Guild Wars 2

yeaa.. conditions were errwhere before the patch, but they weren’t the only thing.

jumped into hotjoin for the first time since the patch over the weekend, and all i ever died to? bleeding and burning. mainly these two conditions.

iiMulch.2138:

Great even more currencies to buy useless crap.

with the AP rewarsd system, i believe you just “unlock” goodies as you obtain more points. so you don’t have to “spend” them per se. not really a currency in that sense since you don’t actually “lose” it.

if its useless, can i assume you don’t care about them? if so, then it shoudln’t bother you, no? ; ))

hehe, that’s AWESOME. congrats!

i have the Juggy aura on in the last pic?

i love the mace. though wasn’t the biggest fan of the moot, i’ve been tempted and tempted again. XDDD

don’t think about the status. think about how much you love the skin. i know, we’ll always feel a little more special with something that someone else doesn’t have, or be able to say, i have a legendary! but to be honest, definitely seen more Juggernauts than Mjolnir’s. ; )) only one in game so far i’ve seen.

i don’t think the fact that the ele can summon it diminishes its value. yours lasts forever, theirs doesn’t. depending on what class you play, you get skills that you love and they don’t. though i will say, blast finishers on end of auto chain is pretty ballsy. XDDDD

again though, i almost think that the fact that usually only an ele can wield it (not permanent), and you as a heavy class having it, is pretty darn awesome. ; ))

in the end, go for it if you like the look. i’m slowly working on mind and looking forward to the day i can wield it. ; )) (though i am sort of a skin collector :PPP)

Aaaand it’s back up. : ))) good to see this back up, Chris!
assuming no big changes after the patch?

snownow.9352:

I hope hongkong internet issue can be fix soon, I miss my hk friends my some hk friends got over 2 min delay in game.

snow – are you from HK yourself?

of course. these are all done no an average basis, give or take and also functioning under the assumption of 100% crit chance.

when i theory crafted and took into account modifiers for damage done over time, etc. which is one metric i sort of used to craft, i’d always just done so additively as well. i guess this changes things quite a bit then huh.

nice, Tarsius, i was starting to work on the math but now i don’t have to. XDDD

hmm to me, the second method seems relatively plausible. i guess reasoning could be that any damage multipliers are additive on top of your character’s “base damage”, which could be seen as including crit damage. although, i don’t see the reasoning between the split from gear and traits for damage multipliers, since those are tied to your character as well.

and to be honest, the multiplicative method doesn’t seem to far fetched either. and would be more straight forward.

[added: i guess we could always backsolve for the vet’s armor rating using auto and no modifiers, go nekkid, etc?]

the GS + Sword/Focus + Monk’s Focus/Meditations is a very decent build.
the symbol, retal and AoE cleave from the GS will help a lot against thieves. admittedly, it’s tough against their blinds but binding blades works extremely well with thieves who like to stealth as well. even when stealthed, the projectile will still hit them and you can pull ’em in.

so i’d say you can stick with the same build. of if you want, another standard build many people still like is 0/15/30/20/5 or sth along those lines and you can pick up a few traits in Honor to help the GS. though recently i still prefer the build you’re running currently and translate well with the GS from my point of view.

great attitude as well. when i get my butt kicked, i try and figure out what i did wrong, waht they did well as well and that’s the best way to learn i feel.

Cempa.5619:

Wow thanks great advice! I get the KD signet and the 180 power is nice but the 40sec CD :/ But how will the port and burn help me land my bind of whirl?

Bane Signet does take up a utilioty slot, but i find it quite fun and effective at times. : )) of course, you lose the 180 passive power increase once you activate it though.

for Judge’s Intervention, it’s a 1200 port and it’s useful because it’s an “instant” skill so it will not interupt any other skill or animation you’ve previously triggered. so you can use this with many different combinations. note, you must have something targeted to use it. and you’ll know if you’re in range with the little red bars under your skill and utility icons.

so for e.g. you see someone fighting one of your allies on the field, and they don’t see you coming up from the sides. you target them, hit WW, and then hit JI immediately and you will port directly on top of them while WW-ing away. given the weren’t mid-dodge when you hit ‘em, or ported away for whatever reason, you’ll land most of your hits and it’s sort of a surprise attack. XDD

you can do the same with Binding Blades. Hit GS 5, JI, and you’re almost guaranteed to land the projectile on them. and you can let it tick or pull ‘em in when you please. jsut make sure they don’t have aegis or blocks up obviously before you port to them.

the extra AoE burn is nice too.

lot of Guards will like to use this with Ring of Warding (Hammer 5) as well to trap a group fo people from afar, mighty blow, which triggers AoE retalas well and then you can have your way with ’em. a little combo i like when i ran hammer + GS was RoW + JI, mighty blow, then switch to GS (which i had hydromancy sigil on as well so slows themeven more after the surprise factor), binding blade, drop symbol of wrath, pull ’em in, leap of faith to blnid + stack invuln no them and then WW.

Banish (Hammer 4) + JI is always a classic. XDD

another standard trick is if you have the focus, hit Focus 5 shield of wrath, count a couple seconds, JI into your opponent using might blow or WW so the shield goes off around the same time for massive damamge.

lotta fun things you can do with JI. : )) not to mention it’s a stunbreak, as well as can help you escape if you target a bunny far away, etc.

:DDD lol touche. we’ll hold on to those moments that are / were good then. ; ))

^^ that would be kind of cool. an offhand mace could include a skill that pulls with an animation like a flail, you’re saying

buuuuuuuut back on topic. ; )) i too wouldn’t mind a more offensive offhand sword. and defs wouldn’t mind a symbol for the s/s. so mace not being the only option for symbols when going 1h or RHS. i can see it, the Guardian gripping both swords and stabbing them into the ground for a symbol. it could tick burns instead and maybe give 1s fury ticks since our other symbols give defensive boons and we don’t have a lot of access to fury. breaking the mould, but hey.

people, it wouldn’t hurt to be more life-giving instead of embracing hostility and toxicity, would it? it’s hurting me. ://

even my shouts are losing the effects they once had on myself..
“hold.. the.. bah, who am i kidding.”

i went there last night and tried to take on the Champ Risen Abom on my own. no one else was around lol. XDD

i think ANet is still learning, but in the past (like with the Orr “nerf”) they’ve always went too exterme. i.e. no middle ground. so now, most players see Orr as too much effort/time/risk for too little reward.

Celestina.2894:

I love how this thread turned into another zerker vs P/T/V kitten fight.

Sometimes I feel I’m the only one who prefers to balance the two.

have no fear!

i actually have a PVT berserkers mixed set. and a ton of jewelry to mix and match. something that i can build off of and bring into both into PvE or WvW.

and now.. back on topic…

it entirely depends on how you want to play. : ))

a lot will say if you’re doing PvE, then go full berserkers. though i know that’s not for everyone. if you’re doing solely PvE/dungeons, i want to say PVT has a place, but not as predominant as knight’s or berserkers.

in WvW, PVT is nice to have, but even then, i would still mix and match with others to augment damage, get some crit chance % of dmg % in there, etc etc. but if you went a full PVT set, you can still mix and match trinkets and traits of course.

bottom line though – it entirely depends on how you want to play, tbh. : ))

p.s. and if you still want to run HotW, feel free to add me if you’re on NA. i love that dungeon : ))

Tarkus.4109:

tl;dr: Quit the BS and play the freaking game. If you have less numbers just roll with it, and if you have more be respectful and realize that the next day you might not have the same advantage

i can appreciate this. : ))

that’s it, Chris, you’ve done it. it’s official: Guardians are OP.

i haven’t done the hard math to reach a certain damage number given any specific skill. are you using the equations and coefficients on wiki, foo?

though multiplicatively sounds kinda over the top. oh well, lunch time now, more when i’m back. :PP

i actually like the difference between PvE/WvW and PvP. and i started playing the game respectively with PvE, to WvW, through to PvP.

and i do treat it like a different game almost, just with the same familiar class mechanics and skills. sure, i don’t get the same stat spread, but now the game has become to more mechanic, combat, execution and play over simply stat spreads. sure, what i am used to in WvW and PvE didn’t necessarily translate well to PvP, and what works for me in PvP may not be easily replicable in WvW/PvE, but… bottom line is i learned much more about my class mechanics which allow me to hold up better against players if caught 1v1 in WvW, or even how to take on Champs in PvE without taking damage. and i believe it works both ways to a certain extent.

i used to run with around 3k armor as my threshold. but in the end, it really depends on you, your opponents, the situation and your play style. i have builds now that i run with 2.5, 2.6k armor and i feel like i “survive” fine. and i’ve been in situations where having 3.4k armor didn’t save me, at most gave me a few more seconds to live.

i gues what i’m saying is, it’s nice to have these stats as a general guideline, but they’re not the end all. that being said, i still enjoy stat optimaztion.

re: GS

might i suggest using Judge’s Intervention or even Bane Signet’s knockdown to land your big hits? but even then, a good player again will still be able to react and not take the full brunt. another small trick is, if you’re using binding blade, and manage to land the projectile, most players WILL assume you’re going to pull them in right away, don’t. drop a symbol fo wrath, and they might think “oh he’s going to pull NOW” don’t. let it tick for a bit longer, more damage anyhow, and keep pressuring with autos or leap of faith and when they least expect it, pull ’em in and WW away for more hits in.

and the hammer is fun, so do give it a shot!

with the hammer, #3, #4 all have easy tells, so does #2 to a certain extent (just with a shorter window to react), but remember you can always hit Esc to cancel your #3 and #4 (will put the skills on a 3 – 4s CD) to bait their dodges, and then once they do, or you know they’ve popped their stability, you can then move in for the big hits. takes practice though. :// lol, least for me i need a lot of practice to do this well.

and of course, this really works when in 1v1 or small fight situations. in a zerg, you won’t be able to see anything XDD

:DDD 18k focus! 36k WW!
i tried messing with the same giant last night as well (lol, poor guy) and it’s not the easiest to replicate these results! lolll given i don’t have the appropriate gear as well and didn’t have time to build stacks :PP i did come close to 16k though :PPPP

i then tried it on the roaming Champ Risen Abom lol, but he’s not as forgiving as the Vet. :/// ahhaha

one thing though i was checking the combat log all the WW numbers come in individual hits, which make sense, but i had to add them up, cause i kept forgetting to change the angle to catch the numbers on the giant haha

gonna try with the hammer tonight. now to figure out how to stack might as well as invuln.

Tarsius.3170:

Yeah well it was just some offhand comment by Jon Sharp, but he seemed quite keen on the idea…so you never know ( the non-guardian co-hosts didn’t look too impressed at the idea of it )

finally watching it now! heh, of course they wouldn’t be. “most balanced class” getting a “buff”? what. XDD

might i suggest swapping in some cleric’s armor? if you want to go for a healing power based build augmented by crit chacne % i’ve found it best to mix the two.
for a healing build, you have very respectable crit chance and damage %, however, your power is quite low to make use of them. i know your focus is to make use of on-crit procs for healing as well as helping your team out, at the same time, never hurts to have some more power, and you won’t be missing out on too much crit chacne % depending on how you balance it and will only augment your damage.

at the same time, for a healing build, i usually prefer having my toughness and vitality more balanced. reason being, toughness helps mitigate the direct damage you take, so the less you have to heal. while yes, vitality helps against conditions, health that is loss doesn’t come back, and the more you have to heal to top up again. one thing i know might be stretchnig it far but i don’t like giving my enemies added benefits if they’re using runes / food / traits that do more damage based on my % health, so i like to stay topped up as much and as easily as possible. so by swapping in some cleric’s, you lose some vit and precision, but you gain toughness and power, both of which are beneficial to your build. it’s more of a balance i guess.

also, just in case, AH doesn’t scale particularly well with healing power, but your dodge heals, scale one to one, so with your staff equipped, you’ll be doing 1k+ HP AoE heals when you dodge. good to keep in mind : ))

and i too, ran Judge’s Intervention with my healing based build. JI is too much fun to be had. and you can always swap your utilities depending on the situation : )) if you’re running witha a group, locking down a bunch of enemies in surprise rings makes for easy killings for your allies if they’re more ranged / damage specced!

i’ve yet to personally try Citadel runes but i’ve heard so many good thnigs about them recently. ; )) you would go below 13k HP though.

if that’s the case, and only if you feel you need some extra sustainability, might i suggest taking 10 our of Zeal and putting 5 into Virtues and 5 into Honor? you do lose Power as well as a huge damage modifier but you do get Vigor (since Energy sigils are like 3-4g a pop last time i checked) which can be invaluable. As well as some added utility on your virtues.

though of course, by all means go with what you have now, and only change up the traits if you feel you need more sustain, or know you’re going to be in some bigger fights.

with your setup, it’s easy to switch our either combo for the GS as well. and definitely try out foofad’s combo of mace/focus + hammer. extremely fun. : ))

i love your build and i find it extremely fun to play in WvW as well as PvP.

if you want to run something slightly more “sustainable” for tPvP, you could make a quick switch to:

0/30/30/5/5

still does massive damage and with the extra vigor, sometimes you get that extra dodge in the nick of time when needed.

i used to take Stand Your Ground as well but i actually enjoy having Contemplation more as it serves as nother mini heal, another stun break as well as mass condition conversion.

though it doesn’t seem like much, the 5 in both Honor and Virtues really does help keep you in the fight if they someone survive your burst or someone else joins into the fray.

also, the Guardian is very strong intrinsically with blocks, blinds, which you have a ton of here. also use the scepter’s immob defensively, if you need to get some breathing room.

i like playing a mace/torch + scepter/focus variant started by Silven ( he has a thread here somewhere with a bunch of PvP builds, however, he’s taking some time off the game and don’t think he’s updated it since the patch).

one of your best bursts is focus 5 —> time it + immob + JI along with Zealot’s Flame and Fire (Torch 4) and then ---> Mace 3 protector’s strike. i’ve never NOT landed Protector’s Strike since most people will instinctively hit you, OR you jump on someone who’kittenting one of your allies. when both shields and zealot’s fire hits, it’s MASSIVE damage. not to mention AoE. if you want, you can take Focused Mind for instant Smtie Conditions and throw that into the mix for more AoE. don’t forget to hit F1 as well for some might and AoE blind.

[added: when i run mace/torch over sword, i take Signet Mastery and use Signet of Resolve (another 10s condition remover) and also Radiant Fire for torch recharge reduction]

but of course you don’t always have to run the same burst. you can mix it up and someties, your skills will be on CD’s so just stay mobile and have fun.

(i replied to ur thread in the sPvP section, but we can talk here : )) )

i was going to say your HP seems a bit lower, but i think it’s more than fine. do you run more in big groups or small – med groups?

if you are sticking with ruby orbs instead of divinity, i want to agree with foofad here and say that citadel runes + ruby orb might be worth it. the added crit chance via fury will really make use of your high crit damage.

very cool. so last night was messing around with a few different burning builds, of condi damage buidsl rather, 100% burning duration, 70% condition duration. in PvE, it works EXTREMELY well.

i was trying to keep track of how i apply burning, etc and the duration but it’s tough lol because you really do keep applying it almost nonstop. though one comment i WILL have is that with Permeating Wrath it seems like you really need to be next to your opponents / mobs for the AoE burn to take effect.

so seeing how i’ll be able to translate this to WvW and be able to survive while doing so will be interesting. more testing to be done!

i know there have been a lot of changes rencetly.. hope you don’t mind me asking.. what is the meta exactly? i’ll go look around too now : ))

i played Guardian in s/tPvP quite a bit before the big balance patch. what did you play as a viable DPS Guard before the patch? and has it not been performing lately?

i usually don’t do this.. but.. does somebody need a waaambulance?

yes, there will always be skills that seem OP. then find ways to overcome them? surely that couldn’t be too hard. if you come back with saynig there IS no way to counter? thenw ell, you’ve lost the battle already. and you’ve lost the will to learn and win. if that’s the case, please don’t just blindly ask for nerfs….

if you ARE talking about the overall health of the game though, which i am seemingly unable to sense, then that’s a different story and i apologize.

i love fighting ChampionsD
i kind of want to go hunt them down one by one, with this monthly being an incentive heh.

thanks for all the tips guys. : )) also a Champion Grawl that hops around in Plains of Ashford iirc. i only know this cause i been there recently. near Martyr’s Woods

i messed around with Bane Signet for a bit in PvP and i LOVED it. used it for opoenings, chasing fleeing foes, offensively, defensively.. pretty fun stuff.

ooh i really needa check out this last SotG. i feel Smite Condition is good as is! it’s CD is pretty low already traited.

yea, agreed, if i’m having a bad day, i just give up with stack building. lol. and it’s best to not rely on them as much i feel, but if you can? then they’re definitely nice to have.

like Tarsius mentioned, one of the reasons why i suggested a “stacking” set is because you can build so fast, and with a stacking sigil on both MH and OH, when you have that set out, you get two stacks.

but again, it’s up to you : )) if you go with accuracy, you never have to worry lol but getting that perception stacks also affects your GS. other ways around this though, say for e.g. if you ever run in a party and say Warriors, can give decent fury uptime, and that’s a hefty 20% crit chance.

so if you’re sticking with Generosity on your GS, i wouldn’t put Battle on your Sword/Focus set at all. The “don’t mix on-swap + on-crit sigils” applies across your weapon sets and not just between MH and OH sets. again, global cooldown.

so any of the bottom 3 would work. though i’m still inclined towards Generosity + Accuracy.

I like having a separate weapon set for stacking sigils. so bloodlust or perception on both another set of GS and sword/focus, then when u hit max stacks switch to gen+gen/acc.

it’s pricey but most “effective” based solely on building stacks the fastest. :PPP though of course you have to take into acct your playstyle and since generosity seems an integral part of your gameplay, maybe Generosity + Perception would be good.

hope this helps!

(BAM done for the day and i am back lol XDD)

just to add, if you have say, two on-crit sigils, one on mainhand the other on offhand, i think it will work out like this:

Upon critical hit:
Mainhand sigil will be tested for on crit proc

—> successful proc – both MH and OH sigils go on CD, according to MH CD duration
—> unsuccessful proc – Offhand sigil will be tested for on crit proc

Offhand sigil tested for on-crit proc
—>successful proc – both MH and OH sigil will go on CD, based on OH CD duration
—> unsuccessful proc – both sigils remain off CD, MH sigil will be tested again on next critical hit

so of course, it doesn’t make sense to have two on-crit sigils on an MH/OH set since you’re basing the sigil on the OH to have a chance to trigger, on the chance that the MH sigil doesn’t trigger when it has a chance to trigger. that’s a lot of chance. ; ))

SynfulChaot.3169:

akamon.2769:

again, i fail to see the point being made of those who are asking for dailies not to count, and pointing themselves out to be one of the few with highest achievements points…

I’d think the same even if my current points were reset. I just feel that there should be reward for doing the non-daily achievements, and were the dailies to be counted then that would be rewarding those points double. Maybe just put less weight to the daily points?

Note: I’ve done most all the dailies and monthlies since they were implemented. Not counting them would massively lower my count as well. And as I don’t really PvP or WvW, my count would fall much more than many others.

gotcha. thanks for the response. i think you hit a quite important point here. a good balance could be reached here if achievements were weighted more sensibly. i quite like that idea.

i think dailies / monthlies should still count, and can be for those who only have some time to log in to play say, an hour or two every other day, may not want to spend time hunting down jumping puzzles or tryign to do tricky boss achieves. they may not get a lot of points, but surely, still accumulating them.

while those who’ve spent hours upon hours attaining their 5th legendary, or amassed a lot of gold to attain The Emperor title, or hunted down 1,000 Giants should get more achievement points.

Tarsius.3170:

akamon.2769:

hmm, is buildcraft down for anyone else right now? i was just working on it and then now i can’t open your links.

Works for me – perhaps you wore it out! ;-)

oh noes. lolll that, or the office is catchnig on to me.

either way, back to work i go now! lolll cya folk soon enough. ; ))

hmm, is buildcraft down for anyone else right now? i was just working on it and then now i can’t open your links.

1) but, back on topic.. lol, the difference really isn’t huge tbh. if you’ve already the gear in place for one or the other, just stick with it. though i may have a different view when being able to actually view the builds.. but i doubt it. : )) for now, i’d go with more dmg personally. so i guess the first one as well just based on stat differences.

2) hmm, again, more testing is to be done. though for now i stand by my original comment that they share the same CD, even though different sets / types of sigils. stated on the wiki as well as stated by many other players, it’s believed that ALL sigils share the same cooldown. which is why i never mix on-swap and on-crit sigils, though i would love to be able to mix and match them.

i guess you could relatively easily test it in the Heart of the Mists? ideally with a friend in an empty arena so they can keep applying conditions on you. get as high crit chance as possible, keep attacking them with your GS, wait for a crit and sigil proc, and then immediately swap to Sword Focus and see if you get the 3 might stacks.

and if, Battle indeed doesn’t work and would interfere with potential Generosity procs, and you don’t want force or accuracy, then maybe you can go with either Sigil of Perception or Bloodlust to build up stacks. though this means you would have to be active in your Sword/Focus set when enemies die (you don’t have to land killing blow with your sword/focus, just need to have them out when you had done enough dmg to get credit to said enemies for the stacks to build). then again, when yuor reach 25 stacks, you’re potentially “wasting” a sigil slot.

[added: if anything, i want to say accuracy is still a good bet. since you’ll have 9s where you’ll be in Sword/Focus whenever you swap to it even if for utility purposes.. you have Generosity on the mainhand, so an extra 5% crit chance could never hurt. plus, the sword hits hard too, so more chance to crit, the better imo.]

:DDDD thank you so much, Tarsius!

Apraxas, and all other Guardians who contributed to this thread, thank you for your hard work and dedication to the class!D

Tarsius, thanks and appreciate your pro-activeness and good luck with the new thread! will add anything i notice going forward.

Sabyne.6329:

Here she is. First pic is dps stuff and second is support/tanky one.

very nice

love the DPS set.

btw, how do all you juggy wielders get the liquid armor effect to stay when in another weapon set or not having juggernaut out?

renmei.3102:

Well SOR’s meta includes spamming 1 and wearing out the strafe left button because some madman in TS keeps on screaming “Shift left shift left SHIFT LEFT!!!1” That is the server’s secret sauce :p

when in doubt, shift left!!

i’ve even started doing it IRL and it’s proven to be quite effective. “so, why didn’t you turn this assignment in on time?”

shifts left

“ohh, alright. i see. keep up the good work!”

again, i fail to see the point being made of those who are asking for dailies not to count, and pointing themselves out to be one of the few with highest achievements points…

hey!
check out this thread for some starting ground. actually covers quite a bit. decent discussions as well.

[added] oops, left out the link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Silven-s-PvP-Guardian-Build-Guide/first

both DPS and bunker Guards as well as some balanced hybrids are in there. experiment with ’em and make tweaks as you see needed.

gl and have fun! learn the skills of all weapons, know how you can best mitigate damage (blinds, blocks, aegis) and how to outlast any taken (dodge heals, vigor for more dodges, regen / healing capabilities outside of #6, etc etc). Guardian’s pretty fun in PvP : ))

i agree with Blasino here that with a 5/30/30/5 setup, the AoE blind on activation of F1 is almost to die for. add on extra might to that as well.

i still quite enjoy writ of exaltation, even in WvW. if i am specced into honor and have weapons with symbols, i’ll most likely take it. though, like you mentioned, specific to Oreo’s build, there may be better choices to be had.

and just a quick note, don’t forget about the combo’s that you can pull! especially with hammer #2 if you decide to go with hammer. hard hitting blast finisher on super short cooldown.

nice, foo. did you test it in game? and didn’t even think of weapon swap effects proccing VoJ. that is a pretty nice find.

i was looking for a way to add poison along with burning but it seems you sort of have to go out of your way to be able to achieve that. and yes, mainly along the lines for the effect on healing.

hydromancy i’ve thought of as well. always, always been a big fan. however, the damage tied to it aren’t related to condition damage. the slowing effect will always be nice though and effects on CD. and cause it’s AoE. but most likely will leave it out of this build.

mace auto actually does a LOT of damage. iirc, from experience, more than Torch 5. Torch 5 really doesn’t add a whole lot of DPS, especially taking into account the cast duration. however, it’s decent for proccing burning, cleansing on your allies. but of course, for the multi hit nature of the skill, you must watch out for retal (though again, PvE). if anything, it’s cool to watch. ; ))

you can always toss zealot’s fire right before flame is up if you want some extra “burst”. though of course, this increases the CD time. so if your aim is to maintain burning uptime, then don’t worry about this.

i’m almost tempted to have you take out 5 points in virtues and smack it in radiance and pick up right hand strength. your mace / torch attacks will do a lot more damage. on a similar build (actually yours might have even more DPS), i’ve seen 2k, 3k, close to 4K auto attack chains on the mace (mob and situation depending).

don’t forget to use Protector’s Strike for massive AoE damage as well. though since mobs attack kind of slow in PvE, do anticipate it and only pop it right before they are about to hit you, so you don’t waste time / the CD.

@Kjeldoran – i made some tiny adjustments. really not much has changed except i swapped your armor around a bit. as foofad mentioned, if you look at it from a stat point per 1% crit damage view point, it’s statistically best to place crit dmg % stats onto shoulders, gloves and helm first. so i’ve swapped them to be soldier helm legs, knight chest, and berserker rest.

added sigil of force into your focus for flat out dmg increase. if you want to keep battle in, you can do that too. have not tested the internal cd on those but if what you say are true, then it might be worth keeping them.

to further benefit your generosity runes proccing, might i suggest moving 5 points from Virtues to Radiance? You get more crit chance, and i find the AoE blind invaluable in WvW. though of course it’s another standard build, albeit even older than the 30/30/10 variation, i still quite enjoy it.

i kept divinity runes for now, but if you don’t plan to go for them, since they are pretty pricey, we can try out other runes and put something together. what foofad has up top with Citadel runes is pretty nice too.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h19|c.1g.h19.d.1g.h2|1c.71j.1g.71j.1n.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.d14.2s.0.3s.0.3s.0.2s.d14.2s.d14|0.5.u64b.u28b.5|2b.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

so overall, slight drop in effective power, more effective health, but a couple points higher in crit chance. so obviously, it’s not a big change compared to what you had, but i feel this will allow more flexibility in terms of build and gives you most sustainability vs burst potential should you decide to build your traits differently.

as for buffs, i would suggest:

• Butternut Squash Curry Soup (+100 precision +10% crit dmg), which i feel is our best bet for DPS increase. you’re pretty tanky with this set up so i feel yuor food should be focused on offense
• Master maintenance oil paired with food to bring your crit chance over 55%
• Bloodlust Sigils for stacking up to an additional 250 power if you don’t mind stacking sigils and then just swap them out when you reach max stats

@Crapgame – not sure what you meant by “Does it matter that the critical damage is 79% and critical chance is 40%? I’m guessing food makes them both increase?”

from a mathematical standpoint, the closer crit chance to crit damage is, the better damage output over time is. one could argue that with a big disparity between crit chance and crit damage, you’re not fully optimizing your crit dmg multiplier, so it’d be more beneficial to bring the two numbers closer together. however, in reality, i don’t think it makes THAT huge of a difference and in a sense, less predictable by your opponents of how much damage you could do to them with any given hit. that may be a bit extreme in the form of this game though lol.

i want to say, yes, a 40% crit chance will mean you on average (very key here) will net you 4 crits every 10 hits. but of course, it doesn’t mean every ten hits you do, will guarantee 4 to be crits.

ideally, at least in gw2, you should try to find a decent balance between power, crit chance % and crit damage . remember, our base crit damage multiplier is 50. so if you have crit damage of 50%, it’ll be 100% of your base damage when you do crit.

if you have super high crit ratings, but lower power, your crits won’t be super high.
if you have extremely high power, high crit chance, but no crit damage, our crits won’t be super high either
if you have very high power, very high crit damage but 2% crit chance, your crits obviously won’t happen often.
so it’s best to find a balance, and where that sweet spot is? it will be different for everyone. obviously, we want to do more damage at all times, however, lot of the Guardian gameplay, sigils, runes, traits depending, we want to proc more effects so it might be more desirable to go for moer crit chance. whereas sometimes if you don’t require on-crit procs as much, you could spec more into power or crit damamge %.

this is all extremely non-scientific and i just had lunch lol so kind of sleepy now but hopefully that gives you a gist of how to look at the three stats. i don’t have a lot of math to back it up though but i remember seeing some threads or comments that raelly dig into the math.

you can take a look at the chart near the bottom of this wiki entry to sort of get some idea of what your average damage increase would be given a certain crit chacne % to a certain crit damamge %.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit

of course, damage is also based on other variables such as skill coefficients, boons, conditions, other damage multipliers via traits, etc vs your opponent’s armor rating, and etc etc.

which would be quite fun to play! for fun. ; )) but should your burst not down them immediately, then it’ll be a different story, especially since the hammer is much less mobile.

still have to look up this SotG and tune in.

hmm, mainly saved up from the past. farming. getting lucky. selling drops. dungeon runs with +gold %…

a lot of people like to run CoF nonstop. i used to farm Orr a lot before it was nerfed too.