Guild Wars 2

@Stonewarrior
Weapon bonuses do not show up on the character stats (Bug) but they work properly.
I hope this threat answers your question better:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10ilke/how_sigils_work/

For me the most lackluster stat for the guardian would be condition damage and then healing power.
I’m suprised to see Selfless Daring scaling 1:1. That’s quite a lot of healing.
On the other hand I’m buffled at altruistic healing with it’s 0.01:1 scaling.

@ComeAndSee
You are telling him to factor in all those points but if you factor in the equivalent to other stats as well you will notice that healing is indeed lackluster.
Here’s another discussion about healing power on the forums:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Healing-Power
Everyone comes to the same conclusion, healing power is garbage due to poor scaling.

Toughness and vitality scale very well for survival.
Toughness is the best scaling stat IF you have ways to continually remove conditions,since conditions bypass all armor,otherwise vitality is.
Healing power on the other hand scales very poorly with almost all abilities for all classes.
Compare health point gain between the same amount of vitality,toughness and healing power you will notice that even for guardians with their low hp base,it’s a waste to focus on healing power.

If you want to be a support class then do not invest into healing power,instead go for toughness/vitality/precision and take traits and abilities that can actually support your team either through small constant heals and boon appliances or other means of protection.
Basically it’s just as effective to simply use the base heals as they are and focus on your build for support through your abilities.

_
As an example of a support build, here is my Crithammer build below:
Build 0/5/30/30/5 (Copy paste link for it to work):
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#1|0|3527|1311|3408|3406|3411|0|0|0|0|5|0|0|0|30|2281|2175|1395|30|866|2274|2171|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

It offers constant (-33% damage)protection boon, retaliation,heals for allies and heals yourself constantly due to synergy between critical hits proccing boons,shouts and the altruistic healing trait.On top of that you do very good dps as well.
For my build I focus on Power/Precision/Crit dmg stats on items,but if you prefer a more defensive style Toughness/Vitality/Precision is just as good.
To find more about these crithammer builds,just check the guardian forums.

For the critHammer build PvE(0/5/30/30/5) I find that the 2hand mastery trait(20% reduction to 2hand weapon abilities) and abilities 3,4,5 are unnecessary; you are better off selecting Writ of the merciful(Symbols AOE Heal).
You rarely need to use hammer abilities 3,4,5 and 20% off the 2nd ability just reduces 1second off making it 4seconds cooldown which is unnecessary anyway.

The abilities 3,4,5 have long casting times as well as cooldowns and offer very little utility in a dungeon environment,not to mention most monsters are immune to knockbacks and immobilise/slow effects.
The only situation in which I use ability 5(ward ring),is when i go to help lift someone up,I cast that so that mobs stay outside and don’t hit us while we are “reviving.”

As for ability 2(Mighty Blow) even with the reduced cooldown,you still have to wait for 2 full rotations of your autoattacks before clicking 2,otherwise you cancel the creation(trigger) of the next symbol,which is not worth it.
Mighty Blow(4seconds cd) will be ready to use after a 2nd autoattack hit,but if you activate it you will interrupt the 3rd autoattack hit.Either way you have to wait the full 5seconds before you use Mighty Blow,if you want to be efficient.

Mighty Blow does slightly higher damage than the 3rd attack(instant and symbol total damage) but only counts as 1 hit,meanwhile you get 5 hits from the 3rd attack that can crit and the protection boon,so it’s not worth to ever cancel an autoattack rotation.Of course once the rotation is done,clicking 2 is best,for maximising dps and for the combo field.

TLD;R.It’s better to allow the autoattack rotations to finish before using mighty blow and rarely use the 3,4,5 abilities.In my opinion 2hand Mastery is useless for the hammer PvE build.

My build:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|5|0|0|0|30|2281|2175|1395|30|866|2274|2171|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Edit: Clarified that Mighty Blow if clicked during an autoattack sequence, interrupts the creation(trigger) of the next symbol,not existing symbol on ground

It’s sad that after so long they still haven’t acknowledged all these bugs that make a lot of builds useless due to them.
One has to wonder if they are even reading more than one threat per month.
Add this to Guardians forum as well, more chances to be noticed.

I was gonna post about this as well but you beat me to it.
If you cast “Retreat”,“Save yourselves” before entering the symbol of swiftness it works as intended but if you do the opposite it doesn’t.
Even if your swiftness boon is under 8seconds, lets say you enter the symbol with 3seconds left on your swiftness,it will only add 1second to your boon instead of boosting it to at least 8seconds.
This to me seems like a bug or an oversight.The symbol should at least add +8seconds once or at least increase your swiftness to 8seconds if your current duration is lower.

With a HAMMER and some shouts,the best combination i would say would be:
2x Superior Rune of Water: +25 healing +15% boon duration
2x Superior Rune of Monk: +25 healing +15% boon duration
2x Superior Rune of Earth: +25 toughness +20% protection duration

Change the last rune to one with +20% to another specific boon,if you prefer,such as swiftness,regeneration,might,fury and so on.

Total of +50% duration to protection boon and +30% to the rest without any traits.
Enjoy your infinite -33% damage protection boon,which is much better than any other defensive stat could ever be.This will benefit your group just as well.

This combination lets you add a lot of +% duration to your build without the need to go over the Virtue traits line and does so very stat-cost effectively.

I’m torn between these two PvE builds for my hammer.
Both are focused on shouts and signets and boon healing like the op has.
(Secondary Staff is for might/heals/speed buffs only,but ignore that):

• A. 0/15/30/20/5:
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQJASWlYg67mFyIEmIFRuA7DEETBGh/1DK6QGC
  The above build is similar to the op but with 5points into virtues.

• B. 0/10/30/30/0 :
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQJASWlYg67mFyIEm4EhVBCi9Ajw/jXPooDZIA
  This build is more flexible than the first one.
  You lose around 4.5-5% crit chance but gain more health and healing in return.
  Can swap at any time the 30Honor trait to either Pure of the Voice,Writ of the Merciful or Two Handed Mastery,depending on the situation.

Which do you guys think is overall more useful for Solo and group PvE?

Question.
Trait Pure Voice: Allies affected by a shout convert one condition to a boon.
Does this convertion also apply a tick of healing, with Altruisting healing?

Do you get an extra heal tick if an ally already has that specific boon on him?
For instance lets say an ally has regeneration(A boon that stack on duration), if i click an ability that adds regeneration and therefore simply increase that ally’s duration will i get healed?

Also, do you get healed depending on how many allies you buff at one time?
For instance will a skill that adds aegis to 5 allies around me, heal me for 5 ticks or just 1tick?

I like the build but i think instead of going 20 Radiance, you could go 15 and spend the other 5points into inspired virtues (Virtues traits tree).
Inspired Virtues: Whenever you activate a virtue,it will buff everyone around you for ~6seconds with of one of the following boons might,regeneration or protection depending on the virtue which is quite significant i would say.

This means you will get 3-4extra heal ticks in addition to the other boons and with our elite skill Renewed Focus you can double that.
I think Virtue of courage will add 2 extra ticks since it adds 2 boons at once but i’m not sure about that.

From the wiki it says
“Each point of Healing Power adds 0.1258 healing for Regeneration, 0.0643 healing for Rejuvenation, and it is unknown how much healing is added for active healing skills.”

From this we can conclude that we need around 8 healing power points just to add +1hp healed per regeneration tick. I assume healing skills have a slightly better ratio, but even if it was 1healing power for 1hp healed, it would still feel underpowered and not very useful. I’m confused why it seems to be so bad and I assumed healing power would be something to look for,for a guardian.

I want to see what you guys have to say.
Is it worth going for healing power over any of our primary stats power/toughness/vitality for the extra self healing and group healing in dungeons or should it be avoided like the plague?

There are traits that add a flat % extra damage.
For instance, +5% to Greatsword damage, another +5% to swords and spears damage, +5% to scepter damage and so on.

Are these increments reflected into the tooltips of the various weapon abilities?
For instance, the trait Greatsword Power says “Greatsword damage is increased by 5%”.

Enabling it on and off,I see no changes to the Greatsword’s various abilities tooltips where damage is concerned.
This is strange since any other stats such as reduction to cooldown and increments to power through boons is reflected into the tooltip.

So are these type of traits working as intended and just not included into the tooltip damage or are they broken?

If you are going for 1h sword/(shield or focus), i find that going full 30 Radiance and 30 Valour synergise well due to their stats but other than that Valour is just slightly less horrible than Zeal in case of traits.

Radiance Trait X:
Powerful Blades: Sword and spear damage is increased by 5%.

As the title says, does this trait affect greatswords as well,since they are a sword type?
The wording seems confusing, if it only affects 1handed swords,why it doesn’t say so?

Does the “sword” word used, refer to the weapon name,which is just the 1H sword or does it refer to the weapon type which is both the sword and greatsword since by definition greatsword is a type of sword as well?

As a rule of thumb, avoid anything related to condition damage like the plague, it’s the worst attribute for Guardians. Burning stacks on duration and higher burning damage takes priority.Which means you gain very little dps/second from it,not to mention if other people have higher burning damage,it will take priority above yours and you may even never take damage credit for it,since your ticks will be at the bottom of the priority list to hit.

Power,Precision,Crit damage,Vitality and Toughness are all important depending on your setup.
Healing power is a little lackluster but still useful and condition damage is an absolute waste of an attribute.

Very nice guide.
Just a small correction:
“Signet of Judgement – Very solid Signet grants a passive 10% damage reduction while not on cool down. While this will reduce the amount of damage Retaliation returns, it’s a nice bonus. It’s active is decently strong in both PvP and PvE causing -50% Endurance regeneration and inflicts 50% Fumble.”

Retaliation tooltip is misleading, it does not return part of the damage you take,so any reductions do not affect it.
Retaliation causes a flat X damage (based on your current attack power) to attackers when hit that bypasses armor/defenses.
However you need to get hit for retaliation to trigger; If a hit is blocked,missed,evaded you will not reflect damage.

Bump, in hopes of an answer.

Let’s assume I have two sets equipped:
A:1h weapon and an offhand and
B: 2hand weapon

1. Let’s say i put on both A and B sets,sigils with static bonuses +power, +toughness.
Do both the sigil bonuses from set A and B count towards your total stats or only the one currently equipped(switched to) is counting?

2. Let’s say i have the following:
1h Sigil: +3% Damage
offhand Sigil: 30% chance to heal on hit(10 second cooldown)
2a.Does hitting with your 1h has a chance to proc. the sigil heal you have equipped on your offhand, or only an attack from your offhand can proc. it?

2b.Does the +3% Damage bonus from the 1hand here, apply to your final attack or only applies to the attacks done to the weapon it is on? Basically does your offhand benefit from it as well?

3. Let’s say i have the following:
1h Sigil: 10% chance to gain fury on hit(10second cooldown)
offhand Sigil: 30% chance to heal on hit(10second cooldown)
Is it possible to proc. any of these sigil bonuses with either the 1h or offhand attack?
For instance, can i proc a heal with my 1hand and fury with my offhand attack?

4. Let’s say i have the following:
1h Sigil: +5% bleeding damage
offhand Sigil: +5% bleeding damage
Are the bonuses with % of the same type stackable?If yes additive or multiplicative?

5 Sigils of the following type:
Gain +X “attribute” each time you kill a foe (Max 25stacks)
Is it possible to have multiple bonuses from sigils of this type?
For instance 25stacks of +Power and 25stacks of +Precision.

Please only answer if you are certain about it and if possible provide helpful links.
Thank you.

Hassohappa.9278:

Retaliation also isn’t affected by your opponent’s armor.

Very important detail.

Also I agree the word “reflect” is misleading.
It should read “Causes X damage to attackers when hit.Ignores armor”

I feel that Tome of Wrath and Renewed focus are underwhelming.
Especially Renewed Focus.You are immobilised for 3seconds,to renew your virtues.
It says you are invurnerable to damage,yet you take full damage from conditions that are on you,which means you may die in those 3seconds. Is that a bug or working as intended?

To make it more appealing I would suggest that Renewed Focus, upon activation removes all conditions you have as well as break stun and resets virtues as it does now.
Once it finishes,it should give to you and up to 5 allies around you Stability and Aegis for 6 or so seconds.

Strength in Number is not working. I tested it with friends in and outside a party, solo and in dungeons.
Neither myself nor any nearby allies get +30 toughness.