Guild Wars 2

It doesn’t matter how much DPS 30/30/5/5/0 gets. The meta build isn’t the meta build because it’s the highest DPS, it’s the meta build because it’s the highest DPS with the least DPS sacrificed for the best possible support.

Also, he’s kind of a doofus for picking 5 Valor and not 5 Virtues.

Guardian DPS is fine. Guardians don’t have things like Banners and whatnot though that will increase your DPS dramatically, but in a group with a warrior you’ll really shine. In terms of “which is better,” as cliche as it is there really is no clear choice. They’re both good classes and they both have problems. I recommend playing around with them in sPvP to give yourself some kind of an idea of what to expect.

We have some slick burst potential too, but some of it is kind of swaddled in crappy mechanics. I.e. Protector’s Strike.

You made your point, there’s no need to kitten up the first page of this thread with insulting posts completely unrelated to the OP.

Well for starters, you could try posting in the Mesmer forums.

root.9415:

Question: once you have the pass, is traveling to the terrace free?

If it works like the old two week one, then yes. It’s free, and instant. Works just like the HoM item.

Two questions:

How did you arrive at your numbers for the base DPS of a weapon? Ex. 489 for Greatsword.

Would you consider adding a few more non-100% damage builds for comparison? Looking specifically at hybrids, which aren’t represented at all. It’s fine to see the extremes – Meta and wet noodle Cleric AH/PoV – but I’m not the only one interested in seeing the middle ground as well.

Edit: I’m, also having trouble parsing your formula. It looks like you’re saying:

[(Effective Power / Base Power) * (Base DPS) * (Greatsword Rotation Total Damage)] / 24 (time, possibly?)

Which I have issues with, but I don’t think I’m reading it right.

Arnath.2319:

I agree, and that all sounds great in theory, but im not that great of a player and i never run in organised groups.

For example when i first went full zerker i went and tried it out inside the Nightmare Ends story dungeon. When i was AH i could kill everything and never die, but as a zerker i had to take on one elite enemy at a time or i would die, even then that one elite enemy would take half my health.

Then one time i got a debuff, i could not dodge, could not heal, i already used Purging Flames and Absolute Resolution but because debuffs are applied so rapidly there was nothing i could do but watch that debuff tick away and kill me, that would have never happened in AH build.

I know this all comes down to me just being a bad player, but i just dont understand how people survive in full Zerker. Even auto attacks kill you.

If curing was the problem, you would have only had one more chance using PoV shouts. 3x shouts vs 2x from PF AR. I don’t think one more chance would have saved you from the sound of it.

It’s okay to be bad, but it sounds to me like you’ve been playing AH so long you just don’t know what it’s like to do anything else. Keep trying and learning. It’s like playing a completely different class. Very few people are so bad that they can’t figure it out.

Arnath.2319:

Tried that but its just not good enough.

Absolute Resolution and Purging Flames just dont compete when it comes to rapid condition removal that shouts provide.

Not good enough? Traited with PoV you have a 24, 28, 48 cd shout each curing one condition. That translates to 2.5, 2.1, and 1.25 conditions per minute or 5.65 total if you spam them on cooldown (which is a terrible idea). With Purging Flames alone you get 6.42 per minute. Let’s say you do Soldiers runes too. Now you’ve got 11.3 a minute. Absolute Resolution affords you an extra 2.75 plus healing plus regeneration, only you don’t have to sacrifice your runes for a bad set to get it. Purging + Absolute are way better than PoV, and you can use real runes, and master of Consecrations allows you better access to Wall of Reflection in dungeons which is virtually required anyway.

25 Virtues for Master of Consecrations and Absolute Resution will massively outcleanse PoV, as well as giving you a useful damage bonus from the 25 minor. Shouts don’t offer a lot of utility aside from SYG. Move toward Consecrations for you and your parties sakes.

They’re awful at 80. Sword is okay for leveling up. Hammer is generally miserable to use because it pushes enemies further away from you, which is precisely what you don’t want to have happen in PvP. Shield is semi useful in certain dungeons and frackles, but outclassed dramatically by Wall of Reflection. Bow is worthless. Basically nothing Spirit Weapons can do can’t be done better by another ability. Want more raw damage? Signet. Want condition clearing? Purging Flames. Want projectile defense? Wall of Reflection. Want CC? Bring your own hammer.

I have so much hate for Ascended gear. Don’t get me started.

Well, the idea is that you bring spare weapons with Night. It’s not too terribly costly.

jingkangtan.6752:

5) With Symbol of Swiftness do all allies who pass through trigger AH?
YES

6) With Symbol of Protection do all allies who pass through trigger AH?
YES

Sorry, but no and no. Symbols pulse every second. It will affect a maximum of five people per pulse. It does not immediately drop a boon on anyone who touches the field. If a zerg of ten people passes over a Symbol of Protection, when it pulses only five of those people will get it. Symbol of Swiftness is likely to only pulse once, or twice with Exaltation, in the time it takes for someone to cross over it at noncombat running speed. If a big zerg of thirty odd people is stacked closely with the commander and walks over it, you’re still probably only going to get anywhere from five to fifteen procs of Swiftness AH, not thirty.

Hallowed Ground affects five allies per pulse. It pulses nine times, plus the instant pulse when you first lay it down. So that’s 50*70 = 3500 with a full group inside it. If ten people are standing in it, it will still only affect five of them per second. I don’t know how it decides who to boon or if it sticks with the same people every pulse.

Empower pulses 3 stacks of might 4 times, per ally. So in total that heals you for 60*70=4200 in a full party.

Altruistic Healing functions per boon or per stack of boon. It doesn’t care how the boon was applied. Any boon you apply through any means will always tick off AH. If you use something that applies several stacks of might, it will give you healing per stack applied, not just once. E.×. Fire combo = 3 Might, applies 3*70 healing.

timidobserver.7925:

foofad.5162:

Even after all this time, I’m still working on building real metrics by which to value condition damage against power based damage. But I can tell you that for one-on-one stuff, Burning specific builds are really not great. The one overwhelming advantage to things like Purging Flames and Permeating Wrath is being able to burn everything in the room. It’s essentially limitless AOE, which is not something anyone else really has.

Re: Fractals, “Viable” is a relative term. To me, viable means it can successfully clear the content in an average group. In that sense, yeah any Permeating Wrath build would be fine… to a point. Defensively, you aren’t missing out on anything the meta builds have; Permanent Vigor, Master of Consecrations and so on. Offensively you’re giving up some desperately needed power based damage which can really hinder you in the top end of fractals, mostly in terms of multipliers and raw damage stats.

My recommendation: Try it. See how far you can get. If it becomes clear that you just can’t hack it anymore, be willing to change. Report back on how far that was.

By the way, I am still completely rewriting the thread – I’m doing so off site though so it doesn’t become an unreadable mess in the process. I’m also releasing a version of some of my comparisons along with it.

Yeh, I am going to try it. I think that trading a little single target dps is acceptable if the build is fun. I’ll just keep my meta gear in reserve for any super serious stuff like high tier fractals or serious wvw runs.

Another question for you. For someone that doesn’t like running a healing power build nor spending a month grinding up celestial gear, do you think it would work out as well going something like 10/0/30/0/30 with a knights/Berserkers mix instead of 10/0/0/30/30 with a celestial/cleric/berserker mix??

I guess that 10/0/0/30/30 with knight/berserker could work too?

I actually really dislike Knight’s gear. It’s not a Power-primary stat allocation. If you’re going to be mixing in survivability to your gear, I vastly prefer doing so with Soldiers gear rather than Knight’s. Yes, you do lose some crit chance, but the increase in power is actually going to make up for part of that – not just with the gear itself, but also when you use Sharpening Stones – you basically double-dip with the Power bonus from those when you use Soldiers. Plus, having extra actual HP is hugely beneficial for resisting burst damage in WvW.

Just remember, there’s some obscure minmaxing that goes on when mixing armor and trinkets. There is a “cost” associated with critical damage. For any given slot, look at Berserker gear; sum the stat points of Power and Precision, divide that by the Critical Damage. The lower this number is, the less it costs to apply Critical Damage to that slot. So if you’ve got full Soldiers armor but you want to start adding in Berserker, you’ll find that the best place to start with that is the Shoulders, Gloves, and Boots. Likewise, Exotic Accessories are cheaper per point than Rings.

Ascended gear changes the costs somewhat so you’ll have to look at that differently.

Try it. There are no silver bullet builds, you won’t know until you give it a shot.

Hammer is excellent in zergs, not so excellent in small groups, and pretty bad solo. Search for the Healway build, that’s a common one for attrition based solo/small group gameplay and easy to convert to zerg use. It uses sword/greatsword.

Aside from that, full glass meditation builds are common, as are some fairly in-between high toughness/health builds that lack in healing power but tend to have okay damage. Search around the forums some, there’s lots of threads on this.

I’m not sure packing healing gear is going to help you all that much. I wouldn’t go over 600-800 healing power. Being able to heal yourself is nice but it’s not going to win you any fights with a Meditations build. You need to be able to burst them down. I would prioritize high critical strike chance over healing power to increase your potential for crits from Torch 4 and Focus 5, which will enable better bursts.

I’m assuming this is a solo/small group build so I won’t comment on your support potential (which is to say, you have none).

That’s an overly simplistic viewpoint. Attrition builds like Healway work just fine. Yes, sticking to them is an issue, which is why you use sword/greatsword: two leaps. Travelers/Speed runes help too. Glass meditation builds work too, but you don’t have the flexibility to support small groups or zergs as needed, you have to respec out of it.

Sword/x + Greatsword is pretty much the de facto roaming set. The Healway build uses that, and is pretty successful. There are others as well. You can make it work.

Even after all this time, I’m still working on building real metrics by which to value condition damage against power based damage. But I can tell you that for one-on-one stuff, Burning specific builds are really not great. The one overwhelming advantage to things like Purging Flames and Permeating Wrath is being able to burn everything in the room. It’s essentially limitless AOE, which is not something anyone else really has.

Re: Fractals, “Viable” is a relative term. To me, viable means it can successfully clear the content in an average group. In that sense, yeah any Permeating Wrath build would be fine… to a point. Defensively, you aren’t missing out on anything the meta builds have; Permanent Vigor, Master of Consecrations and so on. Offensively you’re giving up some desperately needed power based damage which can really hinder you in the top end of fractals, mostly in terms of multipliers and raw damage stats.

My recommendation: Try it. See how far you can get. If it becomes clear that you just can’t hack it anymore, be willing to change. Report back on how far that was.

By the way, I am still completely rewriting the thread – I’m doing so off site though so it doesn’t become an unreadable mess in the process. I’m also releasing a version of some of my comparisons along with it.

Alex.9165:

I found this mission in monthly ,and now 55/60. but i have no idea when and where I was killed the champion foe.and what is that ??

I try to kill monster who has ox-head icon on the map but nothing happened.

Champions are monsters with increased health and sometimes also special attacks. They have a gold emblem around their portrait when you target them. They sometimes spawn during events, and can often be found out and about in the world, as well as being in dungeons and the Personal Story. They are often farmed for loot in Queensdale and elsewhere, but they can be found everywhere.

Avoiding AH is still a good idea. You can get the same or better HP/s from Hammer and Writ of the Merciful. I think any Hammer build with a little bit of healing power gear thrown in would be adequate. That hybrid build I posted, or any 30 Virtues build would be fine.

To clarify, condition damage as a guardian is crappy. Purging Flames and Permeating Wrath are both excellent burn distribution abilities though. AOE burning isn’t a bad route to go into, it’s just not worth actually statting your gear our for condition damage. Especially Permeating Wrath, because it allows you to get around the cleave cap on AOE abilities.

Any build with 30 points in Virtues and Permeating Wrath as the Grandmaster Trait, using either a Mace, Greatsword, or Hammer is going to throw out a ton of burns, as well as getting all the other goodies that comes from 30 Virtues. I’d start there and then work your way out.

Anything with a fire field is always welcome due to hammer blasts. Warrior is good too.

Cruxiis.3574:

Oakos.2417:

Just my two cents in regards to healing power… if you are not up over 1200+ (really 2000+) you are far better off placing that effort elsewhere. This comes from over a year playing only the Guard and trying to “buck the system” and be useful as a healer. Of note is that I run 99% of the time with guild members and old friends so there is a high level of cohesion in the groups.

At a glimpse I’m running:
15/5/0/30/20
Hammer with a focus on Symbols/Protection duration
All Clerics Ascended armor and all Clerics Ascended Trinkets
Dwayna x2, Water X2, Monk X2

This build is about boon duration/stacking, 100% up time on healing and Protection
Skill uses varies with the situation, of course.

Allright thanks! So no healing power unelss it’s alot OKAY GOT IT! But I’ve heard that for guards stack healing power would be better than health is this true or no? :o

I have exactly the opposite advice. If you max out healing power, you do so by sacrificing too much damage and turning yourself into dead weight. The game doesn’t have any real need for a Cleric archetype. If everyone else were incapable of healing themselves, sure. But ultimately the goal is always to kill something, not survive a set amount of time. If you aren’t doing damage, you aren’t progressing to your goal.

mPascoal.4258:

foofad.5162:

Anything that says it works on allies, works on you as well.

This is enough
kitten , took 1 year to discover this … no further comments

Did I mention we have a FAQ? =]

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

My theory of how to get good dps…

1. Get a lot of Power
2. Crank up crit chance to close to 100%
3. get some bad kitten base damage modifiers.
4. Pile on crit damage.

Should be ok then.

So, in other words, maximize all possible damage factors.

YA THINK?

mPascoal.4258:

Warangel Eldrith.9408:

mPascoal.4258:

Noob question
I never notice but is AH like Strengh in Numbers? It works on you? So everytime you get a boon you heal?
Also, would be Glacial Heart a nice trait to go with too?

Also, loved the Pokemon tone in your video

AH works only on yourself, ~72 heal per boon
Strenght in numbers is +150 toughness on yourself +5 allies
and glacial heart has 30 sec cooldown so its pretty useless :>
the pokemon tone is a remix from lindsey stirling <3

@AgentChaos: I look forward to it =)

Yeah I know but it is for boons applied to allies, what I asked is if it is as Strengh in Numbers, which in this case says 150 toughness to allies but it also applies to you once you enter combat. I allways had the idea that it was only if you applied to allys and because of it I pretty much hated that trait, but if it works on you, as if you are an ally and so it heals you for every boon you apply to yourself, then the situation changes and I kinda like that trait then xD

Anything that says it works on allies, works on you as well.

Strength in Numbers is not considered a boon, so it doesn’t apply Altruistic Healing.

Does that answer your question?

Jaymee.1560:

Again, I am not using this thread as a way to defend female players, it’s a simple question.

Why is it that most guys think only guys play MMOs?

It’s an innocent question… Lets not all jump on Jaymee butt for it.

It’s a really terrible question.

You’re assuming both that most guys care, and that most guys think only males play, all based on a completely anecdotal and quite frankly silly instance in which you were referred to by the incorrect pronoun. Stop assuming. You don’t know for a fact that either of your assumptions is true, you haven’t provided any evidence of it, and this entire thread is becoming troll bait as a result.

What Fadeaway is saying works because of how damage is calculated. The full formula for damage is [Power * Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient]/Armor. Since Power is a straight multiplier, any % increase in it results in an equal % increase in damage.

Example:

[916 power * 1000 weapon damage * 1]/2600=
916000/2600=
352.3

[1832 power * 1000 weapon damage * 1]/2600=
1832000
704.7

Fine for WvW. Fine for casual dungeoneering. Not so great for frackles.

spoj.9672:

Why are you defending bad advice? There is no justification for that. Players will always look towards more experienced players for advice. Im a very critical player so i never followed anyone when creating a necro build but for guardian i followed the strife AH craze because I didnt know any better and I thought it was effective. I was less experienced and deluded by what everyone else was saying around me.

This is the same issue. Its bad advice and some people will follow it blindly. Its not their fault they are not critical enough (not everyone is like that or is confident enough in their own understanding). The best way to help the community as a whole is to try and filter guides based on whether they are actually good or not. You cant blame inexperienced players for following a bad guide which seems good because of all the other poor deluded souls that support it.

Why are you being a lemming apologist? It is literally the definition of “their fault” that they aren’t critical enough. If the whole point of speccing full DPS is not only to create more efficient dungeon runs but to also educate people on how to be better players, why would you then turn around and forgive them for not being critical and taking everything they are told at face value, with no room for improvement, end of discussion? That’s silly.

If no one were ever critical, how would you ever identify errors? The fact that someone, somewhere was critical of the Strife meta of 12 months ago and decided to go balls-out DPS is precisely why we are even in a position of having this conversation in the first place. Not only that, but people being critical is great for identifying errors in math, inefficiencies in gear loadout, and finding minor changes that can improve the meta build over time.

Being critical is absolutely incumbent on the person evaluating their own choices.

If you picked a bad build starting out, that’s fine. There’s no shame in that, it happens. But it was still your choice, not anyone else’s. I do agree that it does serve the community as a whole to comment on and filter out the not so great from the great. But I believe even more in providing raw information so that the uninformed can make better choices for themselves based on the available information.

laharl.8435:

foofad.5162:

Even a year ago rares were comparatively cheap. You had every opportunity to try out other builds. You instead went with what you thought was the most acceptable build according to other people instead of trying something new yourself. Guides, and even bad advice, aren’t to blame for that.

People post a lot of stuff. The vast majority of it is speculation or personal opinions. It’s up to the reader to determine for themselves what’s worth considering and what isn’t. Nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to run a build that wasn’t time efficient. It’s not the guide’s fault you weren’t critical.

It’s not like my dungeons were failing, but I had nothing to judge by. I didn’t realize how fast and easy dungeons could be, but apparently neither did the people making build guides. Everyone in this forum and in my guild scoffed at the idea of a dps guardian. They’d all been playing longer than I, so who was I to tell them they’re wrong. Yes I wish I’d have thought of it myself earlier, but I didn’t. Either way, I was still faster to figure out pve in this game than many. Heck, you’re still stuck on condition guardian.

Your opinion is no less valid than theirs is. Just because you haven’t been playing long doesn’t mean you’re any less prone to coming up with good ideas. If anything, new players are the best source of innovation because they don’t have any preconception of what’s good or bad and they’re willing to experiment.

To be clear, I’m not blaming you and I apologize if it sounds like I am. I just think that using bad guides as an excuse is missing half of the equation – that half being that you, as an individual, are capable of making your own decisions.

Calling me stuck on condition guardians isn’t exactly fair. My position on that has always been that speccing into condition damage as a guardian is terrible. That’s a pretty universally recognized fact. The only thing that I 100% actively endorse is Permeating Wrath because it’s a pretty amazing PBAOE that circumvents the cleave limit when used with the right weapons. But PW doesn’t fit into every build, and that’s fine. If someone wants to argue with me about how that’s bad advice I’d be willing to take them on, but ultimately for purposes of this discussion it’s pretty immaterial – because I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, just illuminating a possibility.

Even a year ago rares were comparatively cheap. You had every opportunity to try out other builds. You instead went with what you thought was the most acceptable build according to other people instead of trying something new yourself. Guides, and even bad advice, aren’t to blame for that.

People post a lot of stuff. The vast majority of it is speculation or personal opinions. It’s up to the reader to determine for themselves what’s worth considering and what isn’t. Nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to run a build that wasn’t time efficient. It’s not the guide’s fault you weren’t critical.

laharl.8435:

Obtena.7952:

Popular guides aren’t the problem; even if they are, it’s not a problem anyone can fix. This thread is just a bit of jovial. It’s certainly going to have no impact on directing people in a good direction. People that have potential to be good will figure it out pretty quickly what is effective and learn that the best approach isn’t someone telling them what is good. It’s learning for themselves what works.

IMO, if someone is looking at Youtube for advice, that’s already a bad start. There is nothing like practical application to give a player feedback.

Honestly, a guide similar to this held me back for ~6 months. Here I was thinking yeah tanking hits and soaking up damage is good, when little did I know, I was a detriment to every pug I entered. I figured this popular guide must know what’s going on. So I spent a bunch of gold and tanked hits like a ‘pro’, barely getting better.

Had it not been for some crap guide, I would have been richer and better at the game much earlier. I wouldn’t wish the same fate on any new player that doesn’t know better. They may end up like most of the people around here, permanently deluded into thinking simply staying alive is good.

I’m sorry but blaming a guide for you never once questioning your build in SIX MONTHS is a little bit of a joke. No guide held you back. Your own lack of creativity and exploration did.

Maizael.3075:

20% cd/reduction? are you talking about the skills that are equipped at the bar? if yes, then thats just something that i forgot to change, also non important in stats. Don’t mind it.
crit damage with 100% crit chance seems like base damage to me, if it is not, please correct me.
selfish? i don’t quite get what you mean there.., explain?(perhaps you mean not taking consecrations?well, yeah, again this was an attempt at maxing the dps of guard, not making him a balanced damage/defense factor for the group.)

Thank you all for the answers.

Sorry to be so sarcastic. It is very humorous to me to watch these same people belittle everyone who asked about a support Guardian and yell at them if they are not going damage they are slowing everyone down. Then you find someone who potentially finds more damage by hitting the 100% crit cap and goes into the “hated” Valor line and they -all- start talking about support.

So the rule of thumb is: Do not talk about Valor line. It is selfish. Do not talk about max MAX damage because it is selfish. Play a different class if you do not pick the mold.

Woah, now hold on a minute.

I’ve always been a filthy play-how-you-want casual, but in defense of the deeps guys the discussion has never been about being down on support traits and utilities. The primary issue that they’ve had with builds in the past is poor gear choices with poor traits to back it up, having a lack of damage modifiers and so on. Bringing support does not mean bringing a 1700 healing power cleric guardian: Bringing support means bringing consecrations, which everyone has access too pretty easily, and which the meta damage builds have brought for a long time now.

It has nothing to do with breaking the mold. I’m sure if someone found a better build than the meta that had both optimized damage and retained the critical support skills, it would be accepted, even if it was radically different. The practical realities of high level fractals are a pain, though. Gotta have those consecrations.

Pretty standard stuff but most people (myself included) are extremely negatively biased toward the Valor line these days. It offers very little utility to your party/zerg except for Strength in Numbers, which is ultimately a pretty missable trait itself.

Just to give you an idea of what you can do without Valor:

30 Virtues instead would give you Absolute Resolution, turning Virtue of Resolve into a massively powerful 1200 range condition cleanse, as well as Indomitable Courage which gives Stability to Virtue of Courage. This legs you guarantee a stomp on an enemy as long as you don’t die. Both of these are very powerful, but even just ten points in Virtues gives you Master of Consecrations which turns Purging Flames into a 28 second cooldown condition cleansing monster. Between Absolute Resolution and Purging Flames, you don’t even need Pure of Voice anymore. It becomes totally outclassed. Not to mention another excellent consecration – Wall of Reflection, which is outstanding in zerg fights and smaller scale fights as well.

15 in Radiance turns Virtue of Justice into a spammable blind-machine, which is also excellent in helping mitigate damage in zergs. You’d still have points left over for Virtues for utility there as well.

Having an extra 10 points to put into Zeal is also quite helpful for Fiery wrath, an excellent damage booster. But not only that, it lets you swap out for Protector’s Impact on the fly while running from point to point with your zerg to mitigate fall damage.

So yeah, forget Valor. There’s way better stuff to be had.

That said, your stats are fine for WvW. No real improvements needed there.

They’re both awful in PVE. Purge that thought post haste. For WvW, neither is better. I would say regen warriors are easier to play, but healway has a higher skill cap. They’re both fun, but in terms of entertainment value I am personally more of a fan of the warrior due to more potential variations of the concept. I do a regen/skullcrack hybrid in WvW on my warrior which is loads of fun. Healway is harder to branch out from.

Ultimately they’re two completely different classes with very different mechanics and playstyles, and it’s really just going to come down to what you find more fun. You’ll only figure that out by playing it. Run through some sPvP matches to get a feel for the builds you’re interested in.

Obviously I’m not exactly an impartial party here, but yes, it’s viable. It’s not going to get you through a dungeon as quickly as full DPS but it works, it’s fun, and it’s especially nice when you’re running through content with people who are either new players or new to that dungeon.

Yes, you are making a mistake. Vigorous Precision is a must. You need as many dodges as you can possibly secure for yourself in order to stay alive. Virtues is also a massive utility improvement for the party – Valor only helps yourself. With 20 Virtues you have the option of running Unscathed Contender and Master of Consecrations, the latter of which is absolutely invaluable due to how OP Wall of Reflection is in dungeons.

Your math seems fine, the latter build will do more damage. But it’s not just about damage. There’s a lot of utility that Guardians bring that can’t be easily replicated elsewhere.

Also – The accepted average boost from Power of the Virtuous is 5%. Might + Fury + Vigor + Prot + Regen. All typically have long durations.

For a thread with math in the title there’s a distinct lack of it in the OP :[ where tha numbers at

messiah.1908:

from other classes i can tell that there is not much different between power and condition dmg but the way it proc.

Unfortunately, Guardians aren’t like other classes. Classes with real condition builds like Necromancers, Engineers, and Warriors have the benefit of multiple damaging conditions that they can stack. Burning, Bleeding, Poison, Confusion, all at once. All you get as a Guardian is Burning, which is a fixed amount of damage. And it’s only worth about seven stacks of Bleeding. Which is nice, but it’s hardly anything to write home about. Real condition builds can sustain conditions and spike them when needed to score kills. Guardians don’t have anything to spike.

And because other classes can stack multiple damaging conditions at once, they get much more benefit from Condition Damage. It’s one thing to burn, bleed, and poison someone at the same time – you might actually deal as much damage as a Power build. Maybe. But it’s another matter entirely when all you can do is use Burning. Burning doesn’t scale that well.

You’re never going to recover the amount of damage that you lose from trading all of your Power for Condition Damage through Burning and whatever runes and sigils you can shoehorn in to give you additional conditions. It’s just not going to happen. If you’re okay with that, and you think that the tactics you employ make that an adequate trade then great. You might be able to swing it. In my own experience, it’s a terrible idea.

People have tried this before, and failed. Burning is a supplement to your Power damage, not a replacement.

I do like the term “Pyroguard,” though. =]

fadeaway.2807:

I don’t often find four people with the sense to stand in my hammer symbol though.

Anyway, absolute resolution is really useful.

If they aren’t standing in your symbol and they’re melee, they’re too dumb for Battle Presence or anything else to save them.

Noah.4756:

foofad.5162:

Writ of the Merciful is much better in terms of healing your party, but only if you’re a Hammer spec.

The nice thing about Writ of the Merciful is that it also creates an extra healing source for yourself while Battle Presence only affects others.

Bingo. It also stacks infinitely, with any other symbols you drop and with any other guardians in your party.

You really don’t need that 10 in Valor. Absolute Resolution is too good to skip. Battle Presence is largely skippable, though. It doesn’t help other Guardians in your party and the trickle of HP isn’t going to make a huge difference to anyone. Writ of the Merciful is much better in terms of healing your party, but only if you’re a Hammer spec.

I wouldn’t use that sixth slot Vampirism bonus. It has a habit of breaking your channels and stuff.

Using leech food, runes, and sigils isn’t a bad idea. It can work well in duels and small scale PvP. It’s really counterproductive in PvE though, and in a zerg it’s not going to be noticeable.

I think the first major clue that this is supposed to be satire was referencing attack instead of power.

Bash.7291:

I don’t even…. In what world is 2.9k attack after sigil good?

I don’t know. I can’t tell if this is a troll thread in the vein of the Druid ones, or if he’s serious.