Guild Wars 2

Christmas trench party on EB!

I also just stacked Power and Precision while leveling because I was clueless and wanted to kill things faster. I actually still think that’s the way to go. It’s just a matter of utilizing your skills and traits properly to accommodate your gear of choice.

Like I said, you can easily get away with taking almost zero damage against mobs in PvE if played properly, even when gearing purely for damage. The only time I remember really dying while leveling was against very large groups and against certain bosses.

Let me try to put it this way…

WW causes you to spin 3 times. Each spin is capable of hitting every target around you. If it hits five targets all three times, that is 15 attacks.

WW also fires 9 projectiles over the course of the 3 spins. Assuming these 9 projectiles all land, that is another 9 attacks. This totals up to 24 attacks when using WW against 5 targets.

You are correct to assume that none of the targets are hit 24 times by themselves. Each target is hit 3 times by the spins, and then each projectile hits a random target. So yes, each target is getting hit only 4-5 times on average, and only four VoJ procs will occur over the course of the WW against 5 targets.

Regen is regen, regardless of the source. I suggest using both SY and HTL for higher uptime of both regen and protection. I’ve used them both together since I unlocked my second utility slot and it’s very efficient.

GS is my main weapon as well, and it has been since I started leveling. It’s not a bad weapon, you just have to get used to using other weapons while you level.

It’s going to look like you’re taking more damage than you are because of your low health pool. The best you can do is upgrade your armor when you can and use your defensive abilities (blinds/blocks/dodge) more liberally. Realistically you should be able to kill most foes without taking…well, really any damage at all.

WW deals damage in a circle 3 times PLUS 3 projectiles per spin, so it’s actually 12 hits on a single target.

If you’re surrounded by 5 targets, you will land a total of 24 hits (15 spin ticks + 9 projectiles). VoJ will proc on every 5th attack, so it’ll proc 4 times over the course of a 5-target WW, assuming all projectiles land. Only the four targets that got hit by the procs will suffer the burning, whether it’s the same target every time or different targets.

For clarification, the projectiles hit only one target each. And if you hit one target four times, but your fifth attack (whatever it may be) hits a second target instead, the second target is the one that gets burned.

I don’t recommend just stacking signets. Use utilities that provide consistent boon coverage, like Hold the Line. Regeneration and Protection are a big deal for a class with a low health pool and no clones, pets, or minions to draw aggro. The Guardian has an unusually high leveling skill cap due to its lack of tankiness at lower levels.

Also consider secondary weapon sets included the focus off-hand. It’s 5 skill is invaluable for defensive play. Running a scepter for kiting or mace for additionally defensive play while leveling will also help.

Edit: When I was leveling, effective use of blinds, blocks, and dodging made everything much easier. I recommend putting 15 points into Radiance while leveling for VoJ blinds, shorter SoR cooldown, and VoJ recharge on kill.

As far as Virtue of Justice goes, regardless of who/what every fifth attack hits, every fifth attack will proc the burn. For example:

One target.
You use Zealot’s Defense, which is 8 projectiles.
The fifth projectile procs burning.
Your last three projectiles go off, and then you auto-attack twice, which procs burning.

Three different targets.
Your first three attacks hit target one.
Your fourth attack hits target two
Your fifth attack hits target three. Your third target gets burned.

Assume five targets.
You use an attack that spins five times and hits all nearby targets.
On a full spin, you hit all five targets, so your fifth hit procs the burn.
If you hit every target every spin, that’s 25 ticks of damage.
25 ticks of damage = 5 procs.

You only get one proc every 5 attacks regardless of how many targets there are. It’ll just proc a lot more often if you’re AoEing.

The number displayed on Virtue of Resolve’s tool-tip is the passive tick (called Rejuvenation), not the on-use heal.

WvW Minitage is now up in 1080. The new video isn’t as great, but I did manage to get it up in 1080 as well, and I think the gameplay is pretty solid. ^^

Next video should be out shortly after Christmas.

I use Mango Pie (the regen+vital food). I plan to try the 40% endurance regen food when I have the funds available though. Would love it if someone that has money to blow could compare them and let me know how it goes.

It’s good to be a Champion of the Gods Guild Wars 1…

I use Heritage weapons. The FDS is great, but I’m working towards a better skin for my GS.

Energy is mandatory. Life is not; I’m actually strongly considering swapping to Bloodlust very soon. Neither sigil sees a lot of real use, but I’ll be more inclined to pick up stacks before leaving the zerg when it means I’ll actually kill noticeably faster.

@Crapgame, I wasn’t a huge fan of having to do dungeons for my runes either, but it’s actually pretty simple. AC is probably the easiest of the explorables, and all you have to do is run each path once for two days and you’ve got all the tokens you need. So, 6 15-30 minute runs, depending on your group.

You’ll hit like a paper bag. The idea of this build is to survive while being able to kill your targets.

Agreed. I’d probably pay at least what I paid for the game for one to be sitting on my desk with me.

Good to know at least one other person agrees! I really can’t get over how adorable these things are. And they squeak! I’d honestly pay a premium for one IRL that looks exactly like the one in-game. Even if it’s used as late as next year as a special holiday release (“get it for a special someone!”), it’d be worth waiting a year.

I’d really just like to know if there are any considerations of rolling out any real productions of popular pets.

Those 4k steals and 5.5k heartseekers would be hitting a lot harder without that Toughness. But…thieves do need some damage tweaks.

A reasonable alternative to Monk runes are Dwayna. I used those for a bit, but 20% regen duration is nothing compared to 15% everything.

I’m also back on Blackgate as of 2-3 days ago, to stay.

@StarAce, I’m glad you’re able to find a good balance for yourself with Magi’s.

Glad to hear you’re getting closer.

I don’t have a weighted opinion on Ascended gear however. I played WoW for years, so I’ve learned to just use what’s available, regardless of how I or others feel about it.

The primary reason I named this build for the healing power is because people underrate it as a stat. I wanted to combat the poor press that it seems to get all the time. The real star of the build is toughness.

That said, it’s not impossible to give up some HP for vitality if desired (it may actually be a good idea), but this build does rely on higher consistent heals, so… to answer your question: I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely essential, but it is definitely important.

For group combat I’ll sometimes swap out my third utility for Wall of Reflection, but that’s about it. I may also change out my x/focus set for the staff, but that’s rare.

I’m trying to work out some small-medium group combat clips, but it’s a bit of a pain to get good footage sometimes. My next video will likely take until the end of the weekend or so to publish.

Setis uses Pow/Tough/Vit armor and Cleric’s weapons and jewelry, I believe. It seems to work pretty well for him.

As far as damage output goes, I’ve actually got plans to trade out select pieces of gear and possibly move a couple of trait points around…I’ll probably be keeping any effective changes to myself, but I will say that the adjustments are reliant on Ascended gear.

It shouldn’t be difficult for players to use this as a blueprint and find ways to increase output from there, but this is certainly one of those setups that will require a higher skill cap to make up for any survival that’s shaved in favor of more damage.

Pretty simple. I normally don’t want something badly enough to say I’d pay for it if it were manufactured, but I’d pay out the bum for something like this. While many of the minis in this game are nice/cute/etc., the Griffon plushes are ADORABLE. Too adorable. Adorable enough for me to drop some real money on for a real version of one (or two, or three…)

I realize things like this aren’t high on the list of “possibly profitable things to do,” but I’d just like to ask if there are any plans to release real versions of any of the minis we encounter in-game, particularly the super friggin’ adorable and popular ones?

Thanks in advance. And please post if you agree with the absolute need for these things! It could serve as a sort of gauge of interest, perhaps?

That’s pretty much how it works in a nutshell. I’m glad it worked for you in sPvP.

:) I’m trying my best to get a 1080 version out for each video I upload, but the last one bugged out and didn’t process for HD, so I have to try again. Working on two more right now. Lemme know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see.

Back to leaping into SoR zergs for me!

Score updates for people who have to do stuff in the morning, plees.

You’d be comparatively squishy with the lack of toughness, even with a higher health pool. The increased crit rate would have meant significantly more vigor before the patch, but now the effect of more crit on vigor uptime is much less significant.

The idea behind stacking toughness and HP together is smaller hits being constantly covered by larger, more consistent heals. By giving up toughness for vitality, you’re taking damage faster, whereas HP cannot be made to heal you any faster to compensate.

Yes, it will.

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Full zerker’s and a Sword, pretty sure.

Yes, it is viable.

If I had a nickel for every 1v3-4 fight I’d have won if downed state were nerfed…

buki.3108:

I’m assuming you switch sword/focus for scepter/focus in skirmishes tower offense/defense? How do you fight in skirmishes?

I switch to scepter for keeps, towers, and if the enemy zerg is truly large.

I play very aggressively in small-medium group skirmishes. I’ll get defensive if I absolutely have to, but it takes a decent group to make me do that.

buki.3108:

With AH crit-hammer I rush the enemy back-lines, how do you handle large battles with this build?

I test the front lines. If it isn’t too rough, I rush the back line, same as anyone trying to break enemy ranks.

buki.3108:

When do you use staff and what weapon do you replace with it?

I use staff very rarely, and mostly only in select zerg vs. zerg situations and for siege support (rams on gate, etc.) I’ll replace my focus set, since the GS provides more mobility and control if needed.

The main reason I’d pick up a staff is for dungeon group support in place of the x/focus set, and even then it’s sort of rare that I feel the need to swap to it.

buki.3108:

Can you solo camps?

I can solo fully upgraded camps.

You can mix and match the temple sets to get 5/6 Pow/Tough/Vit, and then spend some WvW badges on a helmet. After that, it’s just a matter of finding the money for Cleric’s weapons and Sapphire jewelry.

I don’t know if it’d work as well as full HP stacking, but…hey. If it works for Setis it might work for you. ^^ Eventually you get pidgeon-holed into giving up some HP for Vitality anyway, since there are no Sapphire clone Ascended rings.

Sunrise is also Pow/Tough/Vit, but I might just bite the bullet and xmute the skin onto a Cleric’s exotic…and then farm the Ascended weapon when they launch and xmute the skin onto that. Or I’ll keep the Pow/Tough/Vit; dunno yet. Blergh.

Yeahh…it’s a pain to get gear together for other builds. I’ve been dying to try a glass cannon-y build for a while, just to see, but everything just costs so much. I actually want to try Bloodlust to see about getting some more damage into this build since Life doesn’t see much use anyway, but…5g for a sigil? Blergh!

0/0/10/30/30 is a very powerful build. I’ve actually stopped using Purity against all but the largest of enemy groups, though. I use Pure of Voice and run burn blocks over Purity instead to make up for some missing damage.

I also run Shelter for anti-burst and a shorter CD.

Whale, I guess if you look at it THAT way…

I don’t think our mobility is terrible, but it’s certainly not as good as other professions. I’d absolutely love lower teleport cooldowns, for one.

Immobilize is a bit of a bummer too. That’s why I try my best to dodge on cast animations when I know that damage skills are on CD. I also try to stack condition removal without sacrificing too much damage (Purity is a nice alternative to burn blocks against larger groups).

Azzan.1650:

It is nor your bad, just copy the link into a new webpage.

For the backpack, you can have a rare 80 : 14 precision, 14 vit and 20 Healing Power.

Thanks for the tip.

As far as the backpack goes, the precision is dead weight with this build’s crit rate already as low as it is, especially compared to the loss of power (as a multiplier) and toughness.

I’ll try’n fix it.

Edit: I’m pretty dumb and unsure of how to create a permanently working link on these forums…it works if I copy the link out of the edit box, but not the published link. So I’m going to edit the OP with all of the details myself. Should only be a few minutes.

The build is also detailed in the video.

The first thing you’ll notice about this post is that it’s now relatively empty. The previous content has been saved to my computer and may be reinstated somewhere down the line. That, or I’ll request a thread lock and repost if/when I feel a need to. Allow me to explain.

While I wildly appreciate the amount of support and praise that this build has received thus far, the amount of attention (and sometimes the type) it’s brought me is—for lack of a better term—stifling at times and just downright stressful at others when factoring in all of the other things I have going on in reality and with my in-game communities.

I do appreciate the thoughts and attention to some extent, but these factors in addition to the fact that I was reluctant to share my build in the first place have brought me to the following decision: I will be removing the original, first-hand posting of the build from here and any other place I may have personally posted it. I will probably be unwilling to share any further personal developments with the build or any ideas I may be working with.

At some point in the near future, my build videos will be set to either unlisted or private—I’ll never actually delete any of my videos. There’s even a chance I’ll straight up move on from my current build and start working on something else for when I get back to making gameplay videos. Who knows?

Someone will eventually repost the build, which I have little issue with. This move is simply an attempt to relieve myself of some of the pressure of being “known” to any extent on account of having my name attached to a somewhat popular build, among a couple of other minor reasons. Regardless, I’m very happy that so many people have found a use for this build and even happier that people are genuinely having fun when using it.

ArenaNet has crafted an incredibly diverse and enjoyable game, and I hope that we players will be able to continue to use our creativity to come up with scores of other out-of-the-box, fun-to-play builds for each and every profession.

Really sorry for any inconvenience this may cause any of you awesome people. Peace and <3. I’ll see you all in-game.

Nobody appreciates it when you take your anger out on people simply trying to make suggestions. I’ll post my preferred build soon. You can focus your aggro on me again then.

Ganzo.5079:

Ehm in another post you say that you dont use AH.. SO why are you talking about the no change? lol of course your playstyle is not changed and you are happy with the change!

You clearly aren’t reading my posts. The ONLY thing I’m trying to say here is that the end-times QQ is baseless. People are complaining that we’re being pidgeon-holed, that we’re broken, that we are not viable, that we are obsolete. They’re wrong. I’m simply trying to explain that there are OTHER options. I’ve said absolutely nothing of the sort you appear to think I have. No offense intended, but is English even your first language?

Please read more comprehensively.

Edit: I HAVE used AH to a reasonable extent. I took it out for another spin last night and this morning and, while it is weaker, it certainly isn’t worthless. I’m not daft enough to talk about something without testing it myself. Or without napkin math.

I am pretty you don’t know anything about gardian. Can’t wait to watch your vid. No offense… Let me explain to you. A gardian who relied entirely on AH is specced like that : 0 0 5 30 30 5 or close and use hammer to procs a lot of boons. VP nerfed is not game breaking for them, and they are totally unaffected when they play with 4 others players. But for people who wants to use an other weapon and be in solo in WvW with a similar build like me or people like Ganzo who wants to use the following spec : 0 30 30 5 5 with a sword (90 crit rate at least with the trait in radiance, full knigh gear), AH VP self healing was still enough for them to get some healings. Not a lot but still enough….

Now these specs are not working. Don’t tell me need to adapt. Our gameplay aren’t working anymore, we just cant adapt since it is expensive to buy exo stuff. We are not talking about gameplay adaptation but about : CHANGE YOUR GAMEPLAY, GET A STAFF AND HAMMER, BE A LITTLE GIRL HIDING BEHING YOUR FRIENDS IN WVW OR STOP PLAYING GARDIAN.

Did you just tell someone they’re clueless because they offered a solution to getting past the fact that a popular build was nerfed? AH crit builds aren’t broken/dead/what-have-you, they’re dampened. The solution is to adapt.

Yes, it’s unfortunate that the numbers have been damaged. It’s unfortunate that AH is weaker. But it isn’t the end of the world. I still have/see Guardian friend performing very will with AH builds.

You just can’t expect nothing to ever change in games like this. All I’m trying to do is explain that this really isn’t the end of the Guardian like some people are making it sound like. I’m genuinely sorry that you may have to try a new build, or that you may have to obtain new gear if you can’t adjust to weaker heals, or whatever the major issue is. But the only thing people can do is…you guess it, adapt. Or quit. I don’t know.

But all I do is WvW…and a few fractals here and there. I’ve literally only done two sPvP matches, and that was to duel my GM.

Ganzo.5079:

And just to be clear, justify an High survivability build with the use of life steal food + sigil of blood, is crap, a warrior or a thief with life steal food, can survive better then us(due to higher melee attack speed) …

I use neither those sigils nor that food. And if I start posting my builds people will just say it’s a bunker that can’t kill anything (false) and then get back into their passive agressive troll wagon and move on.

Regardless, I’m still waiting on uploads detailing my build. It’s HD though, so it takes forever…days, even.

Edit: I’m not arguing that high crit builds weren’t damaged. Nor am I arguing that AH bunker builds weren’t damaged. I’m just saying that 1) AH bunker builds weren’t hurt THAT horribly and 2) there are other options. You simply have to try them instead of just trying to play “meta” builds.

That clearly was not my entire point. Just going to remove that from my post completely.

AH was extremely powerful. It needed dampening, so it got some. We still have plenty of high-survivability builds. Players who relied entirely on AH will simply have to adapt.

Well then, Sapphire jewelry is my recommendation.

I also enjoy the change. I don’t run AH, so I don’t have much to complain about. All that matters is that when I do crit (it’s a bit rare with my build), I’ll get more vigor. I’m getting an overall buff from this because 5 seconds of vigor for a single crit for someone with only 5% crit means a lot more than 1 second per crit…because it doesn’t exactly happen a lot.

I agree that we need stronger ranged options. Maybe a little more mobility.

But I still don’t feel nerfed. I’m aware that certain professions are better at some things than us, but all of this doomsday mongering is really…off-putting. It just makes me wonder at the average skill of most Guardian players. I actually don’t see that many of them, let alone watch them play enough to know what they are or aren’t good at.

Edit: I’ve never been kited to death, ever.

In addition, I look at the strengths of line-breaking between Guardian and Warrior very differently. I’ve personally led charges on breaking down enemy groups larger than my own just by leaping in and surviving well enough for everyone else to nut up and rush them while the enemy is busy trying to “kill that damn Guardian!” And it isn’t like we’re doing NO damage to the foes we pick out. I also relish being focus targeted because of my retal and block burn bombs.

In other words, I think Guardians are better at boosting morale (it matters, guys) in a group situation than Warriors are.

It’s not like we can’t win with Retreat on our bar. It’s still a mid-combat swiftness, aegis, and condition removal (traited). Just an annoyingly long cooldown.

Do Retreat or SYG heal…? Without AH that is.

For just getting around the map, I’ll equip Retreat. I’ve also got the GS leap and “Save Yourselves!” Obviously I’ll try to swap Retreat out for something else before entering combat, though…

A few seconds of immunity before being shredded due to lack of consistent, over-time triage can’t be compared to longevity of a Guardian harassing the middle of an enemy group for an extended period of time. If a Guardian is being torn down by focus fire just because of a low health pool, they need to work on their dodging and strategic blocks (unless it’s a truly massive zerg, obviously).

Yes, Warriors have their strengths in breaking lines, but to think that Guardians are incapable or in any way obsolete/mediocre in this regard is folly.