Guild Wars 2

Something else that indirectly effects us:

Warrior

• Signet of Might: The activated unblockable buff now lasts for 5 strikes.

Jericho.4521:

Also, 40% healing power scaling with MF. Sounds tasty.

Yup – although most DPS focus builds ( ie very low healing power ) this still will only equate to about 100 extra HP. Might be a good choice for mid-range builds though

Merciful Intervention

This skill’s recharge has been lowered from 80 seconds to 50 seconds. Base healing for this skill has been increased by 48%. Scaling with healing power has been increased to 60% effectiveness, up from 20%.

Ermahgerd

Very welcome changes to Symbol of Swiftness and Monk’s Focus.

Shame about Leap of Faith… although they mention duration… does it still stack in intensity?

Symbol of Judgment/Protection: Increased the spell effect <—- I take it that means visual effect, and not the boon effect

Well I think we’ve got quite a few cool roaming skills, but they’re spread over half a dozen different weapons and utility categories. For instance, on a meditation build I find I’m always always giving up a third meditation for a consecration, shout or signet. I must choose between CC or mobility.

You can spec to be a good counter to most professions, but not to be effective against all professions. ( to be honest that’s probably how the game should be ).

Skill Name: “Screw you guys! I’m going home”
Type: Shout
Description: Guardian throws his weapons onto the ground an stomps off in the direction of the nearest spawn point. Guardian is invulnerable but unable to perform any skill actions until they reach the waypoint.
Cooldown: 180
Cast time: instant

Thanks, added. Apparently you can also switch the signets in and out of your utility slots to restore the passives

akamon.2769:

^^ then why do you still keep your wand around, eh, Tarsius?? ; ))

*mumble*mumble* errr…perception stacking….yeah…that’s it*cough*

Hunter.4783:

I don’t know whether its because guard is my main and i know the class inside and out but in the battlefield the guards pose the least amount of threat for me.

There’s probably a certain element of that. The moment you’ve learnt all the tricks and tells inside-out then you’ve instantly got the upper-hand ( assuming your opponent isn’t likewise enlightened about your class )

No legendaries yet…

off the top of my head:
Hammer: Magmaton, Peacemaker, Vigil
GS: Zenith, Peacemaker, Invader, Vision of the Mists
Staff: Jade Dragon, Peacemaker, Pact
Sword: Firebringer, Jormag’s Breath, Zenith
Mace: Braham’s, Nightmare, Moonshine
Sceptre: Abyssal, Coldsnap, Wand ( I don’t use it, honest )
Focus: Spirit Links, Arcanus Obscurus, Steam Gizmo
Shield: Wall of the Mists, Zenith, Jade Dragon
Torch: can’t actually remember, I use them so rarely

Plenty of others too – depending on how many sigils I like to run really

Yup… I was thinking more from a solo roaming perspective.

A dps guardian doesn’t have particularly good access to condition removal ( or at least enough to keep up with the amount a good necro can dish out ).

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

When running solo in WvW (on Necro), whenever I see a guardian, I go the other way.

That’s funny, I would be tempted to do the same if I ran into a Necro on my roaming Guardian….

…does that mean if we tied a necro and a guardian together they’d float above the ground spinning wildly, just like when you tape a slice of buttered toast to the back of a cat?

It’s hard for an Asura guardian to be anything except cute and adorable, but fwiw, here is mine in his solo roaming zerker set.

My support sets all have light and shiny skins, but for my DPS builds I like to look a bit more evil and fiery

Almost anything can be used for PvE, so if it works for you then great.

As you have 20 in Zeal, you could consider Binding Jeopardy aswell then when you switch to hammer you can use Zealot’s Embrace to throw a further 5 stacks of vulnerability on the target(s) – This should help makeup for the loss of the “vulnerability king” that is the greatsword.

Yup, I was intending people to play around with the numbers a bit. If you take 3 stacks of Might AND a Force multiplier you can for instance see that Force becomes more effective the more stacks of might you have.

3 Stacks of Might + Sigil of Force

( 1100 * (2514 + (3*35)) * ((0.4 * 7) + (0.15 * 7)) / 2600 ) * ( 1.5 + 0.96 + 0.15 ) * 1.05 = 11690.83

xFireize.6318:

I am not sure if it’s a bug or scam, but Virtues trait line only gives .83% reduction in recharge rate, instead of 1% per point. At 30 virtue points , I have cooldowns of 23s, 46+1/4s. and 69+1/4s; respectively for my F1, F2, and F3 virtues. I had never had Virtues above 5 before, so I just noticed this.

Yup, it’s actually just a little misleading.

When you put points into virtues you are actually increasing your “Virtue Recharge Rate” and not reducing the cooldown itself.

Virtue Recharge Rate

Base Skill Cooldown / ( 1 – Points In Virtues% )

in other words: 90 / 1.3 = 69.23

Reclusiarh.2674:

Strenght in numbers trait says 150 toughnes in trait selection screen but it still says 70 in toolbar.

Thanks, I had this one noted but I’m unsure whether to include issues that don’t effect gameplay. I wonder if I should create a separate section for tooltip issues?

Finnway.2183:

• Supreme Justice: The increased burn duration when activating Virtue of Justice is not reflected in the tool tip.

Thanks. Also the fire effect on the toolbar doesn’t take account of that trait, so it’s harder to tell if the next attack will cause burning.

Finnway.2183:

• Protectors Impact: This doesn’t activate when you are launched or knocked back. It might be bugged.

Tested in the Mists by letting the Warrior NPC knock me off the cliff and it did create a symbol of protection when I landed. It’s harder to test in other scenerios, anyone else come across this?

Finnway.2183:

• Zealot’s Speed: I tried a symbol-heavy build yesterday and this never activated.

hmm I could get this to activate in the Mists – what other traits did you have? – something else might be blocking it.
Note there is a 30 second cooldown, so if you healup and then drop back down below 25% it won’t proc again.

T3 here too, unless you want to show some more skin to distract people from your gold boobs

Congrats!

From my experiences so far, spare time for gaming gets progressively less and less, revolving around a few minutes after bedtime, or after the school run in the morning ( before work ).
It’ll plateaux after a mere 7-8 years and then start to improve.
Suddenly after 20 years or so you suddenly get all the gaming time you could possibly want.
So enjoy the moments you get and look forward to Guildwars 5!

( but seriously. Congrats! ;-) )

SilkySmooth.1574:

if you look at kinded zeal( 10% of ur power converted to condition damage), increasing ur attack with mightstacks does give you extra condition damage.

Nope, I believe Kindled Zeal applies the 10% to your base power, and does not include extra power gleaned from Might stacks. Bear in mind that 1 stack of Might = 35 Power AND 35 condtion damage, so you will see it increasing with each stack ( but it will be the same total increase with or without the grandmaster trait ).

SilkySmooth.1574:

i didnt check if the presicion goes up with 7-8, but it might work but to little to change the %.

Well precision definitely didn’t budge for me when entering combat ( I know this because my test setup in the Mists conveniently happened to have exactly 2k of precision ). It could be a display issue, but my gut feeling is those area bonus effects are applied after the conversion is calculated.

I’d be curious to know whether Banner of Strength or similar is applied before or after conversion traits too.

I really hope that is the case. I’d love to run a condition spec if it was just a shade more viable.

I do not believe it is counted, probably because area in-combat traits are applied after almost everything else.

I have checked the precision count in-combat before and it doesn’t change, although that could just be a display issue.
Conversion traits like Retributive Armour are applied after your base stats are counted and food is applied ( so it should benefit from toughness based foods )

I guess the only way to truly know would be to get to about 95% crit chance and then test if you still get occassional non-crits with Strength In Numbers enabled.

stunningstyles.7054:

@Expired Wow I didn’t know that..is there any official data on that stating sigil of force can out do sigil of battle when u have a decent amount of stacks?
I loled at oozo who said “self imposed handicap” haha wow harsh :P

Here’s the maths behind damage.
You should be able to load the sum into google calculator and play with the might and the force multiplier to see the difference:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/I-can-t-get-high-enough-dmg-as-Guardian-DPS/page/2#post2358527

edit, whirling wrath comparison:

3 Stacks of Might

( 1100 * (2514 + (3*35)) * ((0.4 * 7) + (0.15 * 7)) / 2600 ) * ( 1.5 + 0.96 + 0.15 )=11134.12

vs

Sigil of Force

( 1100 * 2514 * ((0.4 * 7) + (0.15 * 7)) / 2600 ) * ( 1.5 + 0.96 + 0.15 ) * 1.05 =11222.13

With the primeval footgear, which I think is a bit brutal for the celestial look, but the colours match better

Add a touch of Celestial Primeval ( with White Gold details ) perhaps?

I tend to do both aswell depending on my build. I guess my issue is that I’m always switching utilities, so it’s hard to train myself to keypress the correct skill in the spur of the moment ( although I try and keep the same slot allocations for my favourites ).

When I’m running with less frequently equipped utilities I need the visual cue of the mouse to make sure I hit the right skill.

I also disable auto-attack on most weapons, so my 1 key gets hammered into oblivion.

Although the Sun Catcher was a better colour match for my toon, I went for the Wind anyway purely for the gust effects and it does add an extra dimension to my look which other artifacts do not. Definitely worth taking

Tome of Tranquility
Type: Transformation Elite
Duration: 20 secs
Recharge: 180 secs

Skill1: Purging Fire – Ground targetted AoE condition removal. Removes 1 condition per ally and burns foes. ( 0.75 cast time, 0 second CD )
Skill2: Empowering Light – Ribbon bounces between allies sharing boons and increasing active boon duration by 50% ( 0.75 cast time, 5 second CD )
Skill3: Wave of Serenity – All allies within cone reduce active condition durations by 50% ( 0.75 cast time, 5 second CD )
Skill4: Cold Embrace – Up to 5 foes within 1200 range are chilled for 5 seconds ( 2 second cast time, 15 sec CD )
Skill5: Sea of Tranquility – Up to 5 foes within 1200 range receive a 50% reduction in attack/projectile speed for 8 seconds ( 4.5 second cast time, 30 sec CD )

Utility: Merciful Intervention – Targeted downed party member is teleported to your current location. Your revive effectiveness is increased by 15% for 5 seconds
Type: Meditation
Cast: 1.5 seconds
Recharge: 80 seconds

I’m sure I saw both proc, so perhaps you were just really unlucky.
Will do further testing this evening

According to the tooltips of runes in the Mists:

Rune of the Water: 10 second ICD for Rune#6 AoE heal
Rune of Dwayna: 10 sec ICD for #6 Regeneration
Rune of Lyssa: 10 sec ICD for #4 random boon
Rune of Grenth: 10 sec ICD for #6 AoE chill
Rune of Balthazaar: 10 sec ICD for #6 AoE burn
Rune of Centuar: 10 sec ICD for #6 AoE swiftness
Rune of Air: 10 sec ICD for #4 swiftness
Rune of the Fighter: 10 sec ICD for #6 might

In the Mist I quickly tried 6 runes of lyssa and I did proc a random boon at the end of healing breeze. This might not be the same in PvE, but I haven’t got time to test that right now.

I’ll try other runes and other zones this evening if I have time

As you noted earlier, Healer’s Retribution gave me about 22 seconds of retaliation when using Healing Breeze.

and it will work with similar skills from other professions, like Warrior Empower Allies and Ranger Spotter traits

I’ve not really tested any of the On Heal effects, but I do remember they added a bunch of 10 second ICDs to them to prevent Healing Breeze ticks from firing the effects multiple times.

This would suggest that they should fire only on the first tick and not the last. I’ll see if I can do some testing, and add a note in the bug thread if my findings match yours.

I think Healer’s Retribution is probably something they just missed, and they would probably slap an ICD on it too if they didn’t have much bigger fish to fry.

With 30 in virtues, I can visually see the difference between Retal and Stability from SYG when Vengeance is equipped.

It’s possible that it’s a zone specific issue, so if you can recall where you were when you tested it, I can try and recreate the circumstances here.

Yup thanks, I’ll re-word the Leap of Faith description.

Although the Renewed Justice and Swiftness issues aren’t technically bugs ( more like quirks ) – they are worth including because they can catch out ( or just plain annoy ) people who aren’t aware of how they work.

Yeah I loved the look of ZD too.

… if you think scepter orbs are still slow, just look what they used to be like…
and a Flashing Blade that does damage.
and a cool skin for Spirit Hammer.

I remember first watching the guardian skill videos – having spirit weapons looked so cool (hoho)

Did you actually count the seconds the boon was active?
It’s a known bug that the tooltip doesn’t update when Vengeful is selected.

Edit: Just tested in-game, and it does give an extra second of retaliation to SYG and Greatsword Leap lightfield combo ( both in the Mists and PVE ). The effect should be much more apparent on boon duration builds

It does play voice overs occasionally and somewhat of a random context

Aedh.2631:

I recently got my guardian up to lvl 80, and I’m thinking of running this build in WvW (or at least something very close to it). Thanks for putting it back online btw

What do you guys think of the runes of Lyssa ? Allows you to get a little more crit (I’m thinking of using the trait Retributive armor as well, with some emerald jewels on the trinkets), and the random boon every 10 secs + the elite dispelling conditions and adding all boons look interesting.

Unfortunately it’s a random boon every time you use skill #6, not everytime you apply healing to yourself – so the 10 second CD is somewhat pointless ( probably to counter channelled healing skills ).

Note the 6th rune effect is bugged when using Tomes, so it’s best with Renewed Focus

Akamon gives some sound advice.

On the other hand – I love my Jade shield and staff, but I think the Jade GS is ugly as hell, while the hammer looks reasonably elegant (personal opinion)

If look is important perhaps you should choose which compliments your style the best ( since they are both useful items to have in-game )

Try them first, if you hate using one of them, then it’s not worth wasting the ticket. But test them properly – the GS is an obviously effective weapon, while the hammer is rewarding but can take much longer to master.

Entropy.4732:

Thanks guys! This is all very helpful.

I think nearly everyone, myself included, listed they’re absolutely favourite skills in the game. However, re-reading your original question, I guess you’re actually asking “what are you favourite levelling skills”

To be honest there’s no actual answer to that because you should switch your skills based on the content you are facing, solo/group composition and to compliment the build you have.

Levelling is the best time to experiment with all of the skills, so I encourage you to try everything.

Although perhaps you should be asking “which skills are absolutely useless and I shouldn’t waste any of my time with them” ( eg. anything with “Mercy/Merciful” in the title) ;-)

Svarty.8019:

Celestial is for people who want a jack-of-all-trades/rubbish-at-everything build, depending on your perspective.

That, while generally true ( particularly with accessories etc ) – is a bit of an over-simplification – as we are discussing.

If it allows for some build diversity, I’m all for it. The armour in particular seems to allow for quite a nice stats distribution which means you potentially don’t have to put points into Valor for AH/MF

That’s pretty much the trait distributions I ended up with too.

I really like the idea of being able to go deeper into Virtues without sacrificing anything at the top end.

Buildcraft modifiers for Celestial Armour AND Celestial Weapon vs Berserker Armour and Beserker Hammer

power: -270,
precision: -128,
toughness: 145,
vitality: 145,
critical damage: 4,
healing power: 145,
condition damage: 145,
magic find: 18

I actually think this could open up some alternative/hybrid build options for us.

With a full celestial build you can put 15 into honor for 779 dodge rolling ( 454 spvp ), to suppliment or perhaps even forego AH or MF and invest either in alternative Valor traits or push further into Virtues or Zeal.

No matter how you trait, you still end up with a respectable amount of toughness, precision, crit damage and vitality. Even burning ticks just shy of 500.

edit: updated calculation, based on comparison to a berserker hammer

Ah didn’t realise there was a weapon too – I thought the patch was just skins

Just thought I’d put in a word for Good Guy Greg “Hallowed Ground” for supplying strip resistant stability + a blastable fire field with a long duration

edit: sorry Akamon, just saw you mentioned it already – it gets my +1 then ;-)

Yeah, I’ve wondered about creating a crowd-source style build site – that would allow users to add new gear and tune traits as the content changes ( combined with a voting or moderation system ).
It’s a bit like a busman’s holiday for me though, so I don’t really have the motivation ;-)

Here’s the stats difference against a Berserker Draconic set for pasting into buildcraft:

power: -170,
precision: -79,
toughness: 145,
vitality: 145,
critical damage: 4,
healing power: 145,
condition damage: 145,
magic find: 18

Here’s a build link for full berserker armour with divinity runes and celestial accessories ( no weapon, no food, no traits ): http://tinyurl.com/full-celestial – so you can just paste the above into the “Manual” tab

This could work reasonably well as an all rounder, with weapons and traits defining the build.

If you’re like me, and get frustrated with having to keep 6 armour sets consuming inventory space at all times you could probably risk having one good celestial set + one or two specialised ones.

yes, out of date mango pie

Yeah JI for it’s pure versatility in combination with other skills, stun breaking, gap closing and surviving infinite fall damage.

I’m having alot of fun with Bane Signet currently – on-demand range knockdown is perfect at setting up burst or catching (or downing) a fleeing foe.

SYG is definitely game changing though…