/snip
5. Sometimes this may involve rerolling.
Although what you said is true, even 5 … I think 5 is the reason the forum exists. To have open debates on the validness of system mechanics and whether or not they should be changed. Especially if the mechanics create a scenario where the solution is to reroll a different class.
Great video, I see you also have a lot of trouble making the adjustment to burn F2 before activating your elite to get the extra healing.
You linked a guide on “How to Wreck Your DPS”
LOL
Hahahahahaha funny one. The meta trapper has the same survivability as the old medi guard since it runs the same defensive traits and most of the same defensive skills.
Uhhhhhh? medi guardians survivability relies on Meditations which are utilities and directly conflict with traps. For every trap a guardian takes they lose 1/3 of the survivability they had from a full medi build. If they are running 2-3 traps they might as will not even go down the Valor line at all, since the only other thing in that line is Smiter’s Boon. Also since they are going into the DH trait line we can assume that 33% of their build is nothing like a medi build. So basically the thing they have in common is the Virtue line which pretty much every guardian build has.
Currently, mosy traps to my knowledge have a universal halfsecond arming time, which is a delay after placing the trap before it fires. Additionally, most traps also have a casting time in addition to this arming time.
As such, by making all traps instant cast, the 1 second minimum arming time is at most only a .25 delayed increase, as you would no longer have a cast time and a delay time.
According to gw2 wiki (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trap) traps do have kitten arming time, but " Traps will trigger at once if laid on top of an enemy." So this would be a large nerf and even the visual change would be a deal breaker. There’s a big difference between having a .25s animation of kneeling and a .25s activation of the trap (total .5s), compared to an instant drop, 1s visible glowing symbol at my feet that also has a .25s activation time (total 1.25s). If I’m in melee using the trap, 1.25s is more than enough time to walk out of the trap and even if I don’t a good player will naturally be able to internally time it and know when to dodge away.
Keep in mind that currently the Guardian has half their traps laid instantly already so it would just be 1s increase for those skills.
My biggest problem after spending quite a long time using traps is I can’t fathom why ArenaNet put the cooldown of traps on placement instead of activation. .
because sometimes you drop a trap and other players move the mob away from your trap for various reasons. With your suggestion there is no way for me to set another trap until some mob runs over it or the 5 min timer runs out. Thats terrible
I agree, if traps had their cooldown set to activation instead, they would need to have a termination ability, for example repressing the activate button similar to commanding the old spirit weapons.
Zodin runs a meditation DH build with no traps in WvW and it looks pretty great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8wUeVrjUUQ
It’s amazing how the damage on bow really changes up a meditation build, since it alleviates the constant pressure of needing to be right on your opponent, not to mention lb#5 is incredibly punishing to counter rezing.
^This, you’re there to help them mitigate their damage while providing some helpful area denial/cc.
Overall this just seems to be: add arming timers to traps to make them worthless against any competent opponent during active combat, but at least we can still stack 4 traps preemptively and hope for the best (or better yet play sheep herder and use a lot of CC to push and pull them into the traps).
The buffs to max range/instant casts would be completely overshadowed by arming timers especially ones that are 3s long. I get you want to make traps feel more like “traps,” but the part I think the community is upset about is the 1 hit KO potential of a fire and forget utility combo. Your solution seems like it promotes traps only being use out of combat, since even a dumb enemy is not going to die if they know exactly where your traps are.
That being said I could see Maw getting 1s arming timer to prevent the JI combo, but I don’t think any other trap needs one.
My biggest problem after spending quite a long time using traps is I can’t fathom why ArenaNet put the cooldown of traps on placement instead of activation. Changing this would have little effect on PVE unless you want to spend and extra 60s to cheese content, but would dramatically effect PVP trappers giving them a much higher risk/reward for pre-placing traps.
Swap Symbol of Protection with Mighty Blow
Decrease Mighty Blow damage by 40%
Increase Symbol of Protection duration to 3s, reduce cast time to 1s
Proposed changes #3-5 from RagnaroxNot saying I would actually want to run this, but it would be interesting for sure. Also take into consideration a fantasy trait change:
Glacial Heart swapped with Retaliatory Subconscious. Retaliatory Subconscious functionality changed to "Activate Virtue of Courage when affected by [Control Effect].
I assume you mean MB would go at the end of the auto attack chain and we would just get another symbol. I think this would put hammer in a worse place than it is now. It would still be a weapon base of just pressing “1” in PVE and would bring far less utility. Also agree that a 40% damage reduction to MB would “literally” make it an auto attack and almost identical to the damage currently done by the hammer 3rd chain attack. Even if MB’s damage was kept as is, having to sit through 3s of auto attacks for the needed spike damage with no protection would not be worth it on the new content area.
@Cogbyrn: It may be questionable design but that is how it is currently is.
Just lost both dodges and he just lost both pulls. Now, assuming LB/GS, he has LB5 and maw. Assuming you aren’t built as badly as the engi in that video, you should have another 1-2+ defenses/ mobility skills of your own. LB5 is a nonfactor in 1v1s, so he realistically has maw. If the engi had JUST elixir S, that fight would’ve been insta GG for him.
If he had prelaid his traps, then he would have a full set of new traps to relay if the engi survived (not counting dragon’s maw). And a | true shot > JI + Heavy Light > GS or relay traps | after the elixir S ended would be very hard to counter. Especially if the engi is out of dodges and the DH has daze on traps.
(edited by Indure.5410)
I don’t play a burn Guardian so I could be completely wrong, but the disparity between Kindled Zeal and Target the Weak makes sense if both the Guardian and the Necro are switching to Viper armor instead of Sinister. Since power is the major stat of viper while precision is a minor stat. Also Supreme Justice seems like it’s design for all Guardian specs, to allow the Guardian to keep up burning easier allowing better synergry with other traits that give +7% damage, 10% crit, long lasting fury (which for guardians makes up for the smaller crit chance on Viper).
@Rodzynald: Exedore said “elite specs” not elite skills. Referring to DH, Reaper, Scrapper, etc.
In practical purposes F1 passive only keeps cripple up for 1.25 seconds which even with Supreme Justice you can’t stack fast enough to extend the cripple much higher (rare case of GS Whirling Wrath). In reality you either need someone else to constantly be applying cripple, using Puncture Shot into groups (2s), or using the 2 traps that apply 6s cripples. All of these don’t really effect Big game Hunter. Not to mention that with a fast damage weapon (GS) Big Game Hunter can easily stack 25 vulnerability to offset your DPS lose from Zealot’s Aggression.
4. balance the damage between skill 1 and 2 so both are used in every dps rotation in pve.
This above all else, I love the hammer but if optimal DPS rotation is press 1 and walk away then I think the weapon has some serious problems.
@Trevor:
Puncture shot – only gains cripple when hitting multiple targets. So in 1v1 its just an auto attack and a slow one at that.
True Shot – Does deal a lot of damage, but it has a cast time and a root on it. In reality be happy the damage is one big attack rather than the ranger’s Rapid Fire, because a Guardian with rapid fire would be even more dangerous.
Deflecting Shot – I personally find situational and although I agree that the ground targeting does help with making some clutch plays, overall I wish it was just a quickfire/untargeted ability.
Shield Of Courage – Amazing.
Heavy Light – Uncontrollable knockback every 10s with 6s of stability on it for no reason. In comparison with Point Blank Shot, I would say they are fairly even … yes Heavy Light can hit multiple enemies and gives stability, but it has a max range of 300. Compared to PBS which can be used on demand from 1,200 range. Not to mention you are comparing a Grand Master trait to a baseline longbow ability.
Traps – Completely agree that DH has better traps because ranger’s traps suck.
I have no idea how you would truly fix the hammer, but I would like to see ArenaNet strongly consider giving Ring of Warding similar properties to Test of Faith, so if you use it against a boss or player with stability they will still take spike damage or debuff for leaving the ward. Also I would love to see Banish get a ~7-10 sec cripple added to it to synergize with the DH’s Zealot’s Aggression, either giving hammer 10% damage and a reason to use Banish on bosses, or so that hammer will fit in as a great secondary weapon for Guardians interested in using a longbow.
Not Zeal. Zeal and Honor. Honor affects hammer dps much more than Zeal ever will. Obviously, get both for wonderful synergy, but if you had to drop one, but still wanted to do decent damage with hammer, drop Zeal.
I’m not saying you are wrong, but I have a hard time believing that Honor out damages Zeal when it comes to the Hammer. Yes, Writ of Persistence gives a 19% damage increase, but the rest of the Honor line only adds ~3 stacks of might. Compared to the Zeal line which gives +20% damage as long as you are standing in your symbols (10% + ~3 stacks of vulnerability) and the target is on fire (7%). And on top of that gives your symbols 10% more damage and a 33% chance to burn, and for berserker builds ~250 bonus condition damage.
Before making a whole new set you could try some minor (cheaper) changes first.
One, always off-hand a mace+focus for times you might die.
Two, change up your food/oil buffs to add a bit more health and toughness.
Three, change up your traits and build into something more defensible like a meditation build.
I’m not trying to sound like a troll, but the counter play to traps is to avoid them.
If you know where they are don’t walk into them and if you do get ensnared, get out of them and pop a defensive skill to recover. This is the same strategy you use against every other gimmick spec in the game. Wait out the gimmick and then make them pay for using a utility.
I think the OP needs to realize that if your fighting a guardian (or any class) on his own terms you should be losing.
Doesn’t Mighty Blow still work if triggered at the beginning of JI?
Moving Glacial Heart is not going to help hammer at all … its a terrible trait especially in PVE.
This should be common knowledge, but I see countless videos where it isn’t utilized; Renewed Focus resets Virtues and Virtues don’t break casting, so once you press Renewed Focus for the Invulnerability there is no reason what so ever not to cast all your Virtues while invulnerable since they will reset in two seconds.
Personally I think Glacial Heart is just as poop as Searing Flames, if not more so. It’s too situational to be of any reliable use. 2k healing per meditation use is way better (don’t forget that Renewed Focus is a meditation too since the last feature patch!).
I tend to agree that Glacial heart is underwhelming, I only offered the suggestion of Glacial Heart because I think if he sticks with the mindset of Monk’s Focus + 3 meditations he’s not going to have the CC/mobility needed to Intercept and lockdown. With soldiers gear and no +% damage modifiers his damage isn’t quick enough to burst anyone.
My biggest concern for his build is that assuming he opens with JI he will still only have 50% crit chance and Glacial Heart is 50% proc, so he would have to average 4 attacks before a proc.
My two cents:
OVERVIEW:
I cannot find a reason to include Searing Flames into any build, let alone this build. Your going to have little control of when you cast fire on an enemy, you have little control over which boon you remove, and with an internal cooldown of 10s it will be very hard to time. I personally think the 10 points in Radiance can go anywhere else and be more effective.
In my opinion Meditation builds are great because they give glass cannon builds the survivability they need to be competitive at the sacrifice of utilities. Your build already has quite a bit of survivability baked in with 6 points in honor and soldier’s armor (6k more health than a DPS build). It’s true that Monks Focus will dramatically increase your survivability, but you are using up all of your utilities (Judges Intervention aside), which I think could be better spent for either CC or gap closing.
You have nothing to apply swiftness (purpose of your runes) except for the runes themselves, which if you are chasing will not get proc since the enemy won’t be attacking a lot.
SUGGESTIONS from smallest changes to greatest:
- Always scrap Searing Flames
- GS+H is good, but also try sword/focus and scepter/focus. One is no better than another so its personal preference.
- Keep same build but try Merciful Intervention instead of Smite or CoP for assisting team mates or if you find yourself caught out of position.
- Keep 6 Valor, but lose Monks Focus for Glacial Heart. This will give you a possible slow on Hammer and free up utilities to something like Judges Intervention, Retreat (team swiftness), Save Yourselves (swiftness plus everything else), Stand Your Ground (stability), or Bane Signet (knockdown + power). You could also consider AH.
- Consider a swap to 0/0/2/6/6. I think your damage is average with your current build and you could consider giving up some damage and go full tank/control keeping the utilities for chasing, but getting increased general party support.
Overall I agree with many of the complaints, but are guardians in a bad position? They have competitive DPS in PVE (which right now is the only thing that matters) and provide unique utilities to a party, which is a lot more than I can say for half the classes in the game. In WvW they are one of four classes that form the core of a zerg. They fall behind in sPVP, but they still have two viable builds.
Zeal is a bad trait line and focuses on Spirit Weapons –
Zeal is one of our damage lines and I think it does a pretty good job of it. I agree there are a lot of wasted traits, but it increases the DPS output of 4 of our weapons (scepter, GS, mace, hammer) by roughly 15-20% each. It does have Spirit weapons tied to the line, but one of our lines has to, and the spirit sword/hammer would make sense in zeal if the spirit weapons themselves were reliable and/or good.
Condition damage is wasted on Guardians –
Overall agree, but I don’t see any real +condition damage traits in zeal or radiance except for Radiant Retaliation (terrible), Amplified Wrath (okay), and Kindled Zeal (meh).
No cripples, minimum swiftness, and no stuns/dazes –
True, and it can suck at times, but we do have a plethora of gap closers … Judges Intervention being one of the greatest utilities in the game. Although swiftness is minimal, Retreat is a great utility and fills most, if not all your swiftness needs. No stuns/dazes isn’t that big of a deal; serves no purpose in PVE and block/blind out class them; in PVP they’re helpful but a cripple is what Guardians actually need. I personally would like to see sword #3 be redone to apply cripple/swiftness per attack landed.
Shields suck-
Shields suck.
One field type; minimal finishers-
In my experience fields and finishers are overrated. Yes, you can do cool things with them, but overall they are meaningless or impossible to use in zergs, solo PVE, and large scale PVP. In truth I would rather have strong, reliable utilities than try to combo a stationary field and finisher against a moving target or with ten other fields also laid down.
Scepter as the range weapon-
Against moving targets, scepter sucks end of story, against stationary targets, especially large targets, scepter has the highest DPS for the Guardian. It is what it is. When specced for damage, the scepter paired with a focus is actually good in PVP, you just need to use it situationally.
The problem however is that the shield number 5 sucks & scales horribly.
Swapping it with scepter number 5 would just make allot of people grab the shield instead of the scepter.
I overall agree, but if we are only talking about aesthetics I would much rather see Guardians maining a shield over a focus, especially melee centric guardians.
Also, I think with some slight tweaks, shield 5 would be an excellent pairing with a scepter. As long as shield 5 had the player self-immobilized removed it would make a great skill for scepter users; giving them a 4 second group range block which is on par with Shield of Wrath’s utility, and a needed knockback for when the scepter user gets too many melee on the them. I think the healing explosion could be removed to rebalance for the lack of self-immobilization.
If it needed further utility, a cripple on reentering the bubble would make the skill amazing for scepter users, while not helping mace/sword users that much.
In all honesty I wish the focus and the shield skills would just switch. The focus is great for melee combat with group blinds and blocks, while the shield skills fit much better for the scepter with a knockback, range defense, and cone skill which benefits a backline position.
OP –
If you’re going for DMG – Maximize your Dmg Modifiers.
If you’re going for Support – Focus on CC, Condi Removal & Boons.
I’m just getting back into this game after a 3 month hiatus, but I have to agree with the above statement. Meditation builds are selfish builds that allow players to have high damage with great self-healing. I would personally maximize damage by going 20 or 25 into Radiance. Otherwise I think you’ll find yourself in the position of not having enough DPS to beat tankier classes.
I don’t want to go indepth on the calculations but you can up your damage by ~20% from the Radiance tree alone (more if you use a 1-hand sword).
Honor will give you more survivability of course, but I’d recommend managing survivability with armor; food buffs; and just getting better about timing blocks, blinds, and dodges.
My only problem in general with a meditation build is that once you start fighting in larger conflicts your utilities need to change to things other than meditations and your survivability drops dramatically.
My thoughts on how to make the torch stronger:
Make both abilities act as “sort of” passive damage buff to compliment the damage of your primary weapon. For example upping the duration of the AOE burning on Zealot’s Flame so it provides ~10s of AOE burning before needing to cast on a single target. Or, once Cleansing Flame is activated it channels in the background, but the player is free to use other abilities during the channel. Therefore both abilities up player DPS on use, but don’t interfere with your primary attacks.
You take far more damage in WvW so more healing would make sense. And I was under the impression that dodge heals scale excellently off healing power and are negligible without it.
Why give warriors the passive damage increase? They already have low class complexity and rely too heavily on passives as it stands before the patch. And why should having an attack that penetrates through blocks affect Invulnerable targets?
Renewed Focus is great, quick cooldown lots of versatility and does a great job of saving my life on numerous occasions.
As for the tomes: I think wrath is underrated. It provides strong damage and damage support and gives a guardian decent range aoe damage that is very helpful in WvW during keep defense/seige. My only gripe with it, is that it has way too long of a cooldown. As for Courage, it is very powerful under some circumstances, but I find it lacking as an Oh crap! button since it takes a very long time to cast and get its big heal off.
Rune set-up can help with either lyssa or soldier. I generally just overpower conditions with healing in PVE. Most conditions aren’t too bad. Bleed and burning are usually easy to out heal. Super long lasting conditions are wiped out with purity or signet. The only two bad conditions are chill and poison when you need to heal. I would just equip a condition remover for fights you know will be condition heavy.
In PVP it’s helpful to have something on your bar whether it be runes/traits/utilities that can quickly wipe out lots of conditions quickly.
It has an internal cooldown of 20s, so no.
Actually for WvW I would lean towards the staff+GS. One-hand swords have no synergy with AH and without 30 Radiance they don’t have competitive DPS. Besides the added mobility there is little reason to switch to the sword in your build. The GS+staff combo on the other hand warrants weapon switching since the staff gives you range damage, crowd control, mobility, and healing.
Lol focus is only good for regen anyway so it’s probably no big deal
Not to mention an incredibly powerful burst damage attack. That hits for 2-3 times harder than the torch’s 4th skill.
^ I was expecting a /sarcasm comment at the end, but didn’t see one so I’m now confused. Is this post serious or not?
This has always been an argument about maximizing support. Your very first post was that AH is the best build period and my post directly underneath you is that it is not the best at many things, just a very good all around build. Which it is, but if you are specializing in either damage or support then there are better builds.
Wrong.
Notice how even in your interpretation of my statement I never said it maximizes support. All you’ve done is create a strawman argument.
I already stated before, 10% boon duration does not make a noticeable difference in support, while not having AH, 30% crit dmg and 300 toughness makes a huge difference in everything else.
Your simplistic view that blindly stacking support trait lines would achieve better overall support is totally unfounded and naive.
You would have a build that would have a tiny fraction of survivability of AH builds, less damage and be trivially better in support ON PAPER only but not in practice and the following statement explains why.
Your support is ZERO when you are down or dead, and frankly you will be down/dead far more than any AH build in any type of content that is remotely challenging.
You are free to post a build here if you think it’s better than AH instead of talking in unsubstantiated theoreticals. If you think I’m wrong then there’s no better chance to prove it than to post your own build and prove how it’s better.
So you then admit that an AH build is not the best build for support and damage, survivability aside?
This is NOT an argument about maximizing support. It never has been.
This has always been an argument about maximizing support. Your very first post was that AH is the best build period and my post directly underneath you is that it is not the best at many things, just a very good all around build. Which it is, but if you are specializing in either damage or support then there are better builds.
Also, your support is nonexistent if you are down or dead.
Although this is true it is an invalid argument. AH builds can still die and a 0/0/0/30/30 build can have ton of survival with gear/utilities/skill.
There’s very little to no difference in support between someone with 30 in virtue and 20 in virtue since guardian support effectiveness comes mostly from gear and runes. (AH variations with more support will run 20 in virtue)
Except for 10% boon duration, 10% Virtue recharge, and a master trait that is support oriented. But even if it is only minor, in terms of buffing support skills it still is a better investment than spending any points into Valor.
However there’s a huge difference in having AH and not having AH as well as having 30% crit damage, 300 toughness and not having it.
Noted, although 30% crit damage is worthless without decent crit chance and 300 toughness is not great if you have high toughness on gear since it will suffer from diminishing returns. And again, damage and survivability through traits is unimportant in terms of a pure support build.
Really all you have to do is admit that AH is a great build for many things and is one of the best guardian builds in terms of all-around gameplay, but it is not even close to the best damage build and isn’t the best pure support build either.
(edited by Indure.5410)
It’s fine to only have stacking on one weapon, but you need to make sure you switch to your staff once the enemy goes into a down state. I’m not sure if you need to auto-attack once.
You can tag stacks with staff #2 and #3 easily in zerg v zerg as well.
You’re right, but the point I was trying to make is that you need the weapon out during the death in order to get the sigil stack. If you hit someone with the staff and then finish them off with a sword you won’t get a stack.
I like the video and your playstyle. Your damage look decent, your survivability was great, and you provided good support for zergs. My only suggestion would be to consider using Judges Intervention because I think that could really benefit your playstyle. It will allow you to quickly get into enemy zergs and cause havoc.
If you’re having trouble in small scale fights, JI can help for that as well. You may also want to switch your secondary weapon during smaller fights. The staff is great, but a hammer or scepter/sword+focus can give you a lot more pressuring ability.
I feel like this is a good build and was looking for some constructive criticism and also some weapon suggestions. I know I want to use the GS but am unsure as to what to use for my 2nd set.
Thanks in advance
Your build doesn’t look like a GS build, did you link it right?
It’s fine to only have stacking on one weapon, but you need to make sure you switch to your staff once the enemy goes into a down state. I’m not sure if you need to auto-attack once.
FACTS:
- 30 Valor gives you very little to no direct group support.
- 30 Honor gives you great group support.
- 30 Virtues gives you great group support.
- You cannot be 0/0/30/30/30, because that equals 90 points.
- You cannot go 30 deep in both great support lines and still pick up AH.
- You don’t need any survivability traits in order to be effective in a pure support role.
- You don’t need any damage traits in order to be effective in a pure support role.
- Since 30 Valor has almost no direct support traits and no support attributes, it has no reason to be mentioned in an argument about MAXIMIZING a support role.
Is AH a great build? Yes. Does AH give more survivability in group content than any other build? Yes. Is AH a better group build for most content? Maybe.
Is AH the best pure support build? No.
In terms of group support, you have a strong support build already. The only suggestion to making it stronger would be to utilize staff over GS or completely dump AH and invest 20 points into Virtue for the boon duration and other group supportive skills. Depending on what runes you are using, it may be possible to output more support by a rune change.
In terms of upping your damage, I would change your armor to Berserker instead of the knight or soldier’s you are using now. If you are willing to use Empowering Might you can drop your toughness considerably since you will receiving far greater healing with EM.
For PVE I would favor scepter or staff, since in PVE you want to look for a weapon that fulfills another roll compared to your primary weapon.
I was hoping for any class specific ways to kite or assist with kiting vs simply dodging.
Keep up swiftness with shouts or staff. Use wards on staff or hammer. Immobilize with hammer or scepter. Wait for the attack animation and activate the innumerable blocks/blinds we have and then move away.