Guild Wars 2

Tarsius.3170:

+1 to foofad doing all the hard work

Well, with a nomination like that, I can’t in good faith refuse…

They are both CC weapons. They just handle it a little differently. The Warrior hammer has an AOE stun as its premier feature, whereas Guardian hammer has a 5 second blast finisher. They’re both good, but the Guardian hammer is focused more on defense whereas the warrior one is a little more about setting up offensive combinations.

Oh yeah, I definitely wouldn’t WvW without Pure of Voice. Persistence is nice but not that nice. I would also even consider dropping the boon duration food for -condition duration instead. Also, I realize now I goofed in that link and failed to put a sigil of energy on the staff as well; Swapping to either weapon should give you a guaranteed dodge.

For zerging, I would drop Save Yourselves for a consecration rather than the others, since at most you’re only getting the 3 conditions off with Resolve + one condition per shout, and you don’t want to kill yourself by mistake.

I have 3/6 Celestial armor now and I’ve started using the build. I find what I do is build up my 25 stacks with a pair of one handed weapons with the sigils of life for two per kill, and then swap back to the hammer.

I also went ahead and changed my runes a bit. Instead of 3/3 it’s now 2 water, 2 monk, 2 hoelbrak for the strength boon duration to bring it up to 100. I used to do this in an old build; it makes rotating between weapons on cooldown less awkward, you’ll keep your might the whole time (which makes swapping to staff less of a DPS killer).

I don’t think the book trick works anymore, does it?

Drop some armor in favor of power and critical damage, you won’t notice the difference in survivability but you will notice the damage increase.

And then you’ll be me, with slightly different gear. I don’t know what your point is.

I never said it was less viable at boon slinging. Not once. My original comment was in response to a guy that was claiming that he could do just as well at sharing Might as I could, using scholar runes. Scholar runes. Which you don’t use. Ergo, there’s nothing to argue about.

Right. 60%. Which is less than a hundred.

PVE is easy. You can “win” (that is, complete the objective) without any trait points at all if you wanted to. People run COF naked. Which means that you can still have fun with it and play it your way rather than the fastest way if you want, and still be rewarded for your effort.

You’re clearly more interested in finishing dungeons the fastest, most efficient way possible. That’s fine. I assume you think that’s fun or that you at the very least enjoy the rewards enough to make it worthwhile. Some people just don’t care about the monetary rewards.

I don’t want a legendary because none of them particularly appeal to me. What’s left? I have almost full ascended stuff, a couple more guild missions and I’m done with that. I have exotic everything else, in more gear combinations than I care to admit (including several full sets of berserker armor with different runes). I don’t need to run dungeons as fast as possible. Having more money is nice in case I need to buy something expensive later on is nice I guess, but the update to champions has left me with plenty of cash for that really.

So now I run dungeons for fun, and try to do it in the way that’s most enjoyable for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not directly opposed to a functional, speed-run mindset – like I said earlier I’m just bored with it. There’s no point for me. It’s not my priority. I’ve contributed tons to that community, and had my fair share of discussions about the objectively best way to do things, so it’s not like I’m just doing this willy nilly without considering the alternative. I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November, if that means anything.

It’s just that the bitter vehemence with which people of both camps address each other is to me, frankly, the most absurd thing in the world. We’ve had six pages now of arguments back and forth that will never, ever apply to the other side because of priorities, not because of objective right and wrong, efficient versus inefficient. It is – and this is probably the harshest I’ll ever be, mind – completely inane. Neither side has gotten anywhere, because there is nowhere to get. All that’s required is a simple understanding that people are allowed to prioritize differently and come to conclusions that make the most sense for them and their playtime.

While hitting escape to cancel out of abilities does work, in tense situations where you’re mashing the hell out of it to get out of your animation I find I often hit it more than I mean to and bring up the options window, which isn’t fun to contend with when I’m trying not to die. I’d love it if we could get a dedicated cancel key so that we can do so without fear.

At that point there’s no reason to bring might to begin with because you’re just going to cheese the fight with projectile reflection. I don’t even think projectile reflection cares about the reflector’s damage stats, either, so you might as well just bring three or four naked mesmers.

That does actually sound fun.

Anyway, not gonna argue with it because that’s a structured party setting and not a pug, which is mostly what I’m talking about.

There are plenty of HP sponge bosses in the game where having persistent might is worthwhile. Nobody has killed Lupi in ten seconds yet. 40~ seconds yes, but not 10.

Ultimately you’ll want to mix and match, especially when it comes to adding gear with critical damage to your build. Certain items have a better ratio of crit damage to other stats than others – for example when adding crit damage to armor, you always start with shoulders, gloves, and boots because they have better ratios than the other three. Same deal with amulets and accessories, always get crit damage there first before you add rings to maximize how much you get for your stat point investment. So to that end, you may want to consider something like Cleric/Valkyrie or Cleric/Berserker armor, with a Berserker amulet and accessories and Cleric rings, with Cleric weapons. You’ll want to figure out ahead of time what you want your goal stats to be and then pick stuff to match.

With the exception of full DPS builds wanting 100% Berserker, every other build style is usually suited better by mixing armor rather than sticking with one thing.

You can’t cancel Whirling Wrath by moving. It doesn’t root you. You can cancel any channeled ability bit hitting Escape at any time in the casting.

Any skill that is instant will not cancel a channel. That’s why you can use Shouts during Whirling Wrath and so on.

First thing’s first: It hasn’t been conclusively proven that toughness draws agro, and there seem to be just as many cases where lack thereof draws agro as well, so don’t get too hung up on toughness as an agro management tactic.

Mace and shield aren’t the greatest tanking set but they do work. The main tanking weapon is the hammer, because of its ability to permanently stack protection even through weapon swapping with decent boon duration. For PvE and dungeons, I recommend not going above 1000-1200 healing power so as not to sacrifice too much damage. That much healing power combined with a staff, Selfless Daring, lots of regeneration, and so on is plenty noticeable without chewing up your potential for packing on damage stats.

Even when facetanking you’ll have to dodge, so make sure to learn when and where to do it while you’re leveling. Selfless Daring will make you think that you should dodge whenever your health is low, but the reality is that you should dodge to prevent as much damage as possible instead of trying to heal it.

For WvW, I reccomend looking at the Healway build for examples on how people play that style of build.

The regeneration from Dolyak runes is pitiful, don’t put much stock in it. Combining Monk, Water, and rare Water runes can give you 40% Boon Duration with 60 healing power, which helps a lot with keeping Protection, Regeneration, and Vigor up.

Lot of mixed thoughts here, but hopefully you can glean something helpful from it.

Oxxy.7068:

Actually, i run sword focus + staff, that means 15 stacks of might at the start of any boss fight, plus 5 out of EM fast enough to build up 20 … (snip)

That’s cool, except that it only helps you out at the beginning of the fight. When you have 100% might duration you can keep the 12 up from Empower through the entire thing, and if you hit a fire field every 7 seconds with Mighty Blow (7 because of AA rotation speed) you can get up to 17 stacks at a time from that alone. Yes, it takes time to build up – so it’s only really a huge contribution during boss fights and the like, but it does contribute. EM shores up the difference. So basically, the difference between what you do and what I do is that you can burst up might stacks in the beginning and I can burst up might stacks and sustain them, and the longer the fight, the more likely it is that there will be 25 stacks on everyone.

Oxxy.7068:

Now, i understand where you want to go with priority, but to be totally honest with you… you’re just gimping yourself, which i shouldn’t care, i mean, if i ever group up with you we’ll just finish the dungeon and move on, nothing to see here, but what i don’t like is when people in PVT and clerics come to the forums to talk about pve and say “man forget about zerker jerks, use whatever you like, it doesn’t matters anyways” when it does, actually (i mean, that’s not directed at you since you’re pretty polite for what i can see, but that’s how it goes, usually).

Again, this is where the priorities come into play. I am gimping myself from an objective, functionalist, utilitarian mindset: What I do is not the best damage for dungeons. It’s good damage – I made sure of that – in certain settings (specifically AOE), but it’s not the best.

And you’re right, running suboptimal damage does matter, in the sense that for some people shaving seconds or minutes off of runs is very important, and maybe even the most important factor… if that’s your priority.

It’s possible that they just don’t know the facts, but no one is going to come out and say PVT is better than Berserkers for dungeons. They’ll bring up mitigating factors – less time spent down, things like that, but no one is outright kidding themselves in terms of the difference in damage output between Berserkers and everything else. That’s common sense, and educating people on how to achieve the best damage is fine. But coming out swinging and saying that they’re bad players and should be ashamed of themselves for how selfish they’re being is both unhelpful and wrong.

So, if we assume they know the facts or we provide them with the facts so they can make their own judgements, then the only avenue left is that they’re doing what they’re doing because they think it’s fun. Morally, you can’t obligate a person to sacrifice their own enjoyment for everyone else’s in the group in an environment where, from the outset, it is understood that everyone’s time and effort is valued equally. There’s no case where saying “my time is worth more than your enjoyment” is correct in Guild Wars 2.

So, all of that is to say… It does matter, to you. That’s okay, and everyone on the other side should acknowledge that it’s okay, just as it’s okay for their priorities to be different. It’s not like you’re being forced to play with each other, although I think especially with pugging people should calm down and relax their standards a bit for the sake of the community. After all, the best way to convince someone isn’t to tell them, it’s to show them – maybe you’ll convert a few people by letting in some suboptimal builds. Or maybe you’ll see something you like in their setup.

Well, hold up – if you’re gonna make the be-all end-all DPS guide, you’re gonna want to back it up with math. There’s no getting around that. It needs to stand up to scrutiny.

swiftpaw.6397:

‘wtf am I doing even arguing with this lot.’

Now you get it! There’s no argument, because you’re both coming at your playtime from a different angle entirely. Your priorities are different. What’s valid for you isn’t valid for them, and vice versa, and the important thing to remember is that neither of you are wrong. What’s a good choice for you may not be for someone else.

Oxxy.7068:

I’m a zerker guardian with scholar runes and i also bring might to my team, OH MY GOD THIS IS GAMEBREAKING.

No, really, healing power sucks in PvE. :/

Not like me, you don’t. You’ve got EM, right? 3-4 stacks at peak.

I have 12 stacks running permanently by myself just with staff. 100% might duration means you lose the stacks right as the cooldown comes up again. I also run hammer, which means 40 second fire blasts. Also, if I do run EM, it lasts twice as long, yielding 6-8 stacks on average. I can get a team to 12 might stacks at the beginning of a fight and work up to 25 by myself and keep them up indefinitely as long as there are things to kill. I also run Permeating Wrath, so my condition damage is now over a thousand, and I’m burning everything in the room as well as pulling the already above average AOE damage from the hammer. My AOE damage is a lot better than the typical sword/focus + greatsword DPS matchup.

And anyway, this isn’t an argument about what’s better. “Best” is only a priority for me in as much as I make the best possible build to suit my other goals, of which “fun to play” ranks highest. Healing Power isn’t strictly needed, because you can sleepwalk through most content with your traits shotgunned all over the board and it won’t matter. But green numbers are fun, and the only people that complain about them are the berserkers who are angry that I’m not running full berserker.

There’s already a ton of information on DPS builds over at the Guru guardian PvE forums. You might ask one of them to cross post over here.

spoj.9672:

foofad.5162:

Considering how boring Berserker got for me, I doubt I’ll go back any time soon. But I don’t use PVT, I’m using Celestial armor with zerk accessories and clerics rings.

Why is it boring? You can do exactly what your doing with your celestial gear, but you have less useless stats? Healing power scales really badly (except on necro well of blood).

Healing Power scales one for one on two of my heals, Selfless Daring and Empower. It also scales well on Orb of Light. I also use a lot of regeneration, and use a hammer which yields lots of water finishes. I’d say I get a lot of use out of it.

Instead of a full DPS scholar runed berserker where maybe the best I would do in terms of party synergy is Pure of Voice, and all I have to think about is hitting things and not getting hit, I’m constantly looking for the best times to apply heals and boons to my party as well. There’s another layer of engagement, and it’s more fun that way. Plus my damage is still adequate, and because I bring so much might to a team I don’t feel the slightest pang of remorse over it.

Also I don’t have to switch armor for WvW which is nice.

Considering how boring Berserker got for me, I doubt I’ll go back any time soon. But I don’t use PVT, I’m using Celestial armor with zerk accessories and clerics rings.

Okay, this is getting silly.

It has nothing at all to do with efficacy of builds. It’s essentially the same debate as “why bother with vanity skins when they don’t do anything for you? Just wear whatever clown outfit gives the best stats and be happy.” It’s a functional mindset versus a sensual mindset (lol gross).

The people that run non-meta builds (basically, anything but Berserker) aren’t doing so because they’re terrible at the game necessarily. There’s a huge wealth of build styles out there that aren’t PVT, though this applies equally to PVT. They play that way because it’s enjoyable to them. Something about seeing green numbers fly up everywhere is extremely agreeable to some people. Others really like seeing the boon bar explode when they’re around. Some people just like being able to facetank things because not exploding into a fleshy heap on the floor when a boss swats you is fun.

The people that run the most efficient builds do so because that’s what’s fun for them – the fastest time, the biggest hits, whatever. At least, I hope that’s why they’re doing it. It may not be the same sort of visceral fun, but an impressive clear time is definitely rewarding.

The important thing is that neither of these viewpoints are wrong. It’s just a different set of priorities. Your priorities are no more or less valid than any others; it’s your play time, the only one that decides what’s fun for you is you. Furthermore, neither of these viewpoints indicates a bad player. There are plenty of people who have made insanely creative builds for different kinds of content that completely break the mold. They didn’t do that by being bad, they did it by exemplifying the same things that people who create on-meta builds value – creativity, experience, experimentation and so on. Their priorities are just different; they build for what they find enjoyable.

Personally, I ran full berserker from November of last year until two months ago, but I stopped because it bores me to absolute tears nowadays. So I experimented with various alternatives, some more supporty and some more selfish (in the sense of lack of group synergy), and I finally made a completely bonkers one that has it all; over 1k healing power, medium survivability stats, 100% Might duration and 80% general boon duration, and 60% of a sword/focus berserker’s DPS. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a while. Are you going to tell me I’m bad for using 1600 hours of experience to build the perfect build for my own enjoyment that is also one of the least selfish for group benefit? Get out.

Likewise, berserker build pedants won’t get any negative comments from me, because if that’s how you like to play, great.

Though if you kick me from a pug that isn’t advertised as a berserker exclusive group, you’re a prick.

It’s worth noting that the boons from Virtues 5 apply to everyone as well. Activating virtues always has a 1200 range ally effect of some kind or another and added effects from traits apply to your allies as well.

subclavian.5839:

Kirschwasser.3972:

And I’m saying that I personally feel I do notice it when fights are dragging on for way longer than usual.

It wouldn’t be such a problem if bosses weren’t such atrocious HP sponges.

No you don’t. You think you do, and assign the blame to the one PVT pug on your party.

Let’s run the numbers. Say for example a typical 12-min dungeon run. Now usually half the time will be spent running from place A to place B, skipping through cut scenes, dodging rolling stones/standing on pillars or whatever puzzle the dungeon has. All this has nothing to do with PVT armor. So you spend around 6 mins in a typical 12-min run actually fighting, where DPS makes a difference.

Then let’s say the PVT guy does half damage of your typical full-zerker (for those of you who think PVT can’t even do half damage, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Best-PvE-tank-bunker-build/first#post2508972 ), and that’s being very stringent. Since you have 5 members on a party, that constitutes a 10% drop in DPS. 6 min = 360 sec. 360 divided by 9/10 is 400. So instead of finishing a run in 12 mins, you finish it in 12 min 40 sec, a 5.3% increase in time spent.

If you’re running dungeons religiously 4 hrs a day like a second job, you end up wasting 12 min per day because you took on a PVT pug. Bathroom breaks take longer than that. The time you spend posting wall-of-texts on zerker elitism in this thread takes longer than that. Are you seriously suggesting your time is so precious that taking 12 extra mins per day is going to kill you? Do you have to be at the gym in 26 mins? If time is so precious to you, shouldn’t you not spend 4 hours a day playing video games?

All those anecdotes cited by zerker fanboys about how a 12 min run dragged into 30~40 mins because one guy had the gall to wear PVT are simply lies. No gear has that much effect in the game, unless you’re constantly dying and requiring others to spend time rezzing you. Which you will, if you’re a noob wearing zerker because everyone on the boards say you should.

Quoted since some people are too lazy to skim threads.

That’s a terrible line of reasoning. Anet has stated repeatedly that they want more ways to get precursors.

Wait, I haven’t run hammer in a month so I can’t remember, but doesn’t the blast trigger at the start of the ability rather than the end? Shield of Wrath blasts as soon as you hit the button and as I recall the hammer is the same way. It’s not when the damage is applied. So in other words it isn’t an issue if you fly out of the field because you blast where you are standing when you press the button.

Far left is most appealing to me.

They are already almost non existent. I’ve been grinding for 30 hours or so and still not gotten the drop I want.

Easy fix: add champions to more events that currently have none. Spread people out.

There are a few schools of thought, but the reigning theory is that Guardians practice Restoration magic which they acquire spontaneously through strong faith. Even though Guardians are a fusion of Monks and Paragons, Monks practiced Prayers which were linked specifically to human gods and Paragons are also directly linked to the gods. Since the gods are now absent, the only plausible source of magic for them is the Restoration school which doesn’t require any sort of deity as an intercessor.

I’m really enjoying the Celestial armor I’m making. It’s pretty much the best ratio of defensive stat points per offensive stat points you can get. But I’d never run Celestial everything, because the main drawback is that it has terribly low power.

Nope.

Because for all your well-written rhetoric about independent thought and not running with the zerg, you sure seem to want everyone to be the same. Let people play how they have fun. Guild runs or other organized play, do whatever you want, but if you’re pugging don’t chastise people for daring to go against the grain. As someone showed above, it’s not like it’s costing you much time.

Knox.8962:

My post is gone now, so feel free to spread out some more.

Oh hey, thanks! Appreciate it.

Are you sure they stack? I’ll double check later today. Thanks for bringing that up.

Citadel runes will help you out a lot more than Pack on account of the extremely long Fury buff. The only time Pack is better is if you find yourself getting boon stripped a lot.

xFireize.6318:

Full knight’s armor and trinkets+jewels are bad because toughness loses efficiency as it goes up. People usually stop at 3k armor.

I just want to point out that this is not exactly the case. While it does take double your current armor to halve your damage taken, EHP scales linearly. One point of toughness always increases EHP by the same amount as the next.

Effective Health = (Health × Armor)/(1836)

Total damage reduction (as compared to a base-armor character (1836 armor)) = Damage Reduction = (Armor – 1836)/Armor

Y’all should just do what I do. Carry a Berserker set in your inventory and ping it when someone asks you to. They never know the difference, and I get to feel sneaky; which is the best feeling in the world.

Oh for crying out loud…

Nah. Maybe a stealth purge that forces Revealed though, that would be neat.

Thangorodrim.2748:

How many noobs here . If you cant kill a thief , is because you are noob . I have a guardian and a thief , and being awareness of how thiefs play , most of the times i defeat thiefs with my guardian . Remove the stealth? Are you joking? With 14k of hp?

The shame is that GW always always listen the criers , and thief will be nerfed ( again) , and kitten . What about warriors killing only pressing 2? What about mesmers with so many ilusions that you dont know what the hell you have to target , and moa skill? What about necros that can last more than plate classes ? Stop crying and learn to play .

How do you catch a thief that wants to get away? Bane Signet? Zealot’s Embrace? Chains of Light? Those are all targetted knockdowns and immobilizes that can’t be used on stealthed targets. Ring of Warding? Sure, if you can catch them to begin with, you might be able to hold them in one place for 5 seconds, once every 32 seconds traited. Leap of Faith? 12 second cooldown traited; they’re long gone by the time you can use it again. Flashing Blade needs a target, too.

Sorry, I just don’t buy it. Any thief that wants to get away from you will get away from you. If they’re sticking around, it’s because they want to stick around and finish the fight. Lord knows I’ve stuck around in unwinnable fights to finish them when they were fun.

I advise that you stray away from quoting percentages like that. Keep it abstract. They may change over time, and us without backing math it raises questions of validity anyway. This isn’t a detailed guide, it’s just to get people the information they need.

Furthermore, the point of contention re: Elusive Power is the difference between damage and DPS. Elusive Power’s bonus is absolutely 10% with low Endurance; It just doesn’t translate to 10% DPS. That’s a simple concept, and the answer can basically be reduced to “While Elusive Power does grant a 10% damage bonus, this does not translate directly to a 10% DPS increase by virtue of the time taken away from being able to attack by rolling, and the fact that you will have periods of full Endurance.”

itamar.4690:

foofad.5162:

In the sense that no matter what happens, you can pack enough condition clearing and stealth to escape virtually any situation in WvW, bar none. If there’s no chance of death, then the “risk” side of “risk versus reward” is rather limited in scope.

I see that you are a guardian, thief can easily escape a guardian, but in no way he should be able to kill him. obviously (you are here, “fixing” stuff in the forums) ur doing something wrong.
i assume ur a traditional MMO player so you wont be able to understand this, but in few circumstances this game is like a rock paper scissors.
rock>scissors>paper>rock etc
as a guardian you have problems against thiefs? a warrior would crush them (just an example) so just the fact that you as a guardian have a problem with thief doesnt apply to all the classes.
and just for the record, obviously you were just getting constantly outplayed by thiefs so this conversation is pointless

Sorry honey, I have an 80 WvW roam Thief as well. S/D+D/P. Nothing catches me if I don’t want to be caught. My 80 Mesmer is even envious of my Thief. Nobody catches my Thief. Not even Warriors. If you’re getting caught by Warriors, you might need to make some changes. It’s not Rock Paper Scissors. It’s Get Out of Jail Free.

So if you’re done being a frothing blowhard, the people who have been on both sides of the issue would like to continue talking about things like adults.

Sadly weapon swap and on crit sigils share a cooldown, or I’d say run Hydromancy and Ice at the same time, which would be magical.

Yeah, it’s late and I’m out of puns

Also, I REALLY wish I had reserved more space. I’m completely out of room. I’m going to have to split the guide up or rewrite sections for brevity. Very annoying.

After much hemming and hawing, I finally finished a burny-boony hammery-healy Permeating Wrath sample build. I won’t be able to test it personally for a little while due to the use of Celestial armor, but I’m excited to give it a shot. If anyone has Celestial and would like to report on it, that’d be great.

• +Boons, boons everywhere
• +Above average AOE DPS
• +Blast finishers like a boss
• +Above average AOE healing with water combos, Empower, Selfless Daring
• +High Symbol uptime plus two AOE-heavy weapons yields good PW procs
• +Above average survivability – 400hp/s passive regen, reasonable HP and armor

• -Nothing about it is outstanding, everything is either above average or just okay
• -While PW does add some respectable AOE DPS, single target DPS is lacking
• -No burning beyond Justice, no burn duration beyond Zeal
• -Celestial armor is time-gated
• -You’re probably gonna get kicked out of some pugs for this
• -Only condition clearing comes from Absolute Resolution

Gameplay Notes:
This is essentially a variation on the Booninator, re-tooled for both Healing Power and higher EHP. Make no mistake: This costs damage. Some variations on the theme that you might consider are giving up the food in favor of DPS variety of choice, replacing one Water and one Monk rune with something else DPS-focused, and so on. You could also give up a shout for Bane Signet to squeeze out some more damage. Essentially should be played roughly like a Healway build; it’s more about outlasting than outfighting. Note: A one-handed weapon variant of this can also be achieved with 0/30/0/30/10 which dumps PW and AR completely in favor of RHS/EM/POV. Using a sword, you’ll end up with roughly 10-15% more DPS to single targets.

Y’know you can pick up chill on crit sigils, right? Two seconds every ten seconds. Not bad on scepters for catching fleeing foes. And at night time, Ghost Pepper Poppers are brutal.

I leveled two guardians with Hammer and enough points in Honor for Writ of Persistence. You can shotgun the rest of your trait points across the board and it won’t matter, you’ll never die.

I really wish it burned enemies like that Trident ability… Alas.

Yeah, good point. Though, even on my burst Meds guardian I can’t catch thieves that want to stay gone if I don’t land my burst.

Not getting downed in a zerg is really one of the most important things, as Mr Pin suggested. Rallying the enemy is treason.