Guild Wars 2

Yeah, no other #2 skill allows people to get away like that. You CAN stop it with ring of warding and line of warding though. Because they cant dodge roll in that form they cant get through. Only managed to do it once to keep a downed ele out of a tower though.

I play a hybrid dps/bunker build and d/d eles almost always have to run or end up stalemate vs me. The key is running scepter and keeping damage on them when they move away to heal.

I LOVE the special effect on juggernaut but cant stand the weapon itself. >.<

Orr is level 80.

Yeah, your stats seem oddly low for the gear you have. As far as runes go you are better off trying to go for orbs/crests as they are cheaper and give you more stats than the runes are worth. Might duration is nice but fury duration is almost useless on a guardian because we only have one consistant way to apply it. I use a mix of beryl orbs and crests of the soldier and together its an increase of 120 power, 84 vitality 42 toughness and 6% crit damage. that should help up your damage a bit. Also the people doing that much are most likely zerker set builds.

That would explain how in sPVP one of my deaths had steal listed as the highest damage done to me. was rather confused on that.

Obviously yes, you need to take your play style into account when you decide, but I would say choose whatever weapon is your favorite. Honestly the bonus stats are not going to make that much of a difference in the long run, the only thing that matters is the look. I would personally go GS or 1h Sword as those are my favorite weapons/ favorite looking weapons in the game. If there is a weapon that you use in almost all your builds, I would go with that. Oh and whatever you don’t choose, make sure you send my way! (J/K but kitten you are seriously lucky with getting precursors to have all those)

What trinkets and Traits are you using? Also what runes and whatnot do you use in your armor. Those stats seem kinda low for a full knights exotics set.

erigais.6805:

Bakitten291:

Weaknesses:
The main weakness of this build is the retaliation buff. Our big damage causing skills are multi-hit and fast attacks, causing the damage from retaliation to add up very quickly. Pistol/Dagger thieves and D/D bunker ele’s are also very annoying for this build too because of their mobility. This build actually has a decent amount of mobility between flashing blade, leap of faith, and judge’s intervention, however we have no lock down skill to hold other classes in place. The up side to this build however is that in most cases neither of these classes can kill you too quickly, and most of the times it is a stalemate due to your self heals. However I do suggest switching to Scepter/torch if you do end up going 1v1 against these classes, as GS will generally slow you down.

If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this build or any suggestions on different sigils/utilities please share. I hope you all find this build helpful in WvW.

this is pretty much weakness with guardian in general. bunker eles and thieves are annoying for everyone. they are just too kitten good at escaping.

the hard thing im trying to get from this build is what exactly is your focus? to do more damage to survive or find a happy medium?

The build is more of a Hybrid build. But honestly I think the build is more focused around not having to sacrifice some damage to get the extra defenses. It has solid defenses through meditation healing, high toughness, and decent passive healing (if you go with the mango pies). It can be bursty at times due to it relying on vulnerability and the extra 10% damage on burning foes, and also if you managed to get some good stacks of might from blocking with shelter or Focus #5. It however is not very ally friendly, as nothing it has really gives to your allies, other than vulnerability increasing damage some. It is however very good at staying in group fights and dividing enemy ranks due to people not being able to take the damage it can deal while still having good self healing.

Oh i figured it started on activation, not on Completion, my bad. The random boon on shelter doesnt interest me that much since I cant really count on it to give me the boon i want when in want it. They are more tempting now but I am not sure i am willing to give up the strait stats for a 90s cooldown boost, but its definatly something to consider.

Ojimaru.8970:

I use 0/30/30/5/5 with the new Blind Exposure.

Flashing Blade + Virtue of Justice Activate + Ray of Judgement = 3 stacks of Might + 9 stacks of Vulnerability

If your run Purging Flames you can get another 3 stacks of Might using the Shield of Wrath’s Blast Finisher, plus 3 more through Might of the Protector.

With Focused Mind you can also teleport to retreating foes mid-channel of Zealot’s Defense or Whirling Wrath using Judge’s Intervention.

I actually ran a 0/30/30/5/5 build before the VP nerf and loved it. However I dont really feel the need to put the 5 in virtues anymore as it doesnt give me mini bursts of healing anymore. Also when looking at it the might you gain from justice equals out to 105 power, which is almost exactly what you get passively from traiting into zeal, and thats before adding the extra damage when burning. I do miss the added regen and protection from resolve and courage, however my healing is so low that the regen was almost equal to what resolve gave as a passive already.

As far as the judges mid zealot and WW i actually mentioned that in my original post and do that almost all the time, its such an amazing combo.

Hmm it is tempting but im not really sure. The build doesn’t really need more crit now that AH + VP is dead. Also since the build runs renewed focus, 3 seconds out of 5 of the boons will be useless. Granted it would give a small amount of healing through regen and some retaliation, but otherwise I dont see it as too great. And the build already has some decent condition removal through smite condition and purity. Right now my orbs + crests give me 120 power, 84 vit, 42 toughness and 6% crit damage, (3 crests of the soldier and 3 beryl orbs). If they ever allow Reaper of grenth to be castable while moving I would most likely try the runes, as i would totally switch to that as my elite.

You know I was playing with a new build and I realized something. Might is the perfect example of what we need. Might is the only boon which stacks its buff instead of duration. If more boons worked like this then guardian would be pretty set in its place with boons. I am not sure how a rework like would work without it being overpowered but it would certainly have to be limited to themselves. And only stackable to certain amounts.

I ran that build for a bit myself but i found the damage with RHS to be worth more than the 5 in virtues. I also love the 1h sword lol. I actually dont have too many issues with getting caught as you can use purity as a clear all skill then just shelter/renewed focus walk out. If you cant do that you were pretty much screwed anyways. Also MI doesnt work based on target so you could end up really screwing yourself with it. Thats also why I take the 5% crit talent, because 1/4 of a second cast time isnt that much.

Personally don’t like staff. I know it has it’s uses, but it just doesn’t put out the damage like i want. As far as AH with shouts I find it kinda underwhelming. the most healing through AH you can get with a shout is about 700 with max allies hit. (assuming 70 per boon, 2 boons per shout, 5 people.) compared to a meditation heal of 1800+ now granted, you obviously get the boon as well as the healing, but most are lack luster duration, other than Save yourselves, which without any decent condition removal is more likely to damn you in WvW group fights than save you.

Weaknesses:
The main weakness of this build is the retaliation buff. Our big damage causing skills are multi-hit and fast attacks, causing the damage from retaliation to add up very quickly. Pistol/Dagger thieves and D/D bunker ele’s are also very annoying for this build too because of their mobility. This build actually has a decent amount of mobility between flashing blade, leap of faith, and judge’s intervention, however we have no lock down skill to hold other classes in place. The up side to this build however is that in most cases neither of these classes can kill you too quickly, and most of the times it is a stalemate due to your self heals. However I do suggest switching to Scepter/torch if you do end up going 1v1 against these classes, as GS will generally slow you down.

If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this build or any suggestions on different sigils/utilities please share. I hope you all find this build helpful in WvW.

Play style:
Because you have Virtue of justice refreshing on every kill, make sure that you use it whenever you are going to burst your target down. Normally the best time is once you get a few stacks of vulnerability up from blinds. However make sure that you do not waste it as it is one of the few ways this build has to actually add burn to an enemy. Make sure you use your blinds wisely as they are also part of your damage. You have a total of 4 blinds with this build (virtue use, flashing blade, Leap of faith, and ray of judgment. Ray can actually apply it twice if it bounces back to your target.

Something else that will increase your damage and burst is proper use of your blocking abilities, Aegis, Shelter, and Shield of Wrath (focus #5). Because this build gives you might on block these skills can actually give you a large damage boost on top of their defenses. Using shelter while being focused by multiple enemies can actually give you a full 25 stack of might which lasts for 15 seconds.

Zealot’s defense, Whirling Wrath, and your 1h Sword auto attack are your main sources of damage, I suggest almost always trying to combo them with Judge’s Intervention to maximize your hits, unless the target is rooted or is directly on top of you. Judges Intervention is an amazing utility because not only is a 1200 range gap closer, but it also does not Interrupt any ability, meaning that you can start casting something like WW and use Judges intervention to teleport directly on top of the target and continue the attack. This will also give you burn on your target, therefore increasing your damage on them even more.

Your defenses for this build are based around blind use, healing through meditation use; Healing through passive regen (if you went with Mango pie) and proper use of shelter/renewed focus. With Mango pies you should be regening around 170 health per second passively. Meditations heal around 1800+ per use; with smite condition being usable every 16 seconds. Shelter is on a 30 second cooldown, heals for about 4.5k but more importantly negates 2s worth of damage, casting renewed focus right after will gives you a total of 5 seconds of immunity. Your condition removal comes from Smite condition, Contemplation of purity, and Sigil of generosity.

Due to the recent changes on AH + VP Healing I have had to change my spec. I have gone through a few I thought would work but honestly so far only one has been able to deal decent damage and have decent survivability, so I thought I would share for those looking for a 1H sword build.

Gear:
Armor: Currently Half knights (Power, toughness precision) and Half Solder (Power toughness Vitality) with a mix of Crest of the Soldier in the Knights gear, and Beryl Orbs in the soldier gear.
Trinkets: Ancient Karka Shell with Beryl Orb, Berserkers ruby earring, 2x Knights Emerald earring, Valkyrie Beryl amulet, Cavalier’s spineguard with Beryl orb.
Weapons: Berserker’s sword/focus, Valkyrie’s Greatsword
I choose not to use runes because in most cases the 3 Stats you can get from orbs/crests equal out better than rune bonuses, (except for divinity which I am just too cheap to get) this gear is a mix of stats and creates a very hybrid feel. Your Vitality is going to be somewhat low, but not horrible; your toughness should easily get you 3k armor after traits. Your Power should get you to 3k attack after traits/food, and your precision should get you over 40% with about 60%ish crit damage. The sword/focus have some really good defensive abilities so I stick with berserkers’ for those, while I go to Valkyrie’s Greatsword because it is a purely offensive weapon.

Sigils: I am currently testing out sigils at the moment, Sigil of Bloodlust on the 1h sword and Sigil of generosity on the focus are my first choices due to the extra damage and condition removal you get from this combo.

Traits:
10/30/30/0/0

Zeal
II: Fiery Wrath: Deal 10% more damage to burning foes.
Radiance
VI: Blind exposure: Adds 3 stacks of Vulnerability to foes you blind
X: Powerful Blades: 5% more damage with swords and spears
XI: Right hand Strength: 15% crit chance with 1h weapons

Valor:
I: Meditation Mastery: Meditations Recharge 20% faster
VI: Retributive Armor: 5% toughness given to precision
XII: Monk’s Focus: Using a meditation heals you.

Utility Skills:
Shelter: 2s block and heals
Contemplation of Purity: Converts all conditions to boons, stun break
Smite condition: Deal AoE damage and remove 1 condition. If a condition is removed deals double damage.
Judges intervention: Teleport to your target enemy, deal damage, and burn nearby enemies for 3s, breaks stuns.
Elite: Renewed Focus: 3s Immunity and virtue refresh

Food buffs:
Sharpening stone: 6% toughness and 4% vitality given to power
Mango Pies: +88 Health per second, +70 Vit
Bowl of curry butternut squash soup: +100 precision, +10% crit damage.

Mango Pies are great for a defensive style build, as the +88 heals per second goes along great with our passive Virtue of resolve for a steady stream of healing. Use the soup if you prefer going a more offensive build.

The only things that are considered boons are buffs with the orange tabs, if it has a unique buff icon it is considered a special effect.

The 25 point trait in virtue only gives a 1% buff for each boon. Granted you can run close to a perm 7% damage buff with this build I think it would be better just to go with the standard 0/0/30/20/20 build with empowering might. You get more damage, more damage for your allies since it applies to 5 of them around you, and also you get healing for all that with AH.

I dont believe that certain blast fields count in regard to your second question. Things like stealth, chaos armor, are special effects, not actual boons. I believe only the orange buff icons count as boons so only might, fury, regen, protection, vigor, aegis, retaliation, and stability (i think thats all of them) count towards AH as for runes if you are talking about ones that give a boon under certain conditions, like when hit or to allies when using a heal skill then yes those do count. Any boon you give to anyone at anytime should heal you.

I have hear rumors about AH and it not working correctly when adding duration onto a boon already in place, but never have i experienced that before.

Wow, I thought it was the holiday event as well, since the Halloween one tanked us hard. Didn’t realize that HIRE jumped ship.

Well thats part of what i mean. We have plenty of useless traits that we could switch to give some sort of small fury buff. Like our retaliation on heal better belongs in virtues as virtues has all the retal traits. Just improving some of the useless traits to help with fury would make alot of sense.

I would honestly just give fury to radiance and leave swifness for virtues instead of mixing them into one line. I do agree we need more ways for fury though and maybe instead of buffing the duration of fury or crit chance maybe have it add some crit damage (at most like 5% more) because honestl 20% added crit chance is pretty strong and really doesnt need more. And also i see fury as more of a burst style buff than one that should be up all the time.

KensaiZen.3740:

naaaaa at 900 range it still hits often enough. Making it instant is a bit OP because then you can’t see it coming to dodge or block etc

You do realize that is exactly how necro scepter works right? It just hits, there is no projectile.

Try using sword/focus or mace/focus instead of staff. The sword has good killing and defensive power as does the focus, you get multiple blinds, regen off focus #4 and the blocks off #5 are great defense. Mace is great for tanking, the heall of the auto attack 3rd hit is great. Along with the regen off the symbol and the block+counter it is a great defensive weapon.

I did the same exact thing when I read auras. Some of these changes i agree with, others not so much. 900 range on our leeps i dont believe is really needed, 600 is fine as it is for gap closers. Also applying burning isnt really needed ss they both already apply blind, and also if traited 3 stacks of vuln from the blind.

Scepter does need an overhaul like you said, i would say get rid of the whole projectile as it is (kinda like necro) where it does damage on the first two hits and either apply burning for 2secods on the third, or do a small aoe on the third. (kinda like a smaller smite condition AoE.) Also make smite a symbol like it should be, applying vigor or maybe even fury.

As far as symbols I like the Aura idea. It would be a bit tricky though with the combo fields and whatnot. The swiftness symbol, and if they ever made it one smite, would be odd because of ground targeting already in the ability. I think a possible fix would be to seperate the damage and the field from the actual buff. Also I think that the greatsword trait should have an instant animation or possibly spawn on your target than around you, because at most in pvp you get like 2 ticks if that. Also I would LOVE a trait that added cripple to symbols. Like 1 second per tick. It would be a huge help with control.

Healing skills I dont think need any work. Shelter is OP as it is with any onblock traits (25 stacks for 15 seconds when being focused, hells yes) and also stops all damage. Never really used breeze though so maybe that could use a buff.

Signet of mercy fully Agree on, everyone else’s signet is 120 recharge, why the hell is ours double that while also only rezing one person.

As far as adding a 25% move speed buff i kinda disagree. Guardians arent meant for full mobility like that. However i would say make a trait that if we apply a boon to an ally we get like 2 seconds of swiftness, with maybe like a 1-2 second cooldown so we cant perma stack it around allies. It would tie in amazingly with the we rely on boons gameplay but keep us limited a bit still on our mobility to a degree

( i will edit this post for typos later, to much of a pain doing it on my phone)

Just get used to being slow now. I ran retreat from the first chance i could to 80. Had to drop it for my build and it was horrible at first. You get used to it after a while though and as alarox said using attacks k. Critters and neutral mobs will get you places quickly.

Linking abilities together is honestly your best bet. The purity meditation can turn all your condions into boons and also clears stun. Following that up with something like Shelter, which blocks all attacks for 2 second while healing, then right into a renewed focus making you immune for another 3 seconds. Focus #5 also gives you 3 blocks as well to help take some damage off you. Also running Sword and Greatsword can also extend your range to flee, as both have a 600 yard gap closer, the Sword being a teleport, the greatsword being a leep. Tied in with Judges and you get 2400 of distance.

Sadly the state of Guardian mobility is pretty sad at the moment. The only thing you really can do is negate as much damage as you can while trying to get to a safe zone like a tower/keep or to a group of friendlies.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

buki.3108:

One step closer to getting that build of yours rofl. jk

I’m giving it out soon. I made a video. It’s my first ever though, so I’m too stubborn to render in anything less than 1080-24p, so…36 hour upload. Still waiting.

Bakitten291:

If we werent on the same team i would be working on a build to kill you just for the fun of it :/ i already know the class that can do it.

It’s unfortunate that it takes a fairly specific build to do it efficiently. ^^

I know, And sadly I don’t think there is a way any guardian can achieve it solo >.<

Silver.8023:

Come on people, vigourous precision is about getting vigour so you can dodge more as it synergises quite well with the other minor traits in Honour, it’s not about keeping your crit build alive so it can facetank anything. I understand you’ve grown comfortable with your free crit heals but really, come on, you know it was stupidly overpowered.

I pretty much only WvW, there isn’t much facetanking in WvW.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t really get where you are coming from. Good AH builds try to get many boons. If your Ah build is only getting one heal from only procing VP, that doesn’t really sound like a build that was taking advantage of AH in the first place, so it’s hard to see what your issue is. You can’t really complain about AH builds getting screwed if your AH build isn’t that good to begin with.

dizzyd.5213:

It’s the frequency of boons that matters, not the number of different boons.

This is exactly what i was trying to say. You could apply the vigor on crit boon faster and more often than any other boon, due to it not having an internal Cooldown, Shouts are great because they apply boons to other allies, but they all have 20 second plus cooldowns and only effect 5 allies. As I said before, the only issue where this ever seemed to become “OP” was in multi-hit, multi-target situations, such as using WW or torch #5 where even adding a .5 second cooldown to the trigger would have been enough to tone down some.

And as far as saying that my “AH build isn’t that good to begin with”, Brutaly (The author of the AH Hammer guide that is stickied) Said in another thread its the same build he normally runs with. It was a good mix of self sustaining and damage. Just because some people like to think of better ways to use traits than sticking with the empowered might build does not mean they are not good specs.

Obtena.7952:

I’m unsure what you’re trying to say. My whole point is pretty simple .. AH builds still work well enough that nothing should really change in people’s builds. It’s simply over-reactions here.

You are COMPLETELY missing the point. 0/30/30/5/5 was my build, running high crit. Every crit I landed healed me, providing a constant flow of healing. Now instead I get ONE heal off it per 5 seconds. It is the builds like that, which didnt focus on Empowering might that got hurt badly. If someone can supply me with a working AH build that doesnt run based on hammers or Empowering might, then please do. Until then I have an issue with this.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I don’t even use AH and I still manage to stay alive all day against groups. I don’t see the issue here.

If we werent on the same team i would be working on a build to kill you just for the fun of it :/ i already know the class that can do it.

Obtena.7952:

I honestly don’t know what builds you guys are using to claim this is a devastating blow to AH builds. Vigor is certainly not the only boon that procs on guardians. Even more significantly, it didn’t even proc on your allies so it didn’t stack AH heals like protection from hammer symbol or virtues with Virtue 5. I dare say it but it’s probably the boon nerf that has the least impact on an AH builds.

It stacked AH heals because of how much crit you can maintain with right hand strength. With food buffs and such i can reach 80% crit. Something like zealots defense could easily reach 400+ in healing. Attacks that hit multiple enemies did even more. Also my build had virtue 5 as well. It honestly had a huge impact for any high crit builds because that was the basis for our self healing. Im sorry people cant seem to look outside the AH hammer builds with empowered might, but as i have said, having to spend 20 trait points to make a 30 point trait work is insane.

Yeah the filter does that on my name, Started recently, not sure why. And assuming Ganzo is running close the same build as I was, pretty much yes. Its a high crit build somewhere along the lines of 0/30/30/5/5 or even 10/25/30/5/0 the point was that you got your crit high enough that you could sustain yourself with the vigor on crit. Other than virtues which were like mini heals from AH, it was your primary source of healing. with those builds

Also, It is kinda BS to make AH only work with Empowering might builds, as I have said multiple times, Spending 20 Trait points to make a 30 point trait work is insane.

Pretty much what Ganzo said, the switch was an AH nerf, the people that were effected most by this already had 100% vigor uptime, so calling it a buff is a load of bull.

I Still think adding a .5 second CD to it would have fixed It alone. The issue was multi hit attacks and AoE attacks, WW for example would be limited to 6 hits total (think it lasts 3 seconds, could be wrong) and Zealots would be about the same, auto attacks on single target wouldn’t be effected but multi target and the sword #3 auto attack would be lowered for healing output some. And keep in mind it only procs of crits so some of those hits wouldn’t even heal.

To nerf it down to the point that the only way to make AH worthwhile is to spend 20 points in a completely different trait line (aka for empowered might) Is a complete and utter WASTE of a trait.

Do you have a rune of the soldier in your aquatic helm too? It replaces your helm underwater so if you dont have the rune in it you effectively only have 5 pieces on that do

Thats the other thing, I dont see how a class with horrible mobility is supposed to be OP because of a healing mechanic. The other classes all have alot more mobility and ranged options compared gaurdian. So why does the one thing that defines our class get a nerf like that.

You know im sick of reading the “pick up a hammer and l2dodge” spam on this thread. I played an AH + empowering might build, its not my cup of tea. And to HAVE to spend 20 extra trait points to make a trait work is stupid. They strait out broke AH for anything that isnt an empowering might build. And as for telling people to adapt, dont bother I already have, it is just annoying to destroy a build that fit my playstyle perfectly.

Obtena.7952:

Bakitten291:

I already HAD perm vigor. my whole basis of my build was the self healing from that trait. at 75% crit with a 1h sword over 5 seconds i would crit 7-8 times with just auto attack, thats about 490 healing done. Now it is just 70 healing. It is honestly a huge nerf for me.

This kind of capability is probably part of the reason that it got changed … permanent 490 Heal per second? I like guardian and I don’t like nerfs but that’s pretty OPed in a game where healing is rather limited.

Thats over 5 seconds not per second.

490 healing every 5 seconds are: 5880 heals in a minute.
i think the monk focus build can heal better than this.

It ends up being around the same amount of healing due to other factors like multiple targets and multi-hit attacks, such as zealot’s and WW, The difference is that it was constant healing compared to meditation burst healing, and also over healing was not wasted compared to meditation healing because of the fact that its always on.

1)Unscathed Contender: Increased damage from 10% to 20%.
2)Strength in Numbers: Now activates more quickly when entering combat, and scales from 0-70 defense instead of being capped at 30.
3)Blind Exposure: Increased to three stacks of vulnerability
4)Shimmering Defense: Increased burn duration from three seconds to seven seconds.
5)Binding Jeopardy: Increased vulnerability from three stacks at five seconds to five stacks at eight seconds.

Were all the trait buffs. Blind Exposure being the big damage increase.

OK, Since the patch I have found that our damage is now alot higher, with a dip in some of our survivability. My new spec is as follows:

10/30/30/0/0

Zeal:
II: Fiery wrath: 10% more damage to burning foes.
Radiance:
V:I Blind Exposure: Applies 3 stacks of vulnerability to blinded foes
X: Powerful Blades: 5% extra sword/spear damage
XI Right-Hand Strength: 15% extra crit when using 1h weapons
Valor:
I: Meditation Mastery: 20% faster meditation recharge rate
VI: Retributive Armor: 5% toughness is given to precision
XII: Monk’s Focus: Meditations heal

Had to ditch burn on block and AH for the 2 meditation traits. The key is now blowing your enemy up with stacked vulnerability and the extra damage from burning. With Sword/focus you can apply up to 9 stacks of vuln very quickly, with another 3 coming from activating your virtue, which will also give you the burning you need. My sword auto attacks are now doing up to 2k damage per swing and my Zealots is doing upwards of 6k

I had to drop my Greatsword and switched to scepter/torch for my off set. The root is a good gap closing tool, smite is always decent, just wish the auto attack was faster. Torch #4 is great for making sure you have burning up, and the throw has done up to 5k+ to people. #5 on torch has sadly lost some of its use though. Before it was a great way to heal due to the multi hit attack and decent size cone. Now I more or less just use it when people are too grouped up together, as the scepter #1 actually does better damage at close range with over 1k crits.

wookalar.8952:

Regarding the AH build:

1) Heals from boon giving like empower, shouts, and other skills will still be the same.
2) Heals from crits will be reduced, but ‘only’ by about 40% considering you can still put out might stacks on crit every second. So instead of 10boons in 5s, it’s now 6 boons per 5s.

I don’t feel like its a build-breaker, but some dps might need to be sacrificed for tank if your skills are lacking.

Except my build didn’t use Empowered might, so that doesn’t really apply. There is one thing that this build has given us though, and that is more damage. We gain ALOT of vulnerability with this new patch, and honestly it does show very quickly. Sword + Focus now does a ton of damage when speced for it, and scepter actually did get a tiny bit of love in the form of the increase of vuln stacks on the zeal trait.

I am kinda confused to be honest, I see alot of people saying we can dodge more because of this change, but werent most builds that ran with those traits running with close to 100% vigor uptime anyways?

Yes it is a nerf, what I gave is the best case for what it could do before. That assumes that you are always hitting a target. The downside is that you HAD to keep attacking to keep the healing going. Also, I ran 0/30/30/5/5 The only healing I was getting was from that trait. I didn’t have anything to increase the healing from AH like Empowering might.

You are saying that those heals are semi OP yet the tankiness of our class is one of our class defining traits. We don’t get the escapes and whatnot that thieves and eles have, or the base health that necros and warriors get. We get self heals. Nerfing our self heals hurts.

I already HAD perm vigor. my whole basis of my build was the self healing from that trait. at 75% crit with a 1h sword over 5 seconds i would crit 7-8 times with just auto attack, thats about 490 healing done. Now it is just 70 healing. It is honestly a huge nerf for me.

For someone who personally hates Monk’s focus, I am kinda screwed now aren’t I?

enzoh.5302:

Vigorous Precision: Increased vigor duration to five seconds. This effect can now only trigger once every five seconds.

This is basically a nerf to altruistic healing.

Killed my entire build. And the gear I had based around it.

Welp my build just got blown up by the new patch. Thanks Anet!

“Vigorous Precision: Increased vigor duration to five seconds. This effect can now only trigger once every five seconds.”

Not sure, but it really isn’t worth it to try for. The only symbol that does decent damage is the GS one, which at most I have seen crit for about 1k. If the Staff symbol did the same damage I would considering making a symbol bombing build, but sadly it is just hard keeping people on them for any meaningful length of time.