Guild Wars 2

Yup – I just realised I had assumed it was an ally buff in my healing spready too – fixed the VoR calculations ( linked in sig )

Mikau.6920:

Tarsius.3170:

As Harbinger says, it sounds like you’ve been running Wrathful Spirit.

Other than that, 15 points in Virtues gives Virtue of Retribution which will grant Retal whenever you use a Virtue ( so Virtue of Courage will give Protection, Aegis and Retal to 5 allies in range )

Are you sure that Virtue of Retribution gives retal to allies? I tested some times and it didn’t.

You are quite right, retal is just for yourself. I was thinking of the Protection boon from Virtues 5 which is applied to your team ( along with Aegis ofc )

As Harbinger says, it sounds like you’ve been running Wrathful Spirit.

Other than that, 15 points in Virtues gives Virtue of Retribution which will grant Retal whenever you use a Virtue ( so Virtue of Courage will give Protection, Aegis and Retal to 5 allies in range )

Wukunlin.8461:

so how do guardians deal with condi spamfest these days?

We strike like a bee and sting like a tiger

These kinds of statements fall on deaf ears, quite simply because there’s no one here to hear them.

The devs don’t have the time nor the patience to watch profession subforums ( unless it’s on the internal beta platform ), even support doesn’t do it – so you’d be better off mailing them directly with your concerns

What’s the cloak duration on Infiltration, 3 secs?

Much as I like 10 in zeal, I find it hard to sacrifice 5 in honor with my usual roaming 0, 30, 30, 5, 5

lupercaleb.6041:

sigil of superior accuracy grants 5% crit chance. equipping a second one will do nothing. however, when you unequip one of these—either by removing the weapon or swapping weapon sets—the whole bonus is lost, even if you still have one in the other weapon set.

This could well explain it – if by switching between weapons I was actually losing 5% damage from my secondary set rather than gaining an extra 5% on my primary.

I can certainly replicate that issue as lupercaleb describes

Josh Davis.6015:

Hey Tarsius,

I wasn’t able to replicate this internally. Are you using steady weapons? Any additional information would be helpful.

Thanks!

Hi Josh,

I was using steady weapons, scepter and focus both with Sigil of Force and a second focus in my second set with no sigil slotted so I could switch quickly between them.

There is a discussion here which uncovered the issue, however another user tested it recently and couldn’t replicate it either.

I’ve just retested it myself using the same setup as before and I’m not seeing the double stacked bonus… so either it’s a temporary glitch or there are some dependencies on the issue occurring. ( day/night cycle perhaps? )

I’ll try and do a further test tomorrow in the morning to see if anything is different.

Cheers

interesting… I did confirm this myself this morning – perhaps it’s server or time of day dependant…

will give it another go later

edit: ok – it’s not stacking now for me either – either there’s some kind of random glitch at work, or it’s a bug they fixed quickly server-side.

in case you’re interested, the bug is tracked here

edit 2: aaand if you read the above link you will see this is probably a symptom of the same issue I describe when I was testing accuracy sigils. Rather than gaining 10% damage on a double force slotted set you are actually losing 5% damage off your secondary single slotted set if you switch between them ( or unequip them ) to test

On my roaming meditation build, I have hydromancy sigils on both weapon sets: Greatsword and Sword with a shield + JI and Bane signet…. all to stop the little feckers from running away

I posted this on the bugs forum, and someone suggested this might be a prelude to the double sigils on 2-handed weapons change that has been hinted

Location: tested in both the Mists and Lion’s Arch
Prof: Guardian
Race: Asura

Since the last patch or two %stat increase sigils seem to be stacking when equipped in the both the main and off-hand.

example: Sigil of Force x2 gives +10% damage increase instead of +5%

Either this is a ninja buff or a bug. ( since they never used to stack, and this is reflected in the wiki )

I’m not 100% sure if this is also applies to Sigil of Accuracy ( requires more testing ) – but I also noticed if you equip 2 identical weapon sets, 1 set with 2x accuracy on the main and offhand and the other with just 1x accuracy on the main hand – the latter will get +5% accuracy as expected, but the former will actually get -5% accuracy ( so as far as the stats panel is concerned, neither sigil has any effect ) – I’m not sure if this is reflected in actual combat or not.

If i have time I might check whether 2xSigil of Night is giving +20% damage at nighttime

Relentliss.2170:

Syn Sity.5826:

Force/force does stack, two force on two weapons will give 10%. Before you criticize me, it is a very easy test in heart of the mists.

That is interesting. Not something I have heard before.

Yes it’s not meant to stack ( and it definitely didn’t the last time I tested). Looks like it got bugged in the last patch ( or two? ) – all the % modifier sigils seem to be stacking except accuracy – although the stats panel seems to be bugged so it’s hard to workout exactly how much crit chance you have: when you try and equip multiple weapon sets ( 2x accuracy in set slot 1 and 1x accuracy socketted in set slot 2) it adds +5 to the 1x acc set as you’d expect, but takes away 5 from the double socketted one – whether that’s actually reflected in the chance to crit itself requires more golem testing.

akamon.2769:

Wukunlin.8461:

I see energy sigil gets mentioned here and I fully agree on their usefulness. However I have been experimenting with sigil of stamina (refill energy on kill) and seems to have worked okay, anyone else tried this?

i haven’t personally run them, but i know Guard friends who do and speak very highly of them. if you’re more engaged in zerg fights or fighting large numbers, then Stamina can be great since each guy you tagged that dies, you’ll get endurance for that.

whereas, for obvious reasons, if you choose to engage in solo roaming, or focus more on small man vs small man fights, energy would be the better choice.

so i guess, if you can afford two different weapon sets. : ))

This. In Zerg v Zerg I’ll have a staff with a stamina sigil because it’s so good at tagging enemies at range, and another weapon with energy ( probably a hammer for wards and immobilize ).
Omnom compote gives insane healing if the fights are going in your favour – otherwise I’ll probably take endurance regen food as zerg specs tends to have low precision so you won’t get much vigor from Honor 5

Relentliss.2170:

My argument was that people don’t much like the tree. NOT that it was useless. The traits are weaker mostly focused on defense. Valor and honor have both offense and defense. It needs to have a few traits merged and rethought out.

While I can agree to that to a certain extent, you have to be careful not to overlook Virtues passive offensive capability ( boon duration, retaliation, consecration duration/cd reduction ) which can count for a lot.

There’s a reason why a lot of the popular DPS builds spec into virtues:

Also, if conditions didn’t generally suck on the guardian, then a trait like Permeating Wrath would actually be very good. On the other hand, Power of the Virtuous definitely needs a buff…

Relentliss.2170:

Tarsius.3170:

it already does block every 30 when traited

Yeah but you have to trait up a boring tree to do WHAT IT SHOULD ALREADY DO and then pigeon hole yourself severely.

Well, that is kind of the point in having skill trees in the first place – you either spec for getting added utility out of your virtues or you don’t – it’s a choice. There are far more broken traits and traitlines to worry about tbh.

it already does block every 30 when traited

foofad.5162:

SoW is reduced to 4 more blocks and Aegis is consumed..

4=2?

EM certainly isn’t a necessity – the 1 second CD somewhat limits it’s effectiveness with many weapon ( it does complement the hammer very well though ) – but you’re looking at 3, maybe 4 stacks of might for you and your team which you should weigh against the added utility and boon duration offered by spec’ing deeper into Virtues.

Condition removal isn’t a huge issue in PvE, but it can be nice having the extra utility from Virtues ( being able to switch in consecration or spirit weapon traits depending on the encounter, for instance ) and the minor and master traits buff give nice buffs to the Virtue actives ( like regen )

Okeano.5930:

Is there a good post or wiki page that explains the way damage/sigil is calculated for dual wielding? Are 3 attacks from main hand only affected by damage value of main weapon and off hand attacks calculated from off hand weapon, or are the two weapons averaged together?

It should all be in: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigils

Source: The Wiki

Weapon Strength: a uniformly distributed random number taken from the range of weapon strength of the equipped weapon. The weapon strength used for a skill will typically be that of the weapon associated with that skill; utility and elite skills are typically not affected by weapon strength and use a range based on the player’s level.

Damage modifier sigils apply to all weapon skills (both hands) while the weapon that has it socketed is equipped.

fwiw – I’ve added Hammer with AH/EM and Writ of Merciful calculations to my spreadsheet ( linked in my signature )

Think of the passive as a mechanism to counter surprise attack or unwanted agro and the active a pre-emptive defence for you whole group against heavy burst or control.

While I agree the passive is a little lack-lustre, the active when traited is pretty strong, able to give aegis, 3 secs of stability and retaliation and 5 secs of protection to 5 allies on a 30 second cooldown ( with a little AH healing sweetener for yourself if you use it ) or an additional group wide stun break if you go with Shielded Mind.

This is pretty huge for your team if timed correctly, and can make or break a skirmish, especially when coupled with Renewed Focus in a pinch.

Rigel.3092:

Not a trait worth using.

I think 99% of guardians know this, but having never actually used it, even I was surprised that it didn’t actually mitigate damage, and how inherently unfair downed state is for thieves, eles and then guards because of their base Vitality and/or Toughness

Unfortunately it’s more like option 4.

After some tests this is how I think it works:

When you are downed you get given an HP pool that’s approximately (scaled for level) 125% of your vitality added to your current Health ( incidentally, this means that guardians are much easier to finish off by DPSing down than higher health tier classes in PvP ).

You get a condition that slowly drains your downed health pool at a rate of 3.33% per tick. This condition is re-applied every 3 seconds and lasts for 3 ticks.

Strength of the Fallen decreases the condition duration by 33% meaning you get 2 ticks of the condition every 3 seconds ( you can see this because you get 2×1 sec ticks followed by a pause of 2 seconds when traited )

It has no effect on direct damage (from players/mobs for instance) you receive while you are down.

Using Bandage appears to clear the condition while it’s channeling

Healing you receive from Bandage or Symbol of Justice is percentage based on your vitality (3% and 24% respectively), and has no relation to your healing power.

Toughness has no effect on the condition’s effectiveness although it does combat direct damage received from other players.

So people who have dismissed it as worthless probably haven’t appreciated just how worthless it actually is. If you want to last longer while downed you need to stack vitality and toughness ( or roll a warrior/necromancer )

it’s quite ridiculous – I have 6 sets in my inventory at the moment… I have to visit the vendor every 5 minutes to dump drops…

Jax.5261:

3. Place a large bet that your enemy is going to destroy you.

That’s assuming you’d get good odds on that bet, which I doubt somewhow ;-)

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

“Everything” being what? The regen from AH?

I was referring to the builds which give absolute maximum damage from a single weapon ( since that was the OP topic ), rather than those which give very good damage with reasonable utility.

I’ve not used AH in a long long time, so I wouldn’t say the loss of it is an issue, but to get the absolute maximum dps you have to sacrifice active condition removal, toughness, vitality, regen, healing power, stability and protection. OFC maximum viable damage in PvE is a different matter entirely.

@OP Guanglai is right that the guardian can give extreme good sustained dps in PvE, comparable to a warrior

Maximum theoretical damage of Whirling Wrath on a Risen Giant is about 50k (over 2.5 seconds) with every conceivable achievable buff in the game. It’s highly unlikely you’d ever actually see that number though.

Kelnis on this very forum demonstrated about 36k in a similar scenario with non-ascended weaponry, or Shield of Wrath single hit for 18k.

So yes you can get good damage out of a guardian but you have to sacrifice pretty much everything to do it.

Brutaly.6257:

wouldnt an introduction of power/crit/heal (what magi should have been to begin with) gear solve lot of the issues?

It would certainly help a bit – although I’m not sure how it would impact certain builds on other professions, who already have very good/borderline OP damage and health regeneration

Added:
Q39 – Why does my Guardian have low base health?

Added FAQ Q39

Silver.8023:

I’d say that lag plays a large factor, in reality, you are often slighty behind you client’s position during play so if you were moving when hitting ZD, the shield will appear where your character actually is and in the direction you were facing at the time as opposed to where you are on the client-side.

I tested this in the Mists and specifically tested direction of travel vs direction of turn vs current target, and it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on the position of the shield

foofad explains the calculation method in his second post, here, and also the formula is alluded to on the damage page of the wiki here

nb. Tooltips assume an armor value of 2600

Game mode: Any
Location: Any
Race: Any
Profession: Guardian
Skill: Sword#3 Zealot’s Defense

The shield effect of Zealot’s Defense no longer orients correctly to the direction the character is facing ( or indeed to their selected target ).
However the skill seems to be functioning and absorbs projectiles in a full 360 degrees of coverage.

2013-09-18_____________________________________________

• Added Zealot’s Defense shield rendering issue (2013-09-17 patch, thanks Heartnet.5340)

Yup just tested. At first I thought it would orient to your selected target, but it seems much more random. Sometimes it would render behind me when I was receiving attack from the mists ranger NPC directly infront of me.

However the absorption effect seems to remain 360 degrees regardless of the effect’s positions ( or your character direction )

So graphical glitch… ( now added to the bug lists )

Brutaly.6257:

Where do i sign the petition to introduce “ssssssstir (sizzling in the pan) fried chicken”?

Don’t bother, the stats are no good:

http //wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Sizzling_in_the_Pan_Ssssstirfry_Chicken

Sadly I suspect you will have to wait until Guildwars3 before you see any of these fine ideals materialise

Generally any rune that offers a % damage increase on the 6th slot if a certain boon is active is broken ( and has always been broken to my knowledge ).
ie. Rune of Strength ( +5% damage when you have Might ), Rune of Rage ( +5% damage when you have Fury )

The alleged changes to Hallowed Ground alone makes this super attractive – provided the boon duration buff applies to the fire blasts too and the %bonus isn’t rubbish ( I’m guessing it will be +20 )

Brutaly.6257:

this is probably one of the most thought thru posts i seen in these forums. Well done

May i suggest that you start a new thread since it will have a greater chance of being spotted by a dev.

+1

Agreed. I’m fairly sure this will apply outside of tPvP also, although it’ll be super difficult to make balanced changes while keeping both PvE and WvWers happy. Referring to someone else’s suggestion, I’d be very surprised if we ever see Anet willing to diverge PvE and WvW skillsets ( simply because they can’t test changes to WvW meta until it’s live )

Jax.5261:

I forgot one point because I had to go take a massive dump, the knowledge has clearly been lost forever in the sewage realm, if it returns to me I will definitely post it.

chuckle The toilet is usually the place to find inspiration, so perhaps you should take another dump to help you remember your forgotten points…

Obtena.7952:

It seems like it. Forget about condition removal, how about this?

Signet of Vengeance: Condition Damage triggers Retaliation.

What is your ideas?

Don’t need a new signet for that – this is what Signet of Wrath should do… ( well, with a % proc chance )

..active, condition duration reduction+weakness for x seconds?

CMF.5461:

And yet, none of you could point out I can’t spell October? fixed title…cause I is are dumb.

:D It just shows how focused people are on the changes, there was no attention left to spare on being a spelling kitten troll ;-)

Mr Pin.6728:

UNLESS its not MF that grants fury.

It’s Focused Mind, not Monk’s Focus ( the original announcement was in error ). So yes, a Master tier rather than Grandmaster

foofad.5162:

Honestly though? 3 conditions from a 35 second (or 28 traited) ability isn’t enough to counter the unbelievable condition spam in WvW. There needs to be a more systematic fix to improve that.

That’s what I meant when I said the “old” skill effect was probably superior for pvp/wvw. Of course, if they keep the condi-stripping on every re-entry aswell then that will be a different story.

And lets hope the duration reduction field is still a fire field

JonathanSharp.7094:

Purging Flames: it now removes three conditions from allies in an area effect around the guardian on cast while still burning enemies (enemies that enter or exit the flames are still burned). Once the skill has been cast, it then reduces condition duration for allies who remain in the consecration’s area.

Ok this is nice, but the way it reads suggest you will no longer purge conditions from running (repeatedly) through the ring after it has been cast, so you loose the ability to counter the fast condition re-application that’s meta. ( although perhaps the duration reduction will prove potent enough )

JonathanSharp.7094:

All meditation utility skills are now instant, and Focused Mind now grants fury on meditation use.

Very nice to have such a ready source of fury, even if it’s a few seconds you should be able to give it pretty good uptime considering the lowish cooldown of Smite Condition – however you may end up sacrificing some fairly important traits in Valor to get it ( eg, one of Monk’s Focus/Meditation Mastery and Purity ) -

I’d find it hard to live without the extra passive condition removal in my roaming DPS builds, although perhaps better on-demand burst will negate the need to survive more than a few seconds of combat

For some reason the theory junky in me is most excited by:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re reworking the combat log to make it more easily used. This will involve help from a ton of departments, but it will help every player in the game. By providing you better combat information, you’ll be able to better make tweaks to your build, and you’ll be able to better adjust your play to deal with difficult encounters.

Devils.3679:

Quick side question, I always use 5 points in honor for the vigor on crit with my dps builds. I just find in places like CoE i cannot maintain my dodges so i tend to have run 10/30/0/5/25 or something close to that. Is there something else we can do to gain vigor? i do not want it on my weapons or runes. Can a combo field give vigor?

There is +40% endurance regen food ( which also gives 1 stack of Might on dodge ) which you can use if you’re having a hard time maintaining Vigor.

Be aware that Vigor doesn’t stack with any other sources of endurance regen ( it’s capped at +100% ) – so if you can already keep vigor going most of the time, having the food too would be a waste.

Kelnis.1829:

. I am able to hit 30k+ with just self-buffs (15~ might/12 vuln) on Vet Risen Giants.

I’m glad you’re still managing to hit like a truck without external buffs – I really need to redo my max-theoretical GS dps calculations now we have more ascended options.

iirc before Ascended weapons were introduced, and given perfect contact and RNG/crit and every available obtainable fully stacked buff buff in the game the max damage output would be about 49.5k, so with ascended weapons this should easily breach 50

It hasn’t been updated in a long long time, but it has stood the test of time pretty well ( a testament to Eveningstar’s approach and Anet’s lack of zeal in changing anything guardian related ).

It’s still packed full of useful information if you are just starting out, despite having a few minor inaccuracies.