down at the moment, If it doesn’t come back up soon I will switch the links to another build editor.

Harbinger.8637:

Makes sense.

I’ve been using Omnomberry, Sigil of Leech/Life/Blood for a couple of days now. Not really a build just some tweaks, and it works great. So I can see how this build would be even better.

Yeah, I took a step back after running meditation builds for so long and looked for other ways to stay alive other than relying on triple meditations with monk’s focus. I did the math on alot of the max potentials of the different sources of leeching and found that with the right amount of sources along with some additional sources of healing (like pure of heart and dodge rolls) It became very sustainable. The loss of crit damage was a bit hard to swallow, considering I normally run around 60%+ between traits and trinkets, but with the added power of EM, the bloodlust stacks, and the actual damage you do from the leech themselves, I find the loss of those stats aren’t as bad as I thought they would be.

Khenzy.9348:

I applaud you for thinking outside the box. This build is not bad at all!

Thanks! I am always looking for new builds to mess around with and try. I honestly feel like I have build ADD at times lol.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Are you actually going to stick to this one?

:P

For the time being, I might make slight changes on it, mostly testing on if the 2x vamp runes are better, or if I should just replace them. but for now this is the build.

Tobkilla.4612:

I’m running sword/torch and scepter/focus: If I use Sigill of Leeching on my off-hands, do I have to use one of the #4 or #5 skills after swapping weapons to get the healing or can I use any skill from my sword or scepter?

Nope! How the sigils (and the vamp rune proc) works is that it gives you a buff on your buff bar that shows your next attack will leach health. It does not matter what attack it is, as long as it does damage I believe (need to test to be sure, something like Shield #5 for instance might not activate it because it does no damage) Also, this buff has unlimited duration, so if you swap weapons right before combat drops, you will keep the buff until next time you hit something.

Since sigil of blood is actually on a 5 second internal cool down, it actually doesnt heal much more than sigil of leeching does over a minutes time. (6216 vs 5850 assuming maximum use of each, calculated with the 80% crit chance I have with fury on) Also, Sigil of blood requires you to be on a target almost all the time to maximize the effect of it, where sigil of leeching, as long as you land a hit before the 9 second weapon swap timer, you are not wasting it.

Amins.3710:

akamon.2769:

working out on a 30/x/30/x/x build right now. it’s workable. most effective? maybe not, but i feel alright surviving, and definitely doing a lot of damage.

kudos goes to Amins of course. you can check out his Zealous Defender youtube vids. : )))

would definitely love a rework of the zeal traits though! just so Guards can add more variety to their builds.

Look guys…

Builds are simple…

You Trait for damage, gear for damage.

You trait for defense, gear for damage.

You Trait for utility, you gear for playstyle.

You trait for Defense, you gear for Damage.

You trait for Defense, you gear for Defense.

It’s simple.

The line isn’t bad. It’s what people expect to do from traiting in that line.

If you’re going for a 30/x/30/x/x build and going “glass cannon” or, imho, Beryll at the least, pick up Sigils, Runes & Food that add healing or ~damage negation~.

did you know you could stack Sigil of Restoration w/ Omnom compote to get +1500 health per kill? Great for zerging…

Think outside the box.

Infiltrator runes… awesome…

And yes, our Zeal line has the least … ‘best feel’ to it, when compared to our other awesome trait lines… no doubt and I would be happy, as most of us vet guardians would, for a consolidation of usleess traits.

^^^^^

Pretty much sums it up. There are builds out there that can use it and work very well, but it does take a certain type of play style to make it “feel” right. And also as Amins said, would love some reworking of it to make it more than just 4-5 useful traits.

Always go for the stones unless your critical chance is below 20% (30% is the standard for most non RHS builds) The only time I would say oil is better otherwise is if you are running omnomberry pies as well for more leech on crit. 50% is more than good enough crit to keep EM up almost 100%, the only exclusion might be hammer due to its lack of multi- hit attacks, however in group settings the symbol can easily hit multiple people, giving it an easier chance to crit and get you procs. Also as a last point, the added power you get, will always give you more damage than the added crit you will.

After a decent amount of play testing on my current build I have finally decided to do a write up and share the details of it. I decided to let go of some of my damage and build a more defensive build, focused around multiple forms of self healing, that works in solo roaming, small group, and zerg settings. The best results I found, came from a leech based build with several other forms of self healing, while still managing to keep a good amount of damage and some group support.

There are two variations you can run of this build, one focuses more offensive with a 1h weapon and a 2h offset, but can be easily changed into a tankier 2h variation. Weapons can be used at the choice of the wielder, and are not limited in any way. Traits can also be switched slightly to match weapons, such as blind exposure, in case you choose not to run sword or greatsword. Always make sure you keep an extra off set weapon with a kill stacking buff as well that you can switch off once you hit 25 stacks. I personally use a staff with bloodlust, but Anything with either bloodlust or life (if you chose to go for more tankiness) will work, as long as you get the stacks before you enter major combat.

As for the actual builds……

1h version:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|c.1g.h1.e.1n.h1m|2.1p.h1m|1n.74.1c.74.1n.74.1c.74.1n.74.1c.a7|1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1a.61|0.u64b.a6.u68b.0|54.1|w.18.19.12.1i|e

1h backup link
/gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNAseRlUg67WFyNEf4Eh1DAGQ/h9oiwvjXFoIA-jEzAYLA8FEGDkCFRiAQ2TZNBKIW0IiGbDo6FMlKRUt7oIa1CBYeMA-w

2h version:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1p.h1m|2.1p.h1m|1n.74.1c.74.1n.74.1c.74.1n.74.1c.a7|1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1k.61.1a.61|0.u24c.a6.u68b.0|54.1|v.18.19.12.1i|e

2h Backup link
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQJASRlYg67WFyNEf4Eh1DCGwCi9oiwvjXFoIA-jUyA4rARhCU2TZNBKIW0IiGbDo6FMlKRUt7oIa1CBYeMA-w

Your big healing comes from:

Leach every weapon switch, almost 1000 per switch
Omnomberry pie: about 350 every other critical hit, 1 sec CD
Dodge rolling: about 800 heal every roll
Pure of heart: slightly over 700 healing (this can be replaced with Shout CD if desired)
And of course your VoR passive and regen from utilities.

Another great bonus of this build is the amount of fury up time. With 4x rune of the citadel you have a 5% chance to gain fury for 34s (with duration from 2x rune) Also, SY gives another 11s, and being set on fire gives another 5s per application of burning. against any groups or solos of certain classes, you can have almost 100% fury up time, which means more activation of omnomberry pies, and also more constant activation of Empowering might, giving you even more damage.

Condition removal is handled through shouts, and running CoP if you find Conditions are really becoming an issue. This build however runs more vitality than I am personally used to, and find conditions to not be much of an issue. Also the 2h variant uses perfect inscriptions along with signet CD, to make signet of resolve an even better heal, and give 2 10s condition removal.

Any tips, comments, or suggestions are appreciated, let me know what you guys think!

Updates:

1) Changed 2x vamp 4x citadel runes to 5x Citadel runes and 1x ruby, the heal from 2x vamp was found to be of very little use.

fishergrip.4082:

Scepter might do about the same damage as sword on a target dummy, but how many target dummies do you fight? It works decent in PvE, but there’s a reason you don’t see many people using scepter in WvW.

The reason you don’t see people use it is because smite is a broken AoE so the weapon suffers against any type of group. 1v1 roaming it is one of my favorite weapons. Works amazingly vs thieves/rangers/eles that have alot of movement. The key is using it like a melee weapon with extended range.

akamon.2769:

lol, you’re scary Bash! XDD

here’s sort of a list for the recipes for the Mystic Forge / PvP. like mentioned, some of the gear has not been seen or confirmed yet as people ahve not reached max rank yet, etc etc
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/55030-pvp-mystic-forge-recipes/

What? I love the challenge. Killing commanders throws the zerg into complete chaos half the time, and who doesn’t want to kill a legend? Make someone with special high rank PvP gear and it just becomes another target in a zerg/roaming. It will be like the exploration star over people’s heads again lol.

akamon.2769:

^^ you’ll get there soon. ; ))

sad as is, the most WvW action i’ve been getting for the past couple of weeks.. or even month??? has been reading the threads here. anyone wanna switch jobs with me?

Someone needs to. So we can murder each other!

The guardian shoulders are way better than that and can actually be used with higher end armor since most of the later stuff is actual plate compared to chain/scale.

Siam.1278:

No, whenever a ‘heal skill’ is mentioned on the traits it usually pertains to the 6th skills (Shelter, Healing Breeze, and Signet of Resolve).

Just making it more specific, as far as I know, it ONLY pertains to your #6 skill without any exceptions.

Fomby.4295:

Devik.9852:

Bash.7291:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_reward

That is the list of what gear you get through which set of rankings. sadly the good looking stuff is much higher on the rankings.

I saw that list before, that’s ALL of the gear possible in PVP? I thought there was more :/

Well… It’s like… all of the armor available on pve. So the “that’s it” statement is mildly confusing.

I kinda wish there was pvp specific armor. Especially some that you can wear in WvW. THAT would be a nice visual cue of someone that you should be wary okittend of like tiger finishers.

Would totally make me want to kill them more. As if commanders and Legend titles in WvW aren’t targets enough for me :P

I agree as well, being a mostly damage guardian myself it really takes some learning and finding the right balance of damage / survivability. Starting out more tanky is generally the best way to go, and then working towards that balance that fits you best. Been playing since almost release and I am still testing builds that give the right balance for my play style.

And Brutaly is correct, Sword/focus + hammer and JI are very good starting points for damage, and also some good survivability. Only recently have I taken JI off my bar, and i miss it very much. >.<