Guild Wars 2

People exagerate. This isnt the end of the world.

Did they add useless stuff, yes they did.

Did the offensive guardian need more dps, in sword in particular, no it didnt.

Is kindled zeal still useless, yes it is.

Was the change to Sos a nerf, no it wasnt. In most scenarios its a buff and in some a huge buff. The fact is its only in one scenario its a nerf when you have no other mean of swiftness, you havent traited larger symbols and dont have time to stand still in the symbol for approx 0,2 seconds.

Did we know that the preview wouldnt change to release, yes we did. At last if you read what Anet previously posted about their development cycle and the time frame they need to alter stuff in that cycle.

The only thing we should be upset about is the fact that Jon peters clearly stated:
1. we didnt have the full picture and there was more to come than the part the posted in the preview. Clearly the preview was the entire patch so there was no big picture and this is a bit worrying.
2. He recognizes that the offensive guardian isnt in a good position and they want to address that and yet do nothing in the patch to fix it. We dont need more condition damage and more damage to 1h sword, what we needed was working spirit weapons, more utilities in zeal in particular, fix of our signets and working symbol builds.

What we got actually mostly addressed the defensive traitlines and the defensive guardian setups.

One might hope that Jon actually trait a 30/30/x/x/x with full berserker and go into wvw/pvp and try to make it work.

As i said, i have made a physical device that presses two buttons at once.

Seriously though, i think the discussion is healthy. Where should the line be drawn. Is it ok to use a mouse for all actions. Its an advantage, imo more so than macros, compared to have all skills on the keyboard.

Is it ok to physically connect two buttons. I have a razer keyboard and tbh in 5 minutes i could connect the keys with wire so when i press a key two keys are registered, thx to ghosting. It just takes some knowledge in electronics.

No macro but it does the exact same thing and equally good. It just took 5 minutes to set it up instead of 30 seconds.

i have all weapon skills on my g700 and on each key i have “macroed” auto loot+weapon skill. So basically when i swing my weapon i loot.

Did this on day one of the “aoe loot patch” and havent been banned yet.

I dont use different timers either and i think 50ms was enough for the autoloot to kick in.

if anet ban me for this i will change my statement to that i have physically connected multiple buttons with a mechanical device.

Ok, we just need a list of people and preferably a set time to play before i transfer.

Amins, Dynnen (I assume we can use your TS), CrapGame, Blasino and me are good to go. That is 5. I take Akamon and Bash for granted which leaves us with 7.

Would be cool with 2-4 more so we get two groups.

What time do you guys usually log on? Need to check when that is in CET.

will play frontline stormtrooper, first in and draw the fire so the dps nerds can get some room to kill. I use staff and hammer as main tools and swap to scepter+focus/ and hammer for burst and for build in stacks on kill.

If you are serious about your guardian this is an opportunity that cant be missed.

Comp wise i think we should aim for perma retal, swiftness, protection and at least 3 WoR and 2-4 fire fields and 2-4 staff guardians. So baiscally we need at least 2 guardians with >45% boon duration.

Would be nice if we could mix in some poison and weakness as well but it might be boring for the one having that job.

VidGhost.3215:

Why is full celestial bad

And some pieces (Trinkets in particular) makes you loose out on effective stats as well due to “miscalculated” item budget.

So basically dont use celestial trinkets since you can get better effective stats without them when mixing other geartypes.

its not about begin good. its about having fun. I will be playing with >200 ms ping so….

What server should we join up on?

For wvw

The only stuff i actually determined are celestial chest, legs and head. Those will be the first ones since they have better overall budget.

The only gear i ruled out (besides condition gear) are the rest of the celestials since they have poor effective budget. Im a bit reluctant towrds pvt so i will probably use clerics and valkyire in the rest of the gear since i have all sorts of accessories to tune my stats with.

Runes will probably be boon duration since they open up for more choices in gameplay ie, support, might stacking burst, healing etc. My fall back plan is ofc travelers but it kind of limits the builds imo. Boon duration is never wrong.

Dynnen, Brutaly and Blasino so far. Bash and Akamon has showed interest. How about Amins!

Btw is it possible to transfer accounts to the US? Can take a break from Eu for a while, i do Tpvp on a second account.

Im in, if people just commit to participating its worth a new account, even for a couple of hours gameplay.

So who is in? We need at least 5 guardians on a us server and TS. I have a TS we can borrow for this if need be.

Nice vids as always.

If you guys ever move to the same server please let me know and i will buy a US copy and team up with you for an hour a week or so. Cant do more than that with a newborn and a business to take care of.

Would be really nice to try out a guardian comp in wvw.

Harbinger.8637:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Harbinger.8637:

The base heal seems to be around 1.7k. So you really do need to trait meds.

If this and the 20% heal per hit for 5 seconds is true, Shelter and Signet are still going to be better. Lower that CD, then, we might be talking up to par to them.

Actually it’s less then that. About 1.5k, this time I did it with zero healing power. Here’s a screen.

I think the tooltip scales with level and you are down leveled. i got 96 at level 5 and 1708 at level 80.

AgentChaos.4932:

Brutaly.6257:

AgentChaos.4932:

Would you mind sharing me the build for the 2nd pic? The mix one

follow the link to the forum post and you find build, gear, buffs for that build.

Ah your pics had the old bloodlust buff which gave godly stats. Was wondering How every stats are so high

Old bloodlust? I have the exact same stats right now in wvw.

Assumptions killed the cat. ;-) I wasnt right. I just didnt make the assumption that it was instant, i didnt make the assumption it had a casting time either.

Sorry for pointing out the possibility for it to have a casting time but hopefully some people read it and it lowered their expectations so we get less whining.

On a serious note, totally useless skill unless you land a focus/mb burst or lay down the smack with symbol bombing on a crowd while having it active.

The pve guys should rejoice, they got the second best thing after sliced bread. The rest of us can go back to shelter.

Might have some use in zergs but a coordinated chain/mb heals for over 1600-2200 alone with AH in zerg clashes so i dont see why you should go medi at all. And in zergs shelter is just to good.

SilkySmooth.1574:

+ you can see on gw2db that it doesnt have a casting time

I can only see that it has 30 sec cd. That it has no casting time based on third party data mining is an assumption.

if i remember correctly none of the new healing skills have casttime on gw2db.

EDIT: just checked and none of them has casting time on gw2db Sidenote is that shelter doesn’t have casting time either on gw2db.

Aza.2105:

So I’m assuming

Which was my point. People assume that it will be instant. Im not arguing against, just saying that its an assumption but being presented as facts. Its not a fact that its instant.

I think that assumption might backfire if we instead assume that this meditation follow the general rule of all other healing skills, namely casting time.

And i have read that the main reason for meditations turned instant was that the trait only affected a couple of meditations not that the meditations where inherently clunky. But it might be me, i never experienced them as clunky so i might have added my own assumption when reading those notes back in the day..

dont get me wrong, i hope they make it instant

SilkySmooth.1574:

its imposible to have a casting time because its a meditation

What? I cant find anything arenanet has published that states that all meditations from here on and forward will be instant? What they did was make meditations instant so they could fit in the lack of fury in that trait and adressing that the trait only improved a couple of the existing meditations.

Ofc its possible, you assume it wont be. I can also assume (i dont though) that there is a casting time since all other healing skills in the game has casting time.

Tbh its logical that it should be casting time on it since there is no trait that makes it instant and there for its easier to balance the percentage of the heal. I hope its instant but i wouldnt be suprised if its not and i can also find reason to have a casting time.

fadeaway.2807:

What’s the cast time? Instant? If so that’s something.

Tbh a skill that converts damage into healing “must” be instant to be effective and all other meditations are instant.

But tbh i fear it will be casting time on it and if so i wont use it or even try it. I have only found cool down on different sites so we can only speculate.

Becasue it was easy mode, cheesy and totally overpowered. Pretty much why they nerfed all pets in this game.

That is the issue with pets in general, all fire and forget skills are extremely difficult to balance.

Personally i would love spirit weapons if we actually swapped weaponskills when activating one.

Just imagine activatiing bow of truth and you got 5 new ranged skills and when you swap weapon or activate the next spirit weapon BoT goes on cool down.

This would be a great addition for the guardians imo.

Pet AI in this game is really bad imo and anet would make us a huge favor if they scrapped pets/SW.

Bash.7291:

Move meditation Traits to Zeal, lower AH healing, We now have an offensive heal based in an offensive line, and if people really want they can pick up AH, but as a med build really isn’t that effective anyways.

I agree with moving medi to zeal. It would be a very wise choice indeed.

What i would like is a fourth virtue for a weaker version of AH when passive and AH for the entire team for x sec when activated and the master trait in valor should boost that AH effect. This would move more support into valor which it lacks atm.

This would make 30/x/30/x/x the best burst build (toughness is needed in tpvp and wvw so it only makes sense valor and zeal is the burst since burst is the best form of damage in pvp. It would also make meditations heals available while using AH. I think this would put zeal in a much better shape and full berserker, full offense builds viable in wvw.

This would also improve our virtues greatly and untraited virtues are really weak atm.

AgentChaos.4932:

Would you mind sharing me the build for the 2nd pic? The mix one

follow the link to the forum post and you find build, gear, buffs for that build.

Healing breeze as a consecration and a new heal that puts zeal in focus would have been much smarter than a medi heal.

But, personally, im eager to see what this new medi heal can contribute with.

I have played extensively with them and they work but the thing is if you mix geartypes (play around with buildcraft) you will find that you can get better *effective stats" in health and damage by mixing gear types.

The only pieces that i havent been able to get better stats by mixing is:
Chest
Legs
Head
Weapon
Divinity runes (But you loose the secondary effect from runes like condiremoval from soldiers or longer lasting boons)

The rest of celestials (trinkets in particular) can be replaced by other pieces. Tbh i think Anet totally missed the goal budgetwise on these babies. They cant specialise and they are not the best compromise either.

You are also forced to build so you can benefit from all stats they have, if not they turn even worse. 30 points in honor is mandatory imo. After that you need to choose from 30 points in valor (0/5/30/30/5 or 0/0/30/30/10) or 30 points in virtues (10/0/0/30/30 or 0/0/10/30/30).
Imo x/x/x30/30 is the build best suited for celestial gameplay and with boon duration runes. If you combine hammer/staff and purging flames/hallowed ground and ofc 2h mastery/master of consecrations you can give your team 25 stacks on your own. Add in might on swap or energy and “might on dodge food” and its really itneresting but i it requires that you know the game.

What are they good at then if you stack them?

They are great if you can stack might or any other secondary source of power like wvw buffs. Since they are high on crit and best in game on crit damage they benefit greatly from mightstacking and heavy burst builds is doable. Check what weapon which scales best and you will find that focus and hammer are good choices for might stacking and ofc consecrations for fire fields. Staff is also an option.

Might stacking without staff is very demanding and requires a very good player and not something i would recommend for a newcomer but when you get it to work its just awesome.

So in short:
Get 3-4 pieces and mix the rest

Or

Stack all celestials and go for might stacking.

They are also a good choice if you don’t know how you want to play the guardians since they offer a bit of everything.

EDIT:
Use a mix of clerics, cavalier, valkyrie and pre/tough/pow trinkets instead, depending on what you replace hands, feet and shoulders with.

Crit damage is a very poor stat if there is no underlying power and you will in fact gain dps by mixing gear while maintaining effective healthpool (mitigation and absolute healthpool). The only time crit damage is favorable is in max dps builds and when you want to max you potential burst. Its the last stat, besides condition damage, you need to stack in order to get dps.

Celestials in the first place is about sustain and as such its sustained damage you should look for..
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/118482/3.jpg
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/118486/7.jpg

The first pics show full celestials and the second shows a mixed build with only celestial head/chest/legs.
Both with wvw buffs, blood lust, stacks from kills and food.
Survivability is the same since its about sustain (dodge roll) and regenerate health and not about healthpool but the second one blows the celestial out of the water when it comes to damage. You could swap 210 points precision to any other stat and the dps would still be higher but with the same healthpool and much more toughness. My point is MIX GEAR

You can find more gear setups with 0/0/30/30/10 here. all of them are decently optimized stat wise, except the full celestial which cant be optimized.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-30-pts-in-valor-gameplay-Hammer/page/12#post3199084

Yet an other buff to a trait line that dont need a buff.

Seriously if any one that is honestly concerned about the profession, from a holistic perspective, thinks this is the right way to go i ask you to take a second look what it does with the balance of the trait lines/profession.

Im disappointed, i think this just makes the balance of zeal, radiance and condition builds even more difficult. Even though i understand that this is change to all professions so it cant be avoided but its a step in the wrong direction for the guardian imo.

From a personal view, my burst builds in wvw seems to get a major boost. Thx for that, awesome!

@ Usernamn. Please stop whining, he is here talking to us, take the opportunity to give feedback in some sort of constructive way. They wont answer you ( which been vividly explained in an other thread) and you gain no point sin the community.

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants. Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives. Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Which is fine and dandy. One of the issues is that the passives are to weak and adds close to nothing and the actives isnt that impressive either.

An other issues can be found in the individual virtue. 90 s cd on aegis is just really bad in almost all game formats and the same goes for 60 sec cd on regen. Virtues are pretty much poorer versions of signets in the passives and worse versions of shouts in their actives.

You say they are balanced in 1-5 opponents and this might be true for VoJ and VoR but in VoC aegis is totally unpredictable with even two opponents in vicinity, especially in the current meta in pvp and wvw where aoe rules.

The big hits it was good to negate back in beta and bwe isnt the main concern anymore.

The virtues and Renewed Focus also pigeonholes us, especially in wvw, versus a 30 point valor build or 30 point in virtues. You have the numbers here i bet and you can easily check what the most common builds are and those builds are reinforced by the weakness of virtues and the elite which solely focus on virtues.

Beef up all virtues so you dont have to trait them to be strong (they arent strong unless at least 30 points in virtues compared with untraited shouts) and keep RF as it is but make it more worth using. Why not reset all cd on all skills. It is an elite after all and should serve as a gamechanger.

JonPeters.5630:

Leonsky.3156:

JonPeters.5630:

This is absolutely working as intended. The game wide rule (minus a bug or two that we are working on) is that once a skill has given you any of the benefits, canceling or interrupting that skill puts it on full cooldown. The alternative, in this case especially, is to be able to make yourself invulnerable for 2 seconds, cancel and then recast 4 seconds later which would be very broken.

Jon

Then wouldn’t it be more beneficial to players to just get the virtues at the start of Renewed Focus instead and ride out the invulnerability duration.

It might, however that is not the only consideration when creating a skill. In this particular instance the idea of refreshing virtues is powerful and we want you as a player to commit to this instead of casting and canceling right away. It is also flavorful in that you meditate for a few seconds to renew your focus not he other way around.

Jon

I do agree but why not make the virtues really powerful, in pve they are but in pvp and especially wvw the virtues are marginal at best.

So why not keep renewed focus as it is and either boost the virtues or add a fourth virtue. Virtues in wvw is lackluster atm unless you trait heavily into them which is really weird for a class defining skill/mechanic.

If virtues was a very powerful tool like necro death shroud or F1 on warriors i wouldnt mind at all the way renewed focus works.

Its especially annoying when interrupted by an unblock able attack and put on full cd with no benefit.

Once again this i alright if the elite actually boosted something very powerful, which it doesnt. We are talking about a couple of seconds of burning or 1,5k, one aegis and 2k health here.

Aza.2105:

Aeolus.3615:

Aza.2105:

I agree, guardian has a overabundance of light fields.

They should had more field combos to teh game, and some restricted to classes.

Each symbol should had its own field, instead of all of them being light fields.

Spot on, as an example its just silly that mace has a light field, water is more fitting.

The only symbol that should be light is GS imo, retaliation is fitting with the symbol it self.

And staff should have swiftness on blast finisher on SoS and all problems with that symbol would be solved.

Amins.3710:

Brutaly.6257:

swap RoW to a fire field and it starts to be interesting and 2h mastery would add to dps in that individual skill, in both pve and pvp.

That is a QoL change worth making.

Dat dere iz jus Crazy Talk.

How come?

This just makes no sense to me.

Just cut the animation time on the chain and make the symbol tick two times to compensate and make WoP add 1 ticks when traited. Just make the length of the chain so 2h mastery adds dps due to lowered cd on mighty blow so it “fits” with the length of the chain.. It would make life much more fun i both pve and pvp.

And ofc make it possible to move while dropping ring of warding. kitten it was called a QoL change on warriors why shouldnt it be QoL on guardians?

The just fixed something that didnt need a fix tbh.

And we dont need an other light field, swap RoW to a fire field and it starts to be interesting and 2h mastery would add to dps in that individual skill, in both pve and pvp. That is a QoL change worth making.

I will try them out as soon as i can get my hands on them, will report back on my findings but tbh i think the posters in this thread has nailed it. Probably only going to work decently with SoJ, cast time on a single block is just bad.

Harbinger.8637:

Condition builds work, however they are less optimal then a direct damage build. Since we only have access to one. Burning is supposed to be supplement damage, not the main source.

I have yet to see someone make a guard condition build that out performs direct damage in any aspect of the game (PvE, WvW, and PvP).

This pretty much sums up my point.

And its this we need to keep communicating towards anet. The risk is that they actually believe there is a competitive alternative for guardians in a condition build if we keep praising it.

I think foofads guide makes an excellent effort in explaining how bad guardians are at condition damage.

Personally i would love to have a condi alternative since condi damage i really cool but we havent got one so far so i have to wait for anet to fix it.

Dirame.8521:

Please go away with your arrogance . “Equal skill” is immeasurable. It’s all about the choices you make in a fight. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING a person can do apart from try to hit you and when they do it’s just down hill from there.

Sorry if i come across as arrogant, i blame the media for that. My arguement wasnt towards your build in particular, it was towards guardian condition builds in general and contrary to your belief i have played your build rather extensively, hoping it to be a competitive tpvp build. it turned out it wasnt competitive. It just lacks to much in damage, survivability, support and condition removers for it to be an option.

And there is indeed hard counters versus that build and also retaliation builds.

And beating randoms in spvp doesnt make it competitive. I can beat people without a single point in the trait lines, it doesnt make my build competitive.

Tbh the reason i havent responded to your previous statements in other threads regarding the greatness of conditionbuilds is that i sincerely hoped that you were on to something that i could use. Now when you have posted it i find it a bit lackluster.

Dirame.8521:

It’s about skill.

Burning uptime is based on how long the target hits you while you’re blocking.

The combined direct and condition damage is huge,

and when equal in skill this build falls short, which is my point. Not just this build, any condition based build but we could argue if this really is a conditionbuild. Imo its not, its a build that has burning as secondary damage component. It just dont have enough types of conditions to cover the burning and the uptime is low. Basically its a retaliation build (that isnt traiting for retaliation) with burning as an option with low direct damage.

I know how the build gains burns, its reactive and the build it self put the other player in control of how much burning you put out. Its extremely dependent on cool downs. If i played any profession that could stack conditions this one would die in 10 s flat with 4 applications. If i run my zerker 0/5/30/30/5 it would take less than that after you used the cds to block and i removed the burning passively and actively.

No its not huge in output, its actually pretty low damage, even for a retaliation build.

I would follow Obtenas advice and move more points in virtues. You will have much higher uptime on both burns and retaliation and at the same time more uptime on protection which i the best boon to have when you play reactive builds or bunker style.
x/x/x/30/30 beats this hands down.
So bascially you could build for more damage (both direct and indirect), more survivability and more support.

All from a tpvp perspective ofc.

Dirame.8521:

Frankly, all I’m seeing is a bunch of people who haven’t tried the build spout ignorant comments.

I tried to get a condi build to perform as well as a direct damage since beta and tbh i havent been able and this one isnt an exception. Compared to a competitive tpvp build it performs rather poorly and have mediocre survivability.

Is it fun? For you it seems to be and that is alright, does it have equal or better survivability compared to meta, nope it hasnt, the same goes for damage.

tbh i dont know if it can be called a condition build considering the low uptime on conditions. In one of the fights versus an ele it was like 60% uptime which can be achieved with basically any build.

To me its a mediocre retaliation build with very low direct damage output and low survivability

So yeah i have played this build and pretty much any variation of builds this game can offer, including pure conditionbuilds with higher uptime on retaliation than this one.

Read this thread and it made me smile.

I year ago every one and his mother pretty much agreed on hammer being useless with poor damage.

It went so far that one of the “respected” theorycrafters on gw2guru.com stated that the hammer only did 50% of the damage that GS did, and a bunch of people tagged along.

Personally i claimed it was a l2p issue and people mixed up that the weapons being weak with either being weak at playing it and/or didn’t like it.

As one of the first to openly proclaim the awesomeness of the hammer, and also used it in offensive setup in tpvp since launch, it warms my heart that the hammer ends up as a top scorer in this thread.

Here is my list:
1. Hammer, it can do both offense and defense and also great burst with a proper setup. Add in control to that and that it doesn’t rely on cd:s and its a nobrainer really, its just a l2p issue. The bad is that its just so boring in pve than one could really do it while sleeping.
2. Staff. 12 stacks of might and with boon duration we are talking 12 stacks 24/7 and ofc its the best heal we got. Bad thing it serves no real purpose besides might stacks in pve. Burst capability is very underrated, its really strong for bursting
3. Sword/scepter. Great for raw dps and made to swap and exploit swap sigils to the fullest.
4. Focus/GS. Nice dps tools and both offer some nice defense as well. Both can be in burst setups.
5. Mace, the burst is just awesome, the rest is kind of boring and sluggish.
6. Shield to situational for my taste and its the cool downs that makes it situational. Reduce cd with 50% and this weapon is good to go.
7. Torch only good for bursting really, its a mediocre weapon in almost all aspects of the game.

I rated them all from a tpvp point of view.
The categories were:

• Damage: How much damage a weapon can do
• Control: How much control/anti-control a weapon can output
• Accuracy: How well the weapon can land the hits (includes fake-outs)
• Scaling: How well the weapon does at different attribute levels

edit: fixed %’s

Excellent compilation Jax, i would translate it to wvw as well.

I think the video displays what I already knew, conditiondamage is just sub par.

Poor survivability combined with poor damage is just a no win situation.

If its fun is a totally different topic though. Im glad for you, that you are having fun.

akamon.2769:

ahha that does sound like a lot of WvW, Brutaly. ; )) i’m slowly getting there now. roaming still gives decent WXP too actually – last night was pretty fun roaming

and nice. i really should staff more when roaming. but for roaming, you don’t prestack either? although i guess that does break up the flow a lot, especially if you’re caught by zergs or what not heh.

Well when i roam i get maybe one level per night and that is a good night, i backcap camps and kill the tail on the zerg mostly. Zerging we are talking about 5-8 level and a hour in a well organized zerg.

Was unclear, i never use the staff when roaming, i often end up with hammer/scepter or hammer/1hsword/focus. And i realize i wasnt clear, i use the staff in zergs but hammer is my main damage weapon there as well.

I have a scepter/sword/focus with stacking sigils as a compliment to my staff.

think im at level 270 something by 75% roaming and small group play, been to much in wvw i think :-) Especially considering i havent used a single booster.

Back on topic, when i zerg i use staff all the way and i have a zerker staff with power stack sigil, two clashes and 2 towers and i have all buffs running.

when roaming i never stack on kill, i find energy just to good to be swapped, even for potentially 250 more power.

akamon.2769:

did someone say kitten?

5 and 6 are pretty nasty. very very nice stats 2.5k armor is a bit low for me personally in WvW but i love the stats. finally got AF about a week ago and it’s given me some room to gear a bit more offensively. slowly working towards GL now : ))

6 is crazy, tbh. Its a full tank and hits for 5k with mighty blow add in a 1-2 k more if you pop empower and VoJ before MB. Very nice with JI.

Anyone up for a 7k aoe burst?

If they keep the same relative budget i will invest in celestial chest,legs and maybe head, the rest can be bettered with other pieces.

If you think AF is silly i can tell you that with a full celestial armor/gear Guard Leech is pretty absurd. i sit with 1400 power and adding in 100 more just makes a world of difference in performance when you also have 25 stacks from kills and pow/pre food. going from 1400 to 1850 when zerging with 1,2k dodge rolls, 3150 armor, >20k health and 106% crit damage is just huge.

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

Glacial heart. Increase sving speed on the third step of the mace and hammer chain and increase damage with 5%.

Nice!

Is this your idea or something that Anet has proposed recently?

Just an idea what they can do with glacial heart that actually addresses something people seem to have issues with.

I would go for 0/30/30/10 and use PoV. imo a much better option with multiple conditionremovers,

The below is pvt armor, besides head which is zerker with soldier runes and celestial weapon.
pvt back and rings, celestial amulet and pre/tough/pow accessories.
This is what i run commander with and any more defense than this shouldnt be needed, and commander is the role that requires the most defense.
First pic is unbuffed and the second is buffed with 25 stacks of power from kills (mandatory sigil in zergs imo) and guard leech, applied fortitude (takes approx 70 hours to reach) and food and minor bloodlust. 0/0/30/30/10

My point is, go more offense than this and if you play wisely you will still be the last one going down.

I think the above is some smart advice but tbh you dont neccessarily need pvt. Sure for a commander or a frontline pusher they are nice indeed but in any other type of role you can dress for more dps, in zergs.

For instance is a mix of berserker/valkyrie with 100% uptime on protection way more durable than pvt.

pvt armor is cheap though and should also be in your inventory.

May i suggest that you check out the last chapter in my valor sticky, there you can find stats on different armor setups and with different runes and just pick the stats you are comfortable with.

Check the FAQ, there are plenty of help there and ofc suitable builds to explore.

But the basics are 30+30 in honor/valor or honor/virtues. At least as long you zerg.

I think healway, Jax guide and my owv contribution is a nice starting point.

It you still struggle post/pm again and i can help out with a decent setup for wvw.

It you have zerker armor pop in rune of soldier and run triple shouts and pure of voice with staff as main weapon, its a good start that no one can say any negative about. Maybe the most desired support in wvw, condition control.

For small groups i think Amins guide might help you, but an advice is to start with zergs.

Forgot to answer you, yes we are doing very well when i comes to damage in general.

The above would make all skills usuable as dps tools in both pve and pvp. Reducing the spam.

And frankly hammer in wvw and pvp is the least “chain reliant” weapon we have. And ofc if 3-5 could be used in a dps rotation it would also contribute to a less spammy gameplay.

I wouldnt mind it it also was combined with shorter cd, our weaponskills has absurd cds tbh.

Edit, the damage of mb should be increased in line with the increased cd and the damage from SoP added. So its a boost to our burst and aoe capability. With increased i mean perhaps 1sec, just so 2 h mastery contributes with added dps when traited.

yepp, and decreasing the swing time with aoe on the third step on the chain would be a huge buff.

If 600 is ranged than we can do aoe damage with staff. Putting rather nice pressure on the opponents. Staff is imo not very suited for small groups or roaming.

At pure ranged we are really bad, our scepter is more or less a <600 range weapon tbh.

If its ranged you want i find my warrior to be superior in almost every aspect.

Glacial heart. Increase sving speed on the third step of the mace and hammer chain and increase damage with 5%.

Nice!

Move symbol of protection to mighty blow. So when you apply mighty blow you trigger the combofield that is already placed and plants SoP. Adjust cool down.

Keep the aoe on the third step of the chain but reduce the swing time on the third hit and adjust dps accordingly. Keeping dps intact on the hammer chain. Untraited 3 svings per mb and traited 2 svings per mb for max dps.

This would solve the issues with covering combifields but more important it would make it so 2h mastery actually increases dps on the hammer, mighty blow would be a part of the dps chain.

Problem solved.

Make it possible to move while dropping ring of warding and make it a fire field.

Make zealots embrace a projectile finisher and buff damage so it has a place in a dps rotation.

Buff damage on banish so if fits into a dps rotation.

Now the utter boredom of using hammer in pve would be turned into something fun.

Well deserved sticky and something these forums sorely needed.