Guild Wars 2

Now we just need celestial armor and weapons :P

Fixing the scepter is sufficient, we neither need nor should we get a bow.

mPascoal.4258:

It was, sorry about the confusion, but I don’t use the staff all that much and though that was the name
Still isn’t it good? I like Danicco build but only 300 healing power doesn’t seem enough for what I’ve reading here

Healing power scales like crap with AH. 0.01 is quite useless, so you can safely avoid that stat. The traits you put together are quite OK, but I won’t comment a lot on the rest. Soldier stuff is like a red rag to me. Only condi damage is still worse.

Elusive Power does not really add 10%, it will probably be more like 3-4 % or so. With permanent vigor, you get endurance so quickly and dodging on cooldown is a net DPS loss if you don’t need to dodge for survival. Furthermore, 7.5 % for EM is crap. If you count 3 stacks of might, which sounds realistic to me, it will rather be 2-3 %, depending on the presence of other might sources.

€: Wait, it seems that you are confounding Empower (the staff skill) and Empowering Might (the trait).

DeathPanel.8362:

The bottom line is, I provide specifics and reasoning while you provide unsubstantiated and therefore useless information.

Strange, I don’t see anything of that in this thread. Just a great amount of arrogance coupled with unsubstantiated claims.

I took pure zerker. That small amount of vita is not really important and if you need some defense, just swap in some decidedly defensive items.

And more power on Zerker. Knight has, of course, more defensive potential, but you won’t need it if you know how to avoid or mitigate (big) damage.

Yes, take Zerker items. The crit damage on ascended trinkets is extremely cheap, so it would be a waste not to take advantage of that.

SSalp.6423:

I think I can figure out a build after having the armour set, but tips would help

Answer one question: How much confidence do you have in yourself being able to survive dungeons in melee?

Not much? → Try Knight with an AH build to get some experience.
Average? → Maybe Zerker + AH.
High? → Go directly to a full Zerker build.

Knox.8962:

I think that a pure DPS build without permanent vigor and under 11k HP will be squishy enough to not be overpowered.

And that’s completely irrelevant since you could invest everything in Zeal and Radiance and have still enough points to go for perma-vigor. The little health difference does not matter since you have to rely on damage avoidance with all DPS builds.

Of course, that’s something everyone needs to decide for himself. I just wanted to show the other aspect of DPS builds. Besides, AH without EM and/or hammer does not sound too attractive to me.

ODB.6891:

I also disagree on the point of zeal not needing to provide more raw damage. If someone wants to focus on damage on a guardian…why prevent that? I don’t see the logic in limiting the class to weak damage if they forsake the heavy survival trait lines, in favor of the power and precision trait lines. It may seem cool for flavor purposes, but in the end…its just an unnecessary limitation on the class. The prevailing theme of this game’s design seems to be freedom to build and play the way you want…an artificial flavor limitation like that seems to be the opposite direction in my opinion.

The problem with more damage in zeal is simple: Guardians can already deal considerable amounts of damage with the right build and don’t need to hide behind other classes (except the warriors, but they are on their own level). At the same time, we still retain quite a lot of defensive abilities and support. So, if the damage is increased, chances are quite high that it will cost us dearly at another position. That’s something many people (including myself) don’t want.

Yes, gear full zerker. However, I personally would not take a 10/30/30/0/0 build, but instead 10/25+x/0/25+x/x. Even though the 30 points in valor will probably yield a bit more damage for yourself in most cases, such a build is too self-centered. Honor offers great support for the group and, looking at a group as a whole, will probably have more total damage because of the EM might stacks.

Probably. Though I still have some unreasonable kind of hope that they might actually make some useful changes. But not in my lifetime, I suppose …

I’m sure it will be mighty changes like the one yesterday :P

Bad idea, rejected.

DeathPanel.8362:

AH build with zerk gear in wvw is not really too good since you’ll be too squishy. You’ll have some mitigation with the knights gear with toughness but without raw hp you’ll still die pretty fast.

Erm … no. AH, knight armor, soldier runes and zerker weapon/trinkets work pretty fine in ZvZ, unless you lose your orientation in the enemy zerg. But in that case, you will probably die anyway, no matter what kind of gear you use.

aIJay.8125:

Mesmer – High DPS
Ele – High DPS
Ranger – High DPS
Ranger – High DPS
Warrior – High DPS

Highlighted your problem for you right there.

That should not even matter. When I did Arah 4 some months ago, we had something like a guard, a mesmer, a ranger, a necro and someone I forgot. None of us had a pure DPS build and yet Simin died in the second attempt – of course, it took some time, but even with such a flawed setup, it was not impossible.

All that nonsense from Daecollo somehow makes my head hurt … but at least the stuff about our condition tree was funny.

Depends. A well played healway guardian is quite a good thing for most groups that don’t play on a high skill level. Obviously, you still need a lot of practice if you die a lot with such a build. However, healing gear becomes pretty useless once your group knows what to do. In fact, virtually anything except zerker becomes useless at that point.

Nah, don’t focus purely on AH in that case. Healing dodge rolls etc. are something where cleric would shine even in an AH build. Even though I’d never use cleric, it’s probably still better than PVT if you don’t focus on short term survival.

foofad.5162:

The only thing that procs off crit is EM, and that vigor trait that had a 5 second cooleown – and while EM is nice, AH without EM still works. I mean, to be clear, I’m not a huge fan of AH to begin with but it would be better than Battle Presence or PoV for him.

Yeah, I know. Nevertheless, EM is one of the best things for AH, imo.

foofad.5162:

Try 0/0/30/20/20 with Altruistic Healing instead. You’re basically set up for it anyway. Empower will basically heal you to full in a party.

The problem with Cleric gear is that your damage is going to be really terrible. You’re probably doing a quarter to a third of the damage of those Berserker warriors in your group, and your added utility isn’t spectacular.

Problem with cleric and AH is the lack of crit chance and the subsequent lack of all crit-dependent boon-proccs. So I’m not really sure whether he will be so happy with it. If AH, then knight or zerker should definitely accompany it.

Besides, the main problem appears to be what PokerTuna mentioned at the beginning of his post – trying to facetank everything. That almost never works in this game, so the TE should first learn to use active mitigation and avoidance in order to cope with enemy damage. Because in theory and practice, a cleric healway is an extremely durable build, too.

I highly doubt that, but anyways, comparing any other class to warrior damage is probably not the very best idea.

Bash.7291:

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

Justice does not even matter for that, Radiant Power already causes more damage than Zeal beyond Fiery Wrath.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

Valor trait-line is not so great but if you play Meditations you need it too.It is one of the great limit of the guardians , If you need MF or AH you need 30 point in that and you need that extra 300 toughness If you want good resistance.The point that a lot of guardian talk about maybe is for that too , If you have not a lot of Hp you need MF or AH for more resistance and you lose 30 points here in a lot of build , in this way trait-line like Zeal or Radiance are snobbed.Have you ever thinked that with a little bit more of hp maybe a lot of people will try a lot of different builds?

Some more HP won’t help with that problem, unless you buff them to a warrior’s level (which would be completely OP). A few HP are gone quickly, while AH and MF provide sustain, which is much more useful in most cases.

No, the general reason why AH is so widely used is the risk vs. reward factor, imho. These builds provide a sufficient level of damage and extremely good sustain, so it’s natural that most people will take them.

Danicco.3568:

Why do you think your only option is dropping points in Honor?

Quite simple with a 10/30/0/30/0. Dropping Radiance below 25 makes no sense since a 30/10/0/30/0 is a net DPS loss even when you trait for the 5 % greatsword damage.

Fascinating, I just tested it myself. I’m pretty sure that it was different last year, but anyway. So the trait is not as useless as I remembered it, but anything beyond Fiery Wrath still does not bring enough utility and/or damage to let go of the points in Honor.

You avoided the question. Of course it procs off every attack, but in my experience only once, no matter how many enemies you hit with that attack. Unless they have changed that, your calculation I quoted is bogus.

xiv.7136:

Guardian Test

[…]

That one was really great, thanks a lot!

So I agree with most people here, guardian HP is quite fine once you have learend to play the class.

Shaterz.2703:

honestly my problem with guardian is atm. were great at support or bunker and thats fine. but going more to the dmg site just isnt viable. and it would be soooo easy to fix . fix some of our utilitys and some of our traits both minor and major in zeal and radiance.

Damage works pretty fine in PvE and WvW. No idea from PvP since I don’t play it a lot, but it also seems to be ok when I look at Silven’s guide or other PvP stuff.

Sounds fun. That’s probably worth trying to reproduce

I don’t expect any significant changes (except the scepter speed buff, maybe). Obviously, the devs have stopped working on the guardian altogether, so most of our problems will probably be ignored for a long, long time.

Danicco.3568:

Also, Zeal’s grandmaster of choice is Zealous Blade, and when people notice the 25 healing from their attacks, they think “this sucks!” and “it should be buffed to 100 or more!” (and don’t even think that we’d be unstoppable godlike killing machines with it).
Well, compared to AH, which is 75~ healing per BOON, a 25~ per HIT seems rather weak indeed.

Just as a note, against 5 enemies (supposedly the player AoE cap), a Symbol of Wrath (5 hits) + Whirling Wrath (9 hits, not counting projectiles) equals to 25 * 14 = 350 * 5 = 1750.

With 5 allies inside your Symbol area, you get 75 * 5 (number of boons) * 5 (allies) = 1875.

Did I miss anything? Last time I used a build with 30 Zeal (granted, it’s been something like half a year ago), the healing triggered once per attack, no matter how many targets you hit. As a consequence, AH was already almost as strong as zealous blade when you were alone, and in groups the difference was just ridiculous.

Imo, the most flexible is knight’s since it has a good defense and an acceptable level of of offensive stats. Zerker is a bit less flexible, cleric’s limits you to support builds and soldier’s and especially sentinel’s are way too defensive junk that cripples any offensive potential.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I sometimes wonder if CptAurellian is just trolling on ppl sometimes…. Half of what he said is just bad opinion. IE, I wouldn’t call 17k a “giant” bar of health. Also the damage isn’t that bad either. Further, AH isn’t the only viable build out there nor is having to have a max DPS spread either.

If you had had a careful look at this thread, you might have seen that the OP edited it after I responded. Who is the troll?

And yes, the damage of such a build will be bad compared to almost any other builds that are possible with a guardian. Giver’s and sentinel’s armor do exactly that job.

So the purpose is resilience against any damage? Then why don’t you use the easiest way for that and take a hammer? Trait for larger and longer lasting symbols and get a bit of protection duration. You will mitigate way more damage than the builds presented and do it reliably. Weakness may be a good idea, but the low uptime ends this dream pretty quickly.

So my conclusion remains: The builds are flawed beyond any hope of salvation.

Wtf, what is the purpose of this build? The PvE versions rather appear like the ultimate junk to me. You will do a ridiculous amount of damage (read: none at all) and have a uselessly giant bar of health that will never be refilled once empty due to the lack of healing power or AH. The support capabilities of this build are also sub-par.

I won’t go into any details because that would take half a day probably. Just the conclusion: a suitable AH build with mainly knight’s gear will be superior to this in every single aspect.

foofad.5162:

In a dungeon group with 10/30/0/30/0 Zerker it’s worth 5% with modest might and vuln, 10% with full might and vuln (as in a boss fight).

‘sigh’ No, get your numbers right. Bane does not yield a higher relative DPS increase if you have higher multipliers like vuln or whatever. In that case, the relative increase always remains the same.

For might, on the contrary, Bane scales inversely – the more might you have, the smaller is the relative DPS increase by Bane since the base values are already higher. If you don’t believe me, play around with the gw2buildcraft calculator and look at the effective power. By the way, that requires me to revise the numbers I’ve stated above. If you have the absolutely optimal gear, bufffood, offensive support etc., Bane gives you a mere 2.5 % DPS increase. With only gear, it’s rather something like 4 % – far, far away from the 10 % you claim.

€: Argh, the kitten calculator has not been updated with the signet buff. Hence, the numbers need to be doubled, which makes Bane stronger than I estimated, though it will still yield an increase of 5-7 % instead of 10 % under realistic conditions.

It’s something like 4-6 % if you are running a DPS build with decent offensive gear and support. For trivial content or soloing, that’s fine, but for the rest, there are better alternatives. It’s not all about pure DPS.

I’d try to stay away from the signets as much as possible (except the healing slot signet, since that’s pretty good). They just block slots for group support and are not strong enough to compensate for that loss.

10 points in Zeal is quite nice for Fiery Wrath, so you should definitely keep that in a DPS build. Besides, there are not many places where these 10 points would be very useful.

Regarding vita, base health + vita from the Honor line is usually enough. If you feel way too squishy with that, you may add one or two Soldier/Valkyrie items, but they should not be necessary. Dodge, intelligent positioning/movement, protection and aegis are sufficient as defense, especially if you already wear some knight stuff. Remember that many people play full zerker without any defensive items and still have no problems with survival.

As a second shout, both of them are quite good. In fact, you should constantly switch your utilities anyways. Purging Flames is also quite a weak utility, so you could drop it and take three shouts or use Wall of Reflection in rather projectile-heavy encounters.

30% crit chance is way too low for such a build. 50+ is a good amount for that, so discard the PVT junk you are probably using and take Knight’s (for the defense) mixed with zerker or even better full zerker.

Regarding the traits, the general setup seems almost ok. You should just move 5 points from zeal to either radiance or virtues, since 15 zeal is useless. Either just 10 or 20 for greatsword power, but that would cost you the honor grandmaster trait. However, the honor traits are badly chosen. Just one shout, but sup aria and pure of voice? And no empowering might? That doesnt fit. You should swap in another shout instead of smite condition and definitely take the EM trait, probably at the expense of the larger symbols.

Maiden England.3491:

also i might add thakittens not as versatile as other builds. you can use ptv effectively for pretty much anything, not the same for clerics

I disagree. Cleric’s is much more useful in most situations than the PVT junk.

Oh and tinboy, you are wrong. Cleric’s scales especially bad with AH (0.01), so AH builds generally avoid it. Healway builds are usually the way to go with cleric.

Indeed. Necro and warrior have an even more stupidly high level of forgiveness when screwing up Alpha’s circles

You must be really bored :P

Obtena.7952:

There is most definitely diminishing returns on toughness. I attached the generally accepted formula for damage dealt as a function of armor from GW2Wiki. Damage dealt is inversely proportional to armor. Therefore, there has to be a decreasing rate of damage prevented as you stack toughness.

That kind of DR is simply necessary to prevent toughness from becoming overpowered once you stack it.

You forgot to mention Elusive Power (Honor 25), which gives you another 10% boost as long as your endurance is not full. So most DPS builds are centered around 10/25/0/25/0, with the remaining 10 points to be put wherever you want.

stemare.2578:

Well, rune of the scholar are pretty bad for a melee and cost way too much.

Though the price argument is a valid point, there is only one possible answer to the first part: learn to dodge.

For the rest it’s an interesting build, but you took away 20% faster recharge on 2h weapons which means less spam and less DPS.

The DPS gain from most GS attacks is minimal or even negative compared to the simple autoattack. Hence the recharge is sometimes nice, but not required.

Does not look very “ultimate” to me. If I want to have big survivability while still dealing some damage, I can take an AH build with zerker or knight gear. That should toss out at least the same damage while still retaining far greater flexibility. For damage, the typical zerker builds stomp everything else into the ground anyway.

I certainly agree with the need for invulnerability in PvE, since the low health is just ridiculous against many mobs where you need the shield. However, I’m not sure whether permanent uptime of the bubble, as long as the shield is active, would be such a good idea regarding balancing. Of course, I’d really like something like that, but our anti-projectile skills are already way above the level of almost all other classes.