Guild Wars 2

spoj.9672:

Its not really subjective when its already been explained that you can get more survivability and more damage along with better group support by not taking 30 in valor. I dont understand why you are trying to argue against us.

Not everyone agrees with you guys and you don’t seem to be understanding our explanations or how we dps and support in the kind of pve we do. Your builds are great for a strong group but pugging is a diff world and they don’t work as well for me as mine, i’ve played the builds you guys are going on about being so great, and they are in the right situation, I bet you haven’t played mine and I bet you guys don’t pug 40/50s fractals all the time and on top of that you don’t play the same as everyone else so stop acting like you can tell everyone whats best for them so matter of factly, i’m mostly hearing strong opinion from a different perspective.

durend.6237:

stuff

Sorry but you’re just not seeing my situations pugging in these fractals properly, do you pug level 40/50 fractals? People range 9 times out of 10, forget about hammer symbol it’s not gonna save the day in a pug, I can use hammer in some situations and get benefit from it though with my build.

30% crit damage in valor amounts to alot when youre at 75-80% crit and 100% crit with fury, AH/toughness and whatever food I choose can help keep me up quite alot in an emergency to get off another wall or aegis or whatever is needed, fractals has so many situations and at high levels with the usual pugs I find I really save people by staying alive despite being in full zerk in a pinch and get off my utility skills, i’m just going to agree to disagree with you, this thread is going in circles with people who run different group types in different pve situations, AH and toughness are doing a good job of barely keeping me up enough so I can continue to be supportive with consecrations or whatever.

I’ve played sooo many builds in fractals since it came out and this one is just working so great for me and I recommend people pugging 40+ that want to full zerk to try out 0/30/30/0/10 as it’s survivable with nice damage and support… do not go down valor if you dont have high crit% and are super amazing at staying alive with no toughness/AH emergency backup heals when things get crazy(as they often do pugging).

Sutcliffe.5491:

After claiming that you are not going into Valor for AH repeatedly, I provided u a built without AH with similar lvl of toughness and potentially higher damage.
Others like Durend also provided builts without Ah with similar lvl of defense though hammer protection etc.
Then u went on to defend your choice of taking AH when faced with such builts that I mentioned.
U are contradicting yourself so just accept the fact that u are going 30 into valor for AH and not crit damage or toughness.

Look i’m going into it for the AH AND crit damage AND toughness, all of the above, together, it’s not an AH build, the AH is as useful as several traits in the build, i’m just saying the AH isn’t the key to the build or anything and alot of fights I could leave the slot empty and it probably wouldn’t matter, it’s just very helpful when pugging in some of the 40s/50s fractals situations so I go with it, comes with toughness/crit damage, if I ran with a solid consistent group I would not got 30 into valor… thought I explained why this build works so well for me in my last post.

Being in full zerk and doing good damage in a pug fractals can be challenging, to me support is being alive, AH emergency burst healing and my toughness can save the day and keep me up for the various guardian utilities that can win fights.. also hammer protection is not even remotely useful in pug wipe situations in say a 48 fractals, AH burst healing is, taking 30 out of valor makes me too squishy to run zerk dps in these situations, having 30 valor compliments zerk cause at 75-80% crit i’m really benefitting from 30% crit damage esp when I get fury.

Also on the fights where I don’t need my AH I can put in fury on meditation and get meditation cooldown and smite condition every 16 seconds for all my burst for a boss like say mossman or the frost guy when they come out of hiding.

Sutcliffe.5491:

U claimed AH wasnt that important in your built and u can run without it by leaving the slot empty.
Hence i recommended dropping 10 from valor and put into Zeal.
Eg swapping from a Ring of Red death to a Rurik’s Royal Signet Ring
U lose 68 precision (3% critical chance) and 10% critical damage
U gain 65 power (from Zeal) and 3 extra toughness (lol) and 10% condition duration and most importantly 10% damage against burning foe.
End result : higher damage, same toughness , no AH , same lack of support

I never said I could leave it empty, I just said I could leave it empty sometimes.. sometimes it’s extremely helpful when things are falling apart in a pug, also i’m getting toughness and crit damage and my crit% is very high so i’m getting value out of that.. I could switch to zeal and do a bit more damage but really it’s not worth it in my experience, i’ve played alot of builds in fractals, I just find at 40/50’s pugging AH can really save the day now and then.

I realize my damage could be a bit higher it’s not complicated, this game has alot of situations you can get into, running with a guild group is completely and totally different to running with a pug which alot of us do at 40s/50s, my guild is strictly WvW, sometimes you get a group that’s total crap and the heals that you can burst out with AH will keep you up to get off another shield or wall or aegis or whatever.

Not looking for optimalization, I want the runs to go smoothly, as they do… our utility in fractals is in consecrations/blocks which I do not neglect, at a really high crit% i’m not neglecting my damage and i’m getting value out of my valors crit damage, AH saves me here and there being in full zerker, there would be more wipes if I didn’t have it in pugs.

Lack of support huh? Sorry but 10 in consecrations is all you really need for fractals support and knowing how to play the class/knowing the situations, 15 more in virtues makes no difference, longer lasting shield of the avenger is not going to save a bad group anyways.. having a shout come up earlier is also not going to make that difference.

Another way to put it i’m built to do good damage without neglecting my survivability in an emergency which tends to happen pugging I believe the most important thing is for me to not randomly go down and not be able to put up a wall or a shield or time an aegis etc., an alive guardian who knows what theyre doing with the right utilities chosen is support, I find pugging fractals with 450 less toughness and no AH i’m prone to going down in an emergency so I can’t save the day, AH can really burst out some heals if you use the right abilities at once.

Sutcliffe.5491:

If u really need the toughness, why not get cavalier or knights gear instead of going full 30 in the valor line whereby most of the traits are lackluster ? Then u can pick up fiery wraith so your damage wouldn’t drop even if u lose critical damage from the valor line?

10 in honor gives superior aria which reduces retreat coolddown to 48s, which I think is quite good if things go wrong. U get 1 extra aegis for every 4 mins in a fight.

20 in virtues gives absolute resolution which makes virtue of resolution into a grp condition removal without using one of your utility slot. Of course that might not be very crucial in fractals as the mobs rarely use condition there, but it’s good for other dungeons.

I would prob never WvW without those traits you named I just don’t see them as very helpful for pugging fractals, shout cooldown is no prob aegis stays up on alot of boss fights, again I like getting all the crit damage with the toughness, goes with berserker gear well, strength in numbers is quite good too for a pug group, dont need the condition removal as you say.

I get 450 toughness my group gets 150 of that, AH helps alot in some parts in pugs, crit damage complements full zerk and 30 in radiance, I think everything is useful at some points in a fractals pug, I think it’s a better approach than getting toughness from gear and reducing my crit% and adding healing/vitality/boon duration/virtue recharge

durend.6237:

Can someone please explain to me, what is the point of a build that takes AH as well as Unscathed Contender? What is the point of a trait that helps you only when you are not getting hit in a build centered around healing itself from damage.

Or better phrased for the people claiming they can keep it up most of the time. Why are you playing a build centered around healing yourself when your not planning on taking damage?

Just because a build has 30 in valor doesn’t mean it’s centered around altruistic healing, the point of my build for example 0/30/30/0/10 in pug 40s/50s fractals is to do good single target damage(in full zerk, 75-80% crit with 1h, getting the most of the crit damage) and have that extra 300 toughness + strength in numbers, for pugging, never in an optimal group, if I played with a strong group i’d do 10/25/0/10/25.

All that toughness and AH heals help being in full zerk in a chaotic pug situation.. it’s a build for consistency/versatility, the 10 in virtues means on the fights where you need consecrations you got the trait, on some boss fights you can just put on unscathed defender and try not to get hit/use retreat+voc+renewed focus and put out nice scepter/sword damage.

Lack of vigor(from honor trait) is a big deal, sigil of stamina makes up for it on all the trash, +endurance food helps a bit in other places, I don’t think it’s worth freaking out over as if that trait is the most helpful thing of all time in PVE where you know what’s going to happen.

I don’t think the 10 in honor and 15 extra in virtues provide much extra useful support for most pug groups, strength in numbers helps, not being too squishy while still doing good dps helps me… basically for me my ‘ah build’(it’s not about AH at all) is just to do good single target damage without going down too easy when things go wrong as they often do in pug land… 2handers AH and sigil of stamina full zerk makes trash really easy in lev40/50 fractals.

Anicetus.1253:

When you are able to keep up aegis there is absolutely no use for AH.
Anyway, all we’ve been saying is that your build has kitten dps. Basically because it has kitten dps. That is an undeniable fact you can’t argue against. Y
On a second note you build is just worse than a real dungeon build in all perspectives. Vigor alone is more survivability than a 5k/second heal. You deliver bad damage and give less support than any normal build. Theres just absolutely no reason to use such trash traits.

Alright so can you explain to me please, what build do you do for higher single target dps? I looked at your vids and saw I believe 10/25/0/10/25 and when I do tests my 0/30/30/0/10 seems to do not much less, yours more with boons mine crits more often.. can you explain to me where a build like that is so much more dps than mine? Or what build it is that beats mine by so much without making me extremely squishy? I’m not a hardcore PVE player and i’m having a hard time figuring this out.

Remember i’m just talking about 40/50 fractal pugging also… I need the toughness in alot of areas.

Also please understand vigor is not important to me anymore, I know the content, I dont need that many dodges, I use sigil of stamina with 2h on trash and I use +endurance food on lava boss thats it.

Also stop going on about altruistic healing and how useless it is, you know i’ve stayed away from that trait my whole life in WvW pretty much, i’m more in it for the extra toughness/crit damage and the fact that it helps me with being squishy when things go wrong in pugs, I can actually self heal quite a bit with the right utilities/weapon, I could leave the 30th slot in valor empty on a bunch of fights and it wouldn’t matter, yeah I could have 10 in zeal instead but it just isn’t that huge of a damage boost over 10% crit damage to not have AH when I do need it.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

You don’t need AH either, and yet here we are. Useful utility vs useless utility. You’re there on a guardian to provide utility and damage; and with your build you aren’t optimally doing either.

No, you’re right, I could just leave that last slot empty and not stress out about it too much, but it does help keep me up in some places, the alternatives just don’t appear to be so great, my utility is fine without whatever you think i’m missing imho, at least for fractals 40/50.

I’m not trying to be optimal, the reality is that i’m one of the many people who pug fractals and I can really use the toughness in a full zerk setup, to me it seems like if I was to bump up my damage much more i’d be a bit too squishy for 50’s fractals, i’m getting the most out of crit damage since im between 70-95% crit chance alot of the time.

My build works good for me, you can’t say full zerk full crit damage with rh strength and unscathed defender up most of the time is not excellent single target dps can you? Sure some zeal would bump it up a bit more but again, too squishy.

If I ran with a consistent group that was all on the same page and had a system, I would optimize my damage/group buffs more and duck out of valor probably.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

And where are you getting boons from with a trait spread like that? You’re gimping your own DPS and forgoing support for your allies in exchange for a trait that will regen you when you get a boon, except you have no consistent boon application so you won’t even get that regen. Not to mention you don’t even have 5 in Honor so you won’t get vigor application, which means you will likely die more, not less.

Well I don’t die much, hardly ever, on trash with the 2handers I put out boons and activate VoJ and other virtues if I need the trickle heals to help me a bit, my allies dont need more support than I give them in my experience and again where am I really gimping my damage that badly picking up more crit damage at such a high crit%? The toughness that comes with it and emergency trickle heals from AH let me get away with pugging in full zerkers more consistently.

Again I admit i’m a WvW player and don’t take pve as serious as you guys obviously do, and I only do 40s/50s fractals maybe to you guys thats low, but really the build performs well, I have just barely enough survivability to almost never go down while wearing full zerk most of the time, my single target damage is far from a liability, I crit all the time and have high crit damage, i’m missing a couple of damage modifiers yeah but i’m not going to pug in full out glass cannon mode, it’s a good pug build.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

It is a bad build, because AH is a bad trait. Sword does not cleave well enough for dredge, especially not on the clown car (mostly on the clown car). You’re investing 30 points into a trait line which has one useful trait, and that trait just so happens to be in the Adept traits (it’s arguable how useful it is as well). This means, that you have taken 30 points out of useful lines, which is gimping your build for no reason for than an unnecessary crutch.

First of all, you don’t even have 5 in honor. Why? Why would you not take the ability to have permanent vigor, its possibly the most powerful minor trait a guardian has. 0 points in Zeal, another powerful trait line. You no longer have the ability to take +10% damage, or to make your spirit weapons (shield of the avenger) last longer. You’ve taken extra points out of virtues and/or honor, which both have very useful traits varying between condition removal, elite skills last longer, 2H cooldown, bubble on res, shout cooldowns and spirit weapon cooldowns.

No build with 30 in Valor is a good PvE guardian build, and no good guardian would run a build like that. You’re sacrificing too many trait points for a bad trait that doesn’t do anything other than promote poor play (see: crutch). The crit damage from valor is not as good as base damage modifiers, which you’ve completely neglected.

I use GS or hammer/staff on trash and like I said it’s easy, why do you assume I use sword, I don’t see how the trash in 40s/50s fractals is a big deal, it isn’t for me with my build, on dredge I swap out some pieces of berserker, I use sigil of stamina so I can dodge all the time, sorry but trash in fractals is a non-issue for me, again maybe at 60 it magically becomes super difficult but i’m doubting it.

5 in honor: I do not need this at all, I used to have it, I always have it 99% of my playtime which is WvW so i’m very familiar with its worth, on lava boss I use +endurance food so I can tank him infinitely on whatever level, do not need at all, lava boss is the one place.

condition removal, elite skills last longer, 2H cooldown, bubble on res, shout cooldowns and spirit weapon cooldowns.

I dont need that stuff in fractals 40s/50s, it goes fine without it all for me, I used to use all that stuff in various builds, I just feel it’s all unnecessary in the usual pugs of people who know what they’re doing.

Again i’m not going down valor to get altruistic healing, I just want the toughness and crit damage at the end rather than zeal tree, strength in numbers is helpful, altruistic healing does help keep me up in some situations.

I don’t see the extra damage id get from zeal line worth it compared to getting the toughness/crit damage together as i’m usually full zerk(with 75 or more crit% before fury, how is 30% crit damage so much worse than the damage modifiers?).

My build is definitely a pug-born fractals build but I find it’s a good one and my runs go smoothly and I know my single target damage is high and helping melt the bosses.. i’m not a liability on trash and I do my job with consecrations when I need to.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

If you had actually done high level fractals, you would know that AH is useless and that the valor line in general isn’t helping you. It gets to the point where even with strength and numbers and protection, trash and bosses a lot of the time will simply one hit you (see: 60+). Sword/Scepter is also incredibly horrible for fractals like ascalon and dredge, where you need to be able to cleave effectively.

So yes, your build is bad. AH is not worth taking, and you would be better off with points elsewhere. You aren’t helping your team, and you’re hardly helping yourself.

True I haven’t done 60+ but levels before it I can cleave just fine with my build on ascalon and dredge, the trash is easy and dies fast in every pug I join(no I do not use scepter on the trash), I find it hard to believe it gets that much more difficult at 60, but I guess I don’t care much cause 40s and 50s are high enough for me anyways i’m not a hardcore pve’er, if my build is bad at 60 then so be it i’ll probably never know.

Most of fractals is burning down a single target, I find it hard to believe that I could do significantly more single target damage than full zerk scepter in this setup

I’m pretty sure I help my team with consecrations when it’s needed and the damage is high and constant, have you done scepter or sword with 30 in radiance 30 in valor and 100% zerkers? I’m getting the most out of the crit damage and I pug so I benefit from the valor.. it is not a bad build, it’s not all about lev60 fractals also.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The gist of this whole conversation being that if you want to run AH, you’re better off not trying to be DPS at the same time, and vice versa. Any build with any acceptable amount of DPS will not only lose out on a lot of valuable guardian support options in order to fit in AH, but you won’t even get that much benefit out of AH itself. On the other hand, if you’re actually trying to build to make AH effective, you’re investing so much into AH that your DPS will be crap.

One or the other is what we’re saying. And typically the consensus is that for PvE at least, DPS is much more useful than self-regen.

In high level fractals mainly(48 and up) 0/30/30/0/10 I find is high single target dps with scepter/sword primarily if you play it right, in full zerk, 75% crit, it is a steady reliable stream of dps especially if you can keep aegis up most boss fights which I can, the toughness you get with the crit damage helps work with being in full zerkers, AH actually does help keep me alive sometimes being so squishy with 11k hp(esp on trash), on the fights where my group needs projectile blocking or some condition cleansing(never needed in fractals really) I can always do that.

I could drop some points out of valor for a bit more dps but I just don’t think it’s worth it, being around 75% crit without fury I think i’m getting good value from my crit damage in the valor tree, I really believe this build has acceptable dps and doesn’t sacrafice too much utility(esp fractals where condition cleansing is irrelevant).

WvW healing is my main thing but i’ve always done high level fractals on the side(pugging, makes the toughness/strength in numbers more helpful) and I feel really good about my build, I just don’t see its shortcomings or how some of you could say it’s a bad build, what am I really missing? How much more single target damage do you think I could do than this setup?(without being unreasonably squishy, again I like many pug fractals) Scepter with unscathed up with this build just seems like such nice numbers scrolling by the entire boss fights, I can switch to sword alot of times.. the few fights where projectile blocking is real crucial I can go without unscathed and use master of consecrations.

ezhcim.3075:

This does sound like good advice and a good idea, finally I get some concrete answers =) thanks! one more question do you think GS+H is a good combo?

Oh jeez that’s a tough one which ascended weapon to make first, i’ve used like every weapon under the rainbow in pvp/pve.. I never use gs/hammer at the same time(I used to in WvW for a long time, nothing wrong with it) but I use each one of them with staff here and there(staff/hammer in WvW almost always as healer/support)… I kind of see all the Guardian weapons as equals depending on player/situation so i’m no help here. :X

ezhcim.3075:

Incomingray.8075:

IMHO no such a build doesn’t exist but I guess it depends on peoples opinion of good, I believe a Guardian should have a solid dps build for pve and multiple builds for pvp roles.. played alot of Guardian since beta and gone through countless builds and morphed mine as i’ve improved as a player and learned situations/content..

Wondering why you are so opposed to retraiting as it’s pretty much free and fast/easy, I do it every day with no issues, helps you learn the class inside out to try everything too, take a look at how many people on this forum speak matter of factly about how someone elses build sucks or how theirs is so great, it’s really about the players skill/experience level and the situation.. when people I know are new on guardian I don’t recommend my personal builds, my pve build is too reckless without knowing the content and my pvp builds are specialized and specific for how i’m going to play and who i’m going to play with… I love having all these valid trait options it’s one of the best parts of gw2 for me.

Im not against re-traiting, its just that once you make the jump to ascended or legendary gear you are pretty much stuck with one set of stats unless you are willing to work on more ascended sets. Thus with one fixed set of stats not every build works.

Im just trying to make this jump to ascended gear and I would like to have my set have the stats that will allow me to play most if not all the content of the game without sucking.

Since there’s no ascended armor yet and you like PVE I think getting all zerkers is a no brainer since you can balance the rest out with your armor/runes if you feel it makes you too squishy, full zerk guardian in WvW can be a total joke or with the right group/situation/player quite good(but hey you can get all zerker ascended then use a healing/tank armor rune combo)… anyways yeah full zerk ascended if you want a chance at being good at everything imho, while I wouldn’t recommend full zerk to someone new at say high level fractals, it’s something I eventually ended up using alot of the time after gaining experience… get full zerk ascended and then pick 2 diff sets of armor to work on one for pvp build one for pve build.

IMHO no such a build doesn’t exist but I guess it depends on peoples opinion of good, I believe a Guardian should have a solid dps build for pve and multiple builds for pvp roles.. played alot of Guardian since beta and gone through countless builds and morphed mine as i’ve improved as a player and learned situations/content..

Wondering why you are so opposed to retraiting as it’s pretty much free and fast/easy, I do it every day with no issues, helps you learn the class inside out to try everything too, take a look at how many people on this forum speak matter of factly about how someone elses build sucks or how theirs is so great, it’s really about the players skill/experience level and the situation.. when people I know are new on guardian I don’t recommend my personal builds, my pve build is too reckless without knowing the content and my pvp builds are specialized and specific for how i’m going to play and who i’m going to play with… I love having all these valid trait options it’s one of the best parts of gw2 for me.

Get yourself 2 builds in mind at least..

Aaron.4807:

Communities that have fought together side by side for almost a frigging year. Thrown away into the garbage.

Get over it, be lucky you had a community for that long, most servers have been shuffled and guild hopped all over and stomped down by ‘strong communities’ like your server, your guild(s) should have seen this coming and moved on with your life and started working on a new community in the silver or bronze league where there is very little queue drama, don’t get so attached, hopefully now the servers can stop shuffling so much and form communities and try to move up in their league.

Should have xferred away and let go, things changed with this league, your guild could be somewhere else making a difference for a weaker community and playing together all the time.

Way I see it is this is an mmorpg and it’s about time the naturally occuring reward chasing type players have a reason to come get killed by me, I believe in the fun of WvW and think lots will stay interested in it and it will grow, I just hope the achievements take awhile to complete which it seems they do, so that as soon as they’re done a new season is around the corner.

Loving the league so far, even tho we’re losing bad… agree with OP

Want to add another thing that now that the game has been out for a year and culling got fixed along the way I think it’s a good time to push people into giving it a better chance, as it can be very challenging in some styles of play(smaller group/roaming) and alot of people are now familiar with how to play their classes from all the pve and won’t get destroyed as much as they may have when they were new to the games mechanics.

I’m glad players on the stacked servers are suffering TBH, not many queues here on dragonbrand, having lots of fun, not sure why people think theres anything special about ‘winning’ in this league, i’m so glad all the pve players are pouring in to have fun killing too, hope they see it as a better place to reward chase so I have more people to fight.

Should have xferred away from the bandwagon servers a week ago if you wanted to play with your guild or play all the time, can still xfer… it’s really not even alot of gold compared to everything else in the game. Blows my mind that some entire guilds would have xferred to any of the known bandwagon servers, what were you thinking? Was this not all very obvious to any active WvW guild.

Oh yeah and loyalty, the WvW servers have been shifting constantly since game start and hopefully they don’t shift as much anymore or the weak just get stronger, noone really worked hard to get anywhere, it’s been about xfers and coverage, every server has lots of people who worked hard and watched their servers kind of fall apart due to the xfer frenzy, should have just packed up and left bandwagon servers seeing this coming.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

AC – spiderqueen weakness and bleeding, ascalonian ghost trash mob condi spam
CM – LOTS of bleeds and condis
TA – trash mobs do some condis, vevina while tafu existed, etc
SE – nokk, poison golem, p3 1st boss, destroyer of worlds – lots of condis
COF – not so much, mainly a bit of easily avoidable burning, some minor condis from other trash
HOTW – some cripples and chill
COE – burning from alpha, golems bleed/burn, etc
Arah – ……….

just a cursory glance at dungeons in general. not taking condition removal is not wise.

Fair enough I guess I don’t do much regular dungeons and when I do it’s with a pretty solid group and my 10 in virtues purging flames helps enough when there is a bit of condition drama, it just never seems to be too big of a deal… in high level fractals however conditions are a total non-issue and I guess that’s what I do mostly.

I’ve never had interest in doing Arah i’m guessing that’s the one where I may want to switch up my build a little bit if my group has bad condi removal.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

@CptAurellian, Other then the fact that I know I have DPS, I’m using the kitten build right now for gods sake, who are you to say that I don’t? are you using the exact same build as me? have you used the exact same build as me before? No? Maybe? you probably aren’t and your short reply does nothing to back up your statement that I have “no dps”

As for your previous post that “The only DPS build that can take AH is 10/30/30/0/0” Oh, it looks like your wrong, because I’m not using that and I have dps.

you may have decent DPS due to the raw 30 critdmg from valour, but that build is utter trash because no condition cleansing + consecration traiting.

also my advice to OP is to read durend’s post because it’s detailed and provides sound advice in general.

Where is condition cleansing even needed in the dungeons? I can’t think of anywhere it helps much, regarding consecrations though I agree and that’s why i’d always do 0/30/30/0/10 instead of 10/30/30, alot of fights I can keep up aegis the whole way for unscathed defender if I choose that instead of consecrations trait.

I’ve been pugging 40+ fractals for a really long time smoothly with 0/30/30/0/10, I switch unscathed defender and consecration duration/cds often, I use several weapons but scepter/focus damage is real nice with aegis kept up, i’m all about maximizing single target dps while still being able to block projectiles when I need to, some boss fights I do with 100% berserker and like 11k hp.

Altruistic healing I could care less about altho it does save me sometimes esp on stuff like dredge trash with gs/staff, I just want the crit damage and the toughness helps me a bit being full zerk often.

I use +endurance food on lava boss and some other times to make life easier without the vigor procs on crit.

I don’t see how those War shout heals are that big of a deal, so they can heal for 6-9k on groupmates near them with 3 shouts every 20-30 seconds..

When i’m in healer mode I can do 3k heals with VoR activate, empower buff and healing breeze on teammates, hold the line is another 2-3k in regen, then theres a regen from VoR traited activate, orb detonates heal for like 2k, dodge rolls heal for 2k all over the place constantly, most importantly battle presence constantly ticking on my teammates for like 250 forever and ever… oh yeah and of course tome of courage with a full far range group heal and spammable 2k group heals, and a neverending regen.

To me Warrior group healing seems completely irrelevant in comparison to what we can do, I think their 3 group shouts would equal about as much as my VoR battle presence ticks total healing in a 30 second period which complement my far superior burst healing nicely.

Well I just did a build today around the new fury meditations trait and it’s similar to my old meditation soloing wvw build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlUgSD3GSOEf4ESmiVKBxUURZ01DIKiaIA-jwBB4fAIiQJPFRjtNoIasqZDpWXDT5CCA-e

Basically open the fight with empower and a line of warding maybe, do stability with VoC, switch to hammer and smite condition and start smashing their face in, I stack healing power and use precision oil/-condition duration food, with the fury up and might stacks and retaliation I can burst alot of people down, 1000 healing power my meditations heal for 2300 and dodge heals are nice too, so I burst with the fury and might, then heal a bit with dodges + staff/hammer CC back and forth, works pretty good for me.

Khallis.5708:

its just sad when any noob can put on zerker gear and be successful and thats the problem with this game right now. its so dumbed down to that point where you don’t even have to think about your gear stats … just run Zerkers and win.

again Variety is what people enjoy in MMORPG. not just “get zerkers … win”. unfortunately thats what this game is right now look at any class section and ask how to play at the endgame the answer will always be “get zerkers, get highest dps build and win”

dumbed down game mechanics at its finest

Is there actually an mmo with interesting gear choices for endgame pve? Why not do maximum damage if you’re good enough to stay alive, i’m glad the tough content doesn’t need healing, I run alot of berserkers in 48 fractals but sometimes I switch in more survivable gear for certain situations.. anyways running full berserker in this games hardest pve content and relying on dodging/positioning/timing is fun and a million times more challenging than I remember in any other mmos pve.

stemare.2578:

Hello guys,
with the starting of WvW seasons me and my small guild will start to do some WvW in a group of 5-10 people, so we will focus in roaming and capping supply camps/undefended towers.
I need a build with good mobility, nice damage and still good survivability, so I’ve put down a build that seems fine to me, but I’m sure you guys can give me some advice to improve my effectiveness in our purpose.
Please feel free to give me some feedback, all your suggestion will be much appreciated.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAsdWlYgiDXFSKEf4ERVh4h9AjZsjXPgIFZIA-jwxAYrAiugyeFRjtyWENWdNmyVIV9GZA-e

I’ve done nothing but small group roaming on my Guardian with lots of totally different builds and group makeups since beta and my big criticism is that it is a watered down mediocre damage build with too much self preservation.

When the going gets tough for a small group against larger numbers of players who know who to target and focus fire(your high dps teammates) your self preservation won’t be of much value, the 2 conditions you turn into boons won’t make much difference either imho(esp compared to other 6piece rune set bonuses and a different 30 point trait).

I won’t start writing out builds but I recommend going heavier DPS (with 15 in radiance for the blinds and vulnerability) or heavy healing(0/0/10/30/30, battle presence with 1500+ healing imho will do wonders in a tough long fight compared to PoV using 2 shouts), dodge rolling on teammates using healing breeze and providing huge utility with hammer/staff.

Small group also my most important advice is hallowed ground with tome of courage, this alone can and if you time it right will win fights for your group, if you can sense how damage is going to play out you can reset the fight with the full heal and get a guaranteed daze as well, with the consecrations trait it lasts forever.. I even run elite focus so my tome goes for 30 seconds.

Oh yeah and I advise focus fire and use hammer immobilize/ring/staff line on the target on cooldown, group with mesmers who steal stability.

Did a solo roaming hammer/staff triple meditation build 0/0/30/20/20 was pretty fun and effective, open with VoC traited stability and empower with staff then start meditating with hammer stuff, cleric/berserkers, all meditation traits, fury def helped me overpower people.

Faux.1937:

Ive been playnig guardian for a while now and I loved it, but with this new patch, my warrior is looking more and more useful…

Help me have fun with my guardian again

I don’t see the point of comparing guardian and warrior or how anything significant changed, you block projectiles, they don’t, pure of voice seemed like a waste of a fotm trait and I would never have used it… I have fun and success in level 40+ fractals with 0/30/30/0/10 tons of dps and I block projectiles like always… full berserker most of the time.

Hammer is a completely amazing weapon for a team, immobilize with coordinated focus fire = kills, punt = kills and saves, ring = draws stability and creates kills big time, constant area retaliation blast finishers are very helpful esp when outnumbered…

Hammer is a godly WvW weapon for any kind of skilled Guardian with guildmates who know what they’re doing.. I think it’s the hardest weapon to use effectively and when you master it it’s probably the best overall but of course in combination with certain weapons depending on build.

Immobilize means you can’t dodge, means your team can coordinated burst, people in a ring also aren’t gonna dodge much usually, this stuff alone makes hammer so important for serious group play Guardians.

I use hammer in my fullest healing builds, the damage isn’t as important as the group utility if you master it.

DevonCarver.5370:

The build on October 1st is going to add WXP consumables to player kills, which should make a pretty sizable dent in this. It is the case that making the events themselves reward WXP is problematic at best because of how easily they cycle. All that said, we’ll make more adjustments as needed to make this a better place to play WvW. A bonus for kills in the area isn’t a bad idea at all.

Hopefully that doesn’t mean the usual 50 man group that wipes a 40 man gets tons of wxp compared to us small groupers..

I bet the ruins would be far far more active if the buff helped to take structures back, it’s feeling like a super small scale detached spvp map for the most part that the majority of players dont even care about, people dont even seem to talk about bloodlust on DB or care, they just want to take towers/keeps as usual, I bet they’d all be far more involved if it actually helped them unlike the silly stats and stomps they don’t get.

Why not simply make it increase damage of trebs catas and rams and NOT arrow cart/ballista, I can’t see any harmful effect of this, it would let servers who have nothing get momentum and would help the servers who have everything much less, seems like everything else helps the winning more populated server too much… people want wxp and ascended mats, being able to take buildings back quickly is alot of incentive to fight for the middle.(with the point on stomp)

Shiren.9532:

The matches are blow outs because of server stacking, transfers and the new “improved” match making system. Look at the match ups on paper and with or without the buff these matches would have been blowouts.

It’s obviously making them worse blowouts that’s the point, also making it less FUN for the losing servers as it’s such a struggle to get the 3 buffs away from the blowout winner for more than 15 minutes, fun is important. I’ve got thick skin and when we lose a fight we usually would have won without them all having +150 all stats i’m ok but i’ve noticed people im grouping with being very upset and talking about other games.

Seriously this whole thing is getting depressing, acting like we’re such a minority and don’t represent majority opinion, ridiculous, feels like some kind of WvW sabotage going on for twisted reasons.. it’s just sad after seeing worldpvp fall apart in every mmo ever, I hope they undo this damage of the bloodlust buffs and turn it into a tool for underdogs to have some fun.

In the DB/SoR/FA matchup going on, it’s pretty clear the whole middle thing is a failure, SoR has the 3 buffs most of the time, sometimes we take it and then leave and SoR zerg spreads out and just takes it back(often with the bug stopping us from even knowing it), lately the middle just sits neutral as the points practically defend themselves by uncapping, small groups don’t want to go solo and spread out all day(getting ganked by perplexity engis and power thieves who run around corners) and get no reward, this whole system is broken, as everyone is explaining to Anet, fix this now rather than later and admit a mistake Devon Carver, IT IS NOT WORKING.

BTW I was so excited for fighting in the middle at first, I am a pure small group worldpvper for so many years, it turns out to just be tedious and hardly anyone around to fight there, we just end up fighting heavily buffed zerg server frustrating my groupmates.. points decap too fast, bloodlust buff is quite frankly as everyone knows horrible, it needs to be something that helps a realm TAKE BACK keeps and towers faster and not destroy the balance of smallscale fighting. EDIT: destroys the balance of all kinds of fighting.

I’ve actually had alot of fun fighting in the middle personally but it’s getting more and more abandoned every day it seems, players are mostly into taking towers and keeps, proper incentive would be something to do with that stuff and taking towers/keeps, not something that messes up fights(remember, the usual blowout winner of the matchups has most everything on the map, this would make it not help them win by more)

Give a buff that grants 25% more siege damage against walls and doors or something along those lines, something to help a faction with nothing on the map get a jump on taking some stuff, not as important to the team which usually has everything..

Keep ppt on stomp, no stat buffs, spawn a daily chest with an assortment of ascended materials when you take 3 of 5 on a BL to keep people coming through the middle of the BL’s all day(but not staying all day, chest with timer) to get in the fight.

Graka.9457:

My setup currently is a GS/Staff, PVT gear with Melandru runes and a spec of 0/0/30/30/10 and 5/6/11 2/9/11 2.

My friends setup is an elementalist D/D I think they usually run Berserkers gear, just kind of realised i never asked them lol. If theres a better suggestion for what their Ele should run I’m all ears for that too

I know i’m going against the grain but I believe this jack of all trades common altruistic healing build is extremely mediocre for duoing(esp with melandru PVT, your strengths are too spread out, you’re tanky but not going to be able to spike heal enough to live against some focus fire/CC, your damage is extremely average and very easy to pull away from dodge and recover), your build does very minimal healing despite alot of traits in the healing tree, very average damage as the crit% is low wasting high crit damage from valor.

If I fought you with a berserker teammate 2v2 you two wouldn’t be able to burn through my healing(my 30 second tome of courage would ensure 30 seconds of my teammate living I guarantee with 1500-1700 healing, I don’t think the squishier of the two of you would live much longer after I come out of it with all my cooldowns up) and nothing would stop my timed hammer abilities + berserker partners burst abilities from killing your elementalist..

I recommend picking a side and not using a build that does everything average, go heavy damage and focus the right target in your 2v2 or whatever or get your healing up above 1500 without neglecting crit and use hammer to create a kill, in small scale greatsword I believe is pretty average compared to hammer, in my experience landing the immobilize on cooldown is a really big deal in securing a kill with a teammate who knows it may be about to happen(can’t dodge while immobilized is the major point), so is the ring and so is the punt when you’re good at watching for stability and figuring when the enemy can’t dodge.

I think any 0/0/30/30/10 build is not well suited to very small scale WvW, not enough damage, not enough healing, above average survivability that isn’t needed since you probably won’t be attacked much by good players anyways… highly recommend you pick a side and either go heavier damage with burst and pick the right targets and focus fire/coordinate CC stuffs or go pretty heavy healing with the ability to create a kill with hammer.. you say you are struggling as a 2 man in WvW and I believe it all starts with a watered down(yet highly popular imho because of its consistency especially in the usual style of large scale WvW) build that leaves you slightly irrelevant against players that know what they’re doing.

Another main thing about hammer is the constant area retaliations you can put out when you start applying pressure, this to me really makes it easy to win most 2v2’s, too many guardians out there doing small scale group wvw with greatsword AH builds being too easy to beat in my experience.

Andrew you mixed up Honor and Valor Anyways, I don’t agree that Honors traits are better for this approach(wearing berserkers and having RH strength), in Valor getting precision for a % of your toughness helps dps, strength in numbers helps the group alot in the tough spots and altruistic healing can be quite helpful when you are under alot of pressure since wearing some berserkers means youre super squishy and i’m talking mostly advanced fractals(30-40+).

I think the healing power and vitality are kind of wasted for the usual dungeon run since people generally know what they’re doing and 99% of your truly helpful support can come from consecrations, using shield or shield of the avenger.(this has been a huge debate in the past on the forum though, i’m in the school of thought that you should support through utility and helping things die really fast, I run heavy healing in WvW but dont go near it in dungeons)

Just going by op’s intended style of doing almost max damage and not dying, I think Valor is the true happy place, 30% crit damage makes such a big difference with zerkers and rh strength, without it your damage is much much slower and thats my biggest concern, I want stuff to die asap, toughness is great for giving you time to react to the bursts, endurance regen food is always available when you need it to make up for the loss in perma vigor.

I’ve done many level 40 fractals runs using 0/30/30/0/10 and mostly berzerker sometimes(some situations I swap in some PTV gear), but often using scepter mainhand, I use all kinds of weapons depending on the map though.

It’s all about burning through the boss fights quickly, unscathed defender is huge with scepter and on other encounters master of consecration is huge, I feel 0/30/30/0/10 was my best build of many after many high level fractals, it’s versatile and does amazing single target dps with 1 handers.

The reason you want points in valor imho has nothing to do with altruistic healing although it’s a nice trickle heal sometimes, it’s all about the crit damage to go with RH strength while giving you toughness so you don’t become a total liability when you have a bad dodging day.

Oh yeah it’s good to have some endurance regenmight on dodge food in your back pocket for stuff like lava boss since you won’t get vigor on crit.

I have alot of experience in small scale Guardian wvw healing or dps, for a long time i’ve been mostly focused on healing as it gives me the most consistency in winning small outnumbered fights, playing with a few of my different friends in duos or trios I feel like we’re very successful outnumbered, lots of builds can work great obviously, i’ll just give you an example of something to try maybe.

0/0/10/30/30 staff/hammer with elite focus http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlcgCDXFSLEm4ES2DRCBLJsHYUGtRXFSIA superior runes of altruism

I’ve only done this with high dps teammates for duos and trios, mesmer thief or warrior usually, it’s important that your teammate isn’t some kind of usual small scale tanky spec who can’t burst targets down:

I’ll draw out an example of duoing vs 3+ enemies:

One of the most important parts is picking the most killable first target, so throw a target on that enemy, get near your teammate, as soon as he starts getting pressured/taking damage, immediately hold the line, stand your ground and put a line of warding down near your teammate so they can run over it alot forcing enemy stability or saving alot of damage for your teammate, buff might early as you can and basically just keep your squishy dps teammate as topped off as you can with healing breeze, hold the line, #2’s with staff, empower.

Once your target is starting to get into trouble and as long as your teammate is above say 50% hp, switch to hammer and root the target(make sure your teammate knows this is about to happen so they can get ready to land an important ability), put a ring up, do a blast finisher to get area retaliation, spam autoattack and keep pressure up and proc area retaliations, once someone goes down or when things look to be going wrong, dump all your cooldowns, put down a hallowed ground(perma stability, lasts a very long time with trait) and dodge around in it and go into tome of courage and cast either an aoe daze or full heal, this is where timing your full heal is crucial and your hardest job, with communication just make sure your teammate is going to be able to stay alive long enough for it, then do #3 and spam #1’s if you have to, depending on how things go you probably wont want to use the full 30 seconds of tome of courage and drop it to get back to empowering, line of warding and just messing up the enemy with Hammers various annoying CC and blast combos.

I find elite focus important for tome as sometimes it creates a huge aggro sink for enemies while your teammate gets off more burst damage, using all of tomes abilities well is important for this approach as you can do wonders to keep a squishy teammate up with constant heals for 2k.

One more thing is sigil of stamina is huge for winning outnumbered fights, nothing else is going to give you as much healing once an enemy or two or random trash mobs go down, just have to be aware of when a kill is about to happen and you can unload lots of dodge heals, when I duo I use mostly cleric gear with some precision/vitality/healing mixed in and a few pieces of berserker or precision/power/vitality, it’s important to have at least like 25% crit I find so you get the vigor procs and your damage wont suck with all the might buffs.

With superior runes of altruism the early healing breeze giving us fury and 3 more stacks of might really helps to overwhelm a target… timing the immobilize with hammer and getting the area retaliation up for you and your teammate will go a long way too… use the virtue activates early and often as needed, a major subtle point of this approach is to confuse the enemy into thinking your somewhat glass cannon partner is a tank spec so they aren’t sure who to attack, use all your cooldowns all the time and keep dodge healing, keep vigor procced.

Hope I didn’t ramble too much and gave you some ideas, small scale WvW has a pretty huge skill ceiling and things like watching for stability or timing stability or a block can be what really wins a fight, just don’t try to win with some healing with a partner who isn’t focused on doing heavy damage imho.

I see them as some kind of strange donation lottery system where the lottery reward isn’t that big, i’ve bought some but I enjoy the game and kinda did it as throwing money at Anet, the reward vs cost is slightly insane, I did get a greatsaw skin a long time ago(halloween event) though and just sold it for 250g the other day so I guess I won the donation lottery. I guess the ultimate win right now is the permanent hair stylist, listed for 2500gold with an offer over 1000, only been 1 for a long time I think.

Mossy Gargoyle.3274:

This is a good suggestion, AW, and one I’ve been considering for a while. Elusive Power is seldom useful and certainly my least favorite 5 point bonus in the build.

If you’re doing all kinds of PVE I think you’d be crazy not to take 5 in virtues for the might when VoJ spams which should be happening with renewed justice, highly highly recommend.

Mace has always been unfun to use for me, regardless of how effective it can be in certain situations, mostly talking WvW healing though, kinda just too slow and limited in range, even though I run with big healing I end up going with Hammer instead (+staff) 9 times out of 10 for the CC and area retaliation as it seems to result in way more kills for the group than maces lives saved.

What would I do with it that I think wouldn’t make it OP? Faster autoattack chain that does about the same overall amount of healing but with a slightly larger radius and spread out onto every attack of the chain… #2 is ok just 50% faster cast time maybe, personally i’d rather see a completely different ability without a symbol though #3 i’d like to see it do a very short aoe stun + block when hit and perhaps a 900 radius aoe daze if it finishes cast time with a small group heal in that same area.

I dunno, like many it seems, just don’t find it a fun weapon to use as is.

Played bg’s in WoW and scenarios in Warhammer for many years(with various frustrations and due to lack of Worldpvp at times), played GW2 since beta and have had zero interest in Spvp ever because it’s not enough about killing, the objectives are boring, no interest until there’s deathmatch/something which emphasizes focus fire/killing.

I don’t find the strategy of controlling rings interesting in any way at all, I just want to go in with some friends and mow people down that are trying to mow us down.

DevonCarver.5370:

A couple of points. We are going to move more and more towards trying to increase the rewards in the rank up chests. As for the lack of rewards for defending, it is really a limitation of the way the content currently exists. We are working on solutions to it, but we always face the problem that making a major change to existing, working content is very dangerous and has to have a very long test time. Defending is super simple to get credit for right now, and because of that it’s difficult for us to put a serious amount of rewards on it. If we did, it would incentivize people to stand around, repair a wall for a second or two, then jet off. Until we fix the way that content determines who deserves rewards, we can’t bump the rewards as much as we’d like to.

We absolutely agree that defending is not rewarded well enough and we will address it when we have the best solution.

Thanks for responding, i’d like to just toss in a suggestion on that challenge, perhaps a simple 1 hour cooldown achievement chest with appropriate ascended goodies in it on a tower or keep defend tick so people want to take a turn defending now and then and not exploit it.

Hi, I just wanted to make a thread about the way ascended materials are being distributed in WvW as I feel it is a strange system.

Why are the materials coming as drops from npcs which die in a matter of seconds with no effort? What does getting an attack on the weak useless ‘lord’ of a keep/tower actually have to do with taking those places? ANet has to realize that there is a far bigger picture to the process of taking these places, I hope the reason materials don’t come from the overall bonus with WXP is a weird programming issue, why are you making us go through this annoying otherwise pointless chore of trying to tag a mob in a laggy desperate zerg ball just to get a share of the ascended loot that drops in WvW, sometimes it’s more important to keep fighting, not everyone needs to stand in that circle.

Better yet why is there no amounts of ascended materials given as a bonus(perhaps with diminishing returns) for defending keeps/towers? It’s obviously interfering with the WvW game by causing people to want to take take take and ignore defending.

What about the people who will get their realm the bloodlust buff in the next patch? How about an achievement chest with diminishing returns/daily timer to get a small amount of each ascended material when you take 3 of the 5, this would really liven things up and create a flow of the games population taking a run into the middle fights to get their daily ascended materials achievement thoughout the day, this would help keep the buff bouncing around amongst the 3 servers and draw people into WvW.

Just wondering what people think about how annoying and imho senseless it can be to get ascended materials for WvW players.

No to stat buff, should be something loot/wxp/supply related instead of something that directly gives advantages in combat, love the score points on finishing enemies that’s the best part.

Rieselle.5079:

As a final point, if we want to balance the servers out more, then an additional feature:
4. All servers will receive rewards at the end of the season, proportional to their final rank. However, the rewards are divided evenly between registered players. A player on a low population server that comes 4th may get a much larger prize than someone on a high pop server that comes first. Servers that achieve success in spite of their low registered population will be the most rewarding, even if they don’t win.
Registered number of players is published for each server.

I think this is a really important idea as some way for this to not cause problems, worth the effort to implement for sure IMHO.

Niim.9260:

I think creating a ‘competition’ out of what has everything to do with population and coverage and nothing at all to do with skill, is the most brain dead idea ANET has come up with in regards to WvW to date.

Rewarding players for balling up onto over populated servers is good for WvW how?

Yeah I think this is the most important point of all, big bottom line, I hope the rewards for ‘winning’ aren’t too attractive, wish Anet was focusing their energy on other ways to spice up WvW, the whole pretending your server beat others for reasons besides numbers and coverage is a bit silly…

I like the idea someone had in another thread of everyone proven to have actively participated in a matchup gets totaled and compared against the # of people they lost to and have their individual rewards boosted… just as one way to help this new ‘competition’ make any sense.

I gambled on it and bought alot of them today for a bit under 1g each, I think it has a chance to become a very popular sigil esp for large scale wvw, boons are all very good and alot of people run boon duration also.

I’ve been roaming since the game came out and most of that time on Dragonbrand which has been relatively high tier for a long time and i’ve been thinking about this lately, my friends and I agree.. the higher tier servers JQ/Blackgate/SoR/TC(omg especially TC) are the worst roaming servers, very little presence of small groups, almost impossible to find a good small scale fight, fighting a server like for example maguuma is much more fun for us and i’ve been thinking about transferring to get a little further away from the boring tier 1 servers who seem to do nothing but zerg, hope the new patch changes help break them up and get them out of the mothership.

Interesting to hear what people think.. very curious about how it is in the mid range.

I’ve been doing small group wvw since beta and I believe a huge problem is how hard it is to get away from zergs once they’re on their way to you due to the combat movement speed…

I think a big help would be if in-combat swiftness gave you as much speed as out of combat swiftness, or keep movement speed the same in combat and out, it’s too easy for a class to teleport up and tag someone in your group into combat thus getting them crushed by the out of combat perma swiftness zerg who are chasing all across the map to all get a chance at 60 wxp off that person.

If groups could roam and pick their fights a little better and not pray to have mass stealth things and just use coordinated swiftness to retreat easier I think the zerg wouldn’t be so scary and I really don’t see the problem with people having a better chance to run away with swiftness, also in turn people wouldn’t feel as obliged to play an annoying tanky solo spec so they can get away, they could instead use positioning and swiftness and find proper fights.

I really think the easiest solution though without any huge impact would be for swiftness in combat to = out of combat, it would make it a more interesting combat boon also if you ran a bit faster in a fight, people would still get caught but it wouldn’t be like it is now where if you run into someone and outnumber them badly you eventually collect the kill like pacman with little effort.

Utilities

Tome of Courage – This thing is my bread and butter for small group roaming even in my DPS builds, spamming #1 puts out alot of healing with high healing power(not easy to aim always though), #2 blinds and cleanses on a very short cooldown, #3 puts out a very long regen/protection on you(as of recent patch) and your teammates, #4 now dazes for 3 seconds(new patch buff), far range, if you time it right this will really throw your enemies off and of course #5 is the amazing long range full heal which is super effective with a class that can stealth you on demand, having 30 seconds of running around with this book out from the elite focus trait is great, tome also makes you tankier when it’s out and you can draw alot of enemy focus fire onto you while they die to your teammates, people see the book and freak out trying to attack you.

Wall of Reflection – One of the greatest WvW abilities of all imho, short cooldown long duration with trait, when you charge into a big group and put this on the frontline it throws the enemies off badly especially ranged, if it’s not doing damage to them it’s causing them to run into your teams DPS or shuffle around wondering what to do, it’s also a useful light field, don’t need to ramble on much about this great ability but you new Guardians need to check it out.

Stand Your Ground – Can’t play without this, short cooldown, retaliation but most important the stability at the right time on the right teammates will allow everyone to execute their plan, watch out for necro wells and stuff.

Hold the line – Not very exciting but the HoT and protection on such a short cooldown really add up and I can’t see not using this shout for this style of play personally, the biggest challenge with shouts is the range isn’t very big, hope your group stays close, positioning is tricky.

HEALING BREEZE:

I think it’s actually a good heal despite the bashing, takes practice to use well, I enjoy using it, heals others for about as much as empower and VoR activate(3500 for me), it all adds up, alot of people want to see it buffed though and I wouldn’t mind.

DODGE HEALING:

From selfless daring 15 in the honor tree, this is a huge part of the playstyle and one of the trickiest parts to master, the range of the heal on teammates is very small, you must keep vigor procced and I use Superior Sigil of Stamina on both weapons(get full endurance on a kill, remember we’re trying to overpower and kill fast), this can put out so much healing if you do it right in addition to the other constant heals happening it’s crazy, just not easy to execute all the time, people are all over the place, a big key to succeeding with your small group with this build I think is getting people finished fast and keep the dodges rolling on your frontline, something i’ve been improving at and trying to do all the time… also part of why I use -40% condition duration food so I don’t get immobilized or crippled as long so I can stay on top of the dodge heals.

FOOD:

I’m using the lemongrass poultry soup alot lately for -40% condition duration on me, I just really like when conditions disappear, especially immobilizes, 20% boon duration is a great choice especially with a 5+ man group, I don’t know what to recommend really here, theres several good choices. Master maintenance oil for precision as well.

Anyways Guardian is such a deep class it’s unbelievable, interested to hear what people think of this style of play or how they do it, really a build in this game needs to suit a group, again I find this works best supporting a high dps group.

Small group play can be really helpful for your faction and be alot of fun, baiting zergs and staying alive can be a big challenge and dying happens alot, I find that there is a big lack of small groups running around in GW2 currently (at least in the higher ranked servers where I am) and would like to see more and I believe a good support Guardian can help alot in keeping people interested in trying it, so I recommend getting some heal gear and ask some berserker friends to go roaming with you some time.