Guild Wars 2

Kobraki Ninja.1572:

Question , is this a valid build for all pve general i.e mapping,story etc or is it just for world bosses , dungeons and fractals etc ?

Yes. I use it for all these things.

Kallark.2543:

Love the guide, this has helped me immensely with my Rev. I seem to be missing something tho, in the Mallyx/Shiro rotation, I see Facet of Nature, assuming it’s a typo since that is a Herald skill. Just confused, also tired so I may have missed it in one of the replies. Anyways, great guide.

No. It’s worth if your in a group for better boons and better might from unrelenting assault. I put herald on as soon as I got the facet of nature.

Cheby Shev.4671:

The hardest part of the rotation is pushing 5 buttons as fast as possible after swapping to Glint.

I just macro all the button presses to one of my mouse buttons.

Serahiel.4356:

Hello =) im Really Loving Hammer on Revenant but im not good in making Builds could anyone maybe help me choosing Specialization traits when you want to play with Hammer most of the time ? would really appreciate the help =) thank you

It would be the same build.

arkealia.2713:

What are the maths on vengeful hammers from Jallis? because so far it seems better DPS than Mallyx, and Shiro if you have Quickness from other sources.

It’s not currently in our calcs so I can’t look into it yet. The draw of Mallyx is that you get the damage buff with others giving you quickness and get to use facet of nature as well. I don’t think vengeful hammers would be impacted by quickness so it would fall behind. For longer fights even if you have other sources of quickness shiro will just add even more quickness on top of that so it would be better. I’ll look into Jalis eventually though.

coax.2951:

Great guide, thanks a lot obal.

Btw, something I didnt see mentioned so far: sword 2 functions pretty much the same as the guardian GS5, as in, all bolts will hit the same target if you’re inside the hitbox and there are a few adds around.
Should be a dps increase if you use it in glint to run down the energy.

I mentioned it in the rotation notes.

Altair.8402:

For Devastation adept traits, how much better DPS is Vicious Lacerations over Ferocious Strikes?

It’s a little over 900 dps better.

Kidel.2057:

obal.3218:

Scholar – Best choice for groups
Strength – Best choice for solo

Shouldn’t be the opposite?

Also Night runes do not work in raids. Worth a mention.

No. Might should be covered for groups. If you are in a pug that doesn’t stack much or any might or are solo then strength would be better. I added a note for that since I didn’t before.

I’m aware Night doesn’t work in raids. I have Air in the guide if Night/Slaying don’t apply since it would be the next best choice.

LucianDK.8615:

Decided to give herald another try. Im understanding why you want to run yourself out of energy so that Facet of Nature deactivates prior to going into Shiro, as it otherwise would block Impossible Odds.

But when do you activate Nature again in the rotation, or is it only for the beginning of the fight? I noticed I did not see it mentioned in the rotations.

So if I understood it right, its main use is outside combat to stack your boons, at least until you start running yourself out of juice prior to flipping stances?

In the rotations I have activate all facets except elite. This includes Facet of Nature. Whenever you swap back to Glint you should turn it on. This allows you to get permanent boons like fury, regen, swiftness as well as giving everyone more quickness during timewarps and whatever boons people do doing combat. Out of combat I usually have Nature, Darkness, and Elements on. When I get somewhat close to starting a fight I turn on Light and Strength. I use Precision Strike to help get rid of energy if I have too much as I run in as well.

Boon duration isn’t worth it. The only thing it will help is your quickness from Shiro. If you are doing rotations properly then you can maintain permanent boons from facets without more boon duration so it becomes a waste. The only boon you won’t cap out on from the facets is might. That is why strength runes would be a good choice if you are solo or your group isn’t stacking much at all.

With our hp pool, being heavy armor, and hardening persistence survival shouldn’t be too hard. You don’t want to miss out on good stats for runes. If you want more survival you would want to swap in some valkyrie or captains pieces since we have such high crit chance already and it won’t hurt much.

I made the post above before the changes were made to make it good. It is a dps gain. It’s also not an annoyance like retribution and radiant fire were. That’s a big plus. I have dps charts in the beginning of the video. The DH builds will go down a little though once I finalized them again since that was before the trap got a higher cd.

Rym.1469:

Just a quick note, obal – Unyielding Anguish doesn’t move targets anymore. It’s good for breakbars, however.

obal.3218:

Skills

• Unyielding Anguish – Use to move enemies if need be

Thanks, I changed it. I had it pretyped from one of the beta weekends and I missed fixing that.

LucianDK.8615:

I do have Herald fully unlocked, but I find it rather clunky to use with heavy micromanagement. Hence me prefering to use the basic sets for ease of use.

But I do wonder, just how useful is facet of nature in groups if you dont have any other active facets? Or does it actually buff the boon durations of everyone around you, and not just your own boons? Unclear wording on it.

But if going for a power oriented build with shiro and mallyx. I asume the trait lines to be herald, invocation and devastation then?

Facet of nature applies to up to 5 people. That means if your in a group of 5 and a mesmer casts a time warp then everyone will get 50% more quickness. If your group prestacks might it will last 50% longer. If you use glint in your rotations and activate facets like regen, fury, prot along with facet of nature in your rotations they will always be up. I’d suggest using glint. For zerk those lines you listed will be what you will run regardless of legends taken.

fadeaway.2807:

This shows how long I haven’t played for, but where’s sigil of bloodlust? Do people not use those anymore?

They changed them a lot. Even if you have 2 sigils you get one stack now. You also have to have a weapon in you swaps that has the stacking sigil or they will be lost. They fixed it so you can’t store one in you underwater set and keep them either. They aren’t worthwhile for the most part anymore.

LucianDK.8615:

I am missing traits for this rotation:
Shiro + Mallyx – Enchanted Daggers -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto -> Demon Stance -> Embrace the Darkness -> Facet of Nature -> Sword Auto -> Unrelenting Assault after quickness is over -> Sword Auto -> Assassin Stance -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto -> repeat Mallyx and Shiro off cooldown

It clearly have Herald slotted due to presence of facet of nature. I asume Devastation is second. But Corruption or Invocation for last one? That im unclear on. Also it does not consume Facet of Nature at all? Facet seems like a good buff to consume on cooldown if you dont use dragon stance?

I made the rotations assuming that your in a group and the facet of nature would really help there being passive. In you play solo with herald barely unlocked then I’d say just consume the facet while your in mallyx. I dropped corruption for herald once I got hardening persistence unlocked since it doesn’t help much and the other lines would be devestation and invocation.

It’s a dps gain outside of shiro. You should be using it and axe 4 or sword 2 to run out the energy while in glint to turn off facets before swapping to shiro so you don’t have to use one with nature and lose out on 50% boons for awhile.

Velimere.7685:

obal, how is the staff’s DPS compared to that of the sword?

Amethyst Lure.5624:

Anybody know how much damage you lose by swapping to staff for certain tasks like the cc break bars? I’m kind of annoyed with how damage traits focus on the sword either through a direct buff or to dual wield; not that I hate sword and it’s a great primary but it is annoying that it doesn’t affect the Hammer or staff if you have those on swap.

Anyway, I suppose the damage isn’t all that important if you swap to it to smash that bar, but I still wonder…

Here is using just staff. I use it at the start of a fight but don’t swap back to it after that. This doesn’t account for the surge of the mists nerf and it assumes you have no dps downtime since it takes time for most bosses to run back after using it.

Mars.4932:

is the rotation still valid after the dragon stance bug fix?

I haven’t noticed any difference.

Quells.2498:

I’m hoping someone can tell me why one toughness trinket is good and also why that messes with aggro?

One of the factors for aggro is toughness. If everyone has no additional toughness and you put on 1 piece of gear with toughness on you something like the ettin or achdivener (final fight) will be on you the whole time. It doesn’t work for everything.

neurosis.6350:

I have a qustion: is condi rev viable in PvE at all?
Mace+Axe, Mace+Shield, Rabid Gear, Mallyx+Glint.
Or it’s a bad idea since my foes should move around to get more dmg?

I looked at condi and it was like 11k compared to zerker 20k. Sword is op and torment isn’t a good condi for pve so it’s not worth running if you want to be optimal or anywhere near it. I assumed all buffs and shiro/mallyx with optimal gear.

Albunk.9217:

I just had a quick question about this part of the rotation

obal.3218:

• Shiro + Mallyx – Enchanted Daggers -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto -> Demon Stance -> Embrace the Darkness -> Facet of Nature -> Sword Auto -> Unrelenting Assault after quickness is over -> Sword Auto -> Assassin Stance -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto -> repeat Mallyx and Shiro off cooldown

Is this using herald specialization without glint active? If so I was just curious if there was any advice for a Shiro + Mallyx rotation for those who don’t have herald unlocked quite yet.

You would just use that without F2. That’s what I did until I unlocked Herald.

Azure.8670:

Pompeia.5483:

Ryn.6459:

How good/bad is sinister/viper rev? Any numbers?

I am doing wonderfully fine with my fully decked-out sinister Revenant. Given a good rotation (I do not recall what I used) you can get ticks to hit ~10k+ when the target moves. With how much kiting you can do in PvE, even in the events, the targets move plenty so it is inconsequential. For stationary targets like Tequatl, you are going to be stuck with 4-6k (again on a good rotation). I also never bother with the elite… just not worth it, really. You are better off waiting till ~80 energy and then spamming Anguish three times with mace 3, axe 5, and mace aa.

I average 3-5k when I am dodge rolling and avoiding mobs after pulling aggro during a good rotations. Also, this is only counting torment. The burning stacks you apply are roughly equal to stationary torment and the poison stacks are about 1-2k depending on the amount of times you use mace AA in full and the poison trait in the corruption line with the excessive ICD.

Keep in mind my observations are from exotic armor and weapons and ascended trinkets. I am sure the 8-10% from weapons and 5% from armor being ascended might make it, in elitists eyes, legitimate… but I am not so worried about that right now. Not like it is required in raids or any other PvE content outside fractals.

Also, keep in mind, I have no clue what my might stacks were at the time but I always have 25 stacks of +10 condi damage. I also use runes of tormenting to help build up stacks… I know, by myself, I can maintain well over thirty easily. I am guessing, with proper Glint management, you can keep up reasonable might too. I also have the sigil of +6% condi damage.

im using ascended viper armor and weapons with sinister trinkets and getting nowhere near those numbers. however, im using berserker runes, not torment. Berserker runes give power and condi with power and condi +5%

would you mind linking build

I looked into condi rev a bit and finding it to be pretty bad compared to zerker. Torment ins’t a very good condi and sword is op. I guess if stuff moved around for most of the fight it be fine but that’s not the case for pve.

Dionan.2645:

I’m not understanding how running down energy affects the cooldown of One with Nature, can you explain further?

You want to turn on facet of nature while in glint. You will want to run out of energy before swapping back to shiro so facet of nature turns off instead of you having to use one with nature making it so that you can’t use facet of nature for 25s. If you swap to Shiro before running out of glint energy facet of nature will still be on and you won’t be able to use impossible odds unless you use one with nature.

To run out of glint energy close to when shiro comes back up you activate all but the prot facet, sword3, axe4, and elemental blast (when you have around 4 energy left). You can use sword2 to help run out of energy if need be.

Running out the energy is no loss in dps and you get to have 50% boon uptime every time your in glint which is goal.

Velho.7123:

The Glint + Shiro rotation doesn’t include activating Facet of Nature at the start, right?

It’s best to have it up at the start for when people prestack might. Having all the facets up but prot before running into a fight should drain it by a lot before you get there and just use weapon skills to drain it quicker if need be.

Ryn.6459:

How good/bad is sinister/viper rev? Any numbers?

I looked at briefly and it wasn’t looking good. Some stuff might need adjusting so I’m not going to go into numbers. I’m still looking into it though and will mention it when I finish.

Kaan The Immortal.7648:

What fractal content are you talking about where you would like to get the aggro as a Revenant? I’m just curious

The typical stuff a guardian would do if you don’t have one in the group like archdiviner. Revenant has some great blocks.

Keeper of Da Cookie.8714:

This is gunna sound daft and all, Berserkers VS Marauder’s?

Could Marauder’s be a viable dps substitute for dungeons/fractals,PVE if you haven’t got a great group?

Marauder armor + zerk everything else is about 750 dps less. I wouldn’t suggest going further than that. That plus hardening persistence should be plenty.

This would be best. Scepter isn’t worth it with DH. I updated the sticky for HoT if you want more info.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJARTnsABlCh9CBedCEEhl4BrKA0AqXy7v+3CMLF1imRA-TBSBABPcAFoU9HzUCe1+jyD801QmSMAuUB59EACAcA87v57v57v/+7zP/8zP/8+93z/98fLFgeCrA-e

Engi and zerker rangers with swords keep cripple up almost all the time. The build would remain the same for both your questions.

Kidel.2057:

Nice guide, but full berserker is not optimal since you go past 100% crit rate most of the time under permanent fury.

You need banner + spotter or crit food to go to 100 from there still. You won’t always have a ranger in the group and banners aren’t up 100% of the time. You will also play solo at times. Zerker is the best in general. A couple trinkets from fractals can be thrown in to give a little survival when points would be wasted.

Terra.8571:

Kidel.2057:

Nice guide, but full berserker is not optimal since you go past 100% crit rate most of the time under permanent fury.

You can’t go past 90% without outside help or food/ infusions/ nourishment/ sigil with precision in them which will be a dps loss. The outside help requires both banners and spotter for 100%.

Optimal means the best for a given situation. In PvE, full dps is still best for fractals, dungeons and open world. Even in raids, I think full zerker will be the way because of how much damage a rev can do.

@Obal I’ve been running this build since HoT launched and the damage is really good. The toughness from upkeep though makes Rev’s really tanky for a full glass build. Have had little trouble in the jungle even though some of the mobs hit really hard.

Sea weed salad makes a noticeable difference to dps and I think will be the recommended food for raids. In raids, night sigils won;t work and frailty will be a waste with 10 ppl so am using Air on my axe (force on sword). Just wondering what your thoughts will be?

Force and Air would be the best if night and slaying don’t work. Frality would be bad for raids since 10 people should easily cap vuln like you said. It’s also a bad choice on rev since they stack so much of it anyway. That would be the optimal food but having to dance around and pay attention to mechanics and energy might make it annoying. Unrelenting Assault and probably Frigid Blitz wouldn’t be impacted by it either. Heal on crit food might be nice as well. The toughness trait would be bad for raids though since you will want a tank for things and you will want them to have the least amount of toughness needed to get by.

Greek.4396:

Nice guide, if I start doing pve/raids it gunna be with my Rev : P

I got a question with runes.

Do you think Pack Runes are ok for pug groups? (Nothing super try-hard)

-I have ascended zerk armor but I will be using it for WvW and I like pact runes with my build. I don’t want to make 2 sets of ascended zerk armor just for strength runes T_T. (Wish this game would let us use multiple rune sets with our armor).

It’s a pretty big loss over scholar for no real reward like strength or scholar.

Eight Samurai.6840:

I’m a little confused. Why did OP say that scholar is best for party groups, and that strength is best for solo. Using Herald with strength runes gives everyone around you about 14 perma might, maybe more if you have food or what not. Can anyone explain this?

Might shouldn’t be an issue for the group. PS warrior is still good to have in the party. Banners add a lot of DPS along with their might. There’s not much reason to use strength runes unless you pug.

Resky.7956:

obal.3218:

I’m liking revenant more since it’s new and op. I just unlocked all of what is useful for dragonhunter yesterday and am finding that to be pretty fun too.

Question: wouldn’t including cc abilities like staff skills, axe 5, etc in your rotation help with the breakbar, leading to higher group and personal dps in the long run?

I mentioned using them in the weapon section. The rotations I have is just for pure dps. I’lI add something about that in the rotation notes though.

I updated the pve build sticky for HoT with optimal stuffs and dps charts if you want to check that out.

I updated the sticky for HoT. I also made a similar guide for Revenant in the Revenant section.

Use glint and mallyx with the rotation I posted. Instead of Herald I took Corruption since it adds DPS. The other trait lines aren’t that great for pve except for blind spam for the one if you absolutely need it. I guess I should add it to the guide.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQRAsX8snfNuNSuJ7JRHlVlskyrS4SZWJorcskFNFhtc62tDC0ItznSA-ThRBABXt/o8DP9DAcSAy7JAQp6PmpEMAwBwv9tv9N48zP/8zPvf/93f/93SBExUL-e

That’s a good choice too. I had it in at one point I guess it got lost from lots of edits. I added it back in. I initially typed up a draft after BWE2

I’m liking revenant more since it’s new and op. I just unlocked all of what is useful for dragonhunter yesterday and am finding that to be pretty fun too.

Condi Guide

Disclaimer – It’s not as good as berserker. You can see the difference in the chart on the video guide. It’s decent for a condi class but suffers from being full melee.

Latest Update – 2/5/2016

Video Guide

https://youtu.be/cdLVqU5y8vg

General Text Guide

Gear

Stats

• Viper – Armor, Weapons, Amulet
• Sinister – Trinkets except Amulet

Infusions

• Condi

Weapons

• Mace – Main weapon
• Axe – Main offhand
• Sword (Off Hand) – If you need a block on swap

Runes

• Balthazar

Sigils

• Earth + Geomancy

Consumables

Food

• Koi Cake/Rare Veggie Pizza – Best
• Super Veggie Pizza – Cheap Alternative

Utility

• Toxic Focusing Crystal – Best
• Tuning Crystals – Cheap Alternative

Build

Build

• Rev How You Want

Traits

• Swap Bolstered Anguish to Spontanous Destruction when bosses have lots of boons
• Swap Swift Termination to Assassin’s Annihilation when you are behind or at the side of a boss the majority of a fight for more sustainability without losing damage
• Hardening Persistence can mess with aggro so swap it to Radiant Revival if it’s an issue

Rotation Notes

• Searing Fissure should be used whenever it is off cooldown and take priority over everything else
• Keep Facet of Nature active when a mesmer is in your group/split. You will need to turn off Embrace the Darkness towards the end so you don’t lose Facet of Nature and so you have energy for Searing Fissure
• Swap legends off cooldown. You proc the Geomancy sigil whenever you swap legends.
• You can activate whatever facets you want. You will want to use Darkness for Fury since it’s typically up to a Revenant to provide fury and Elements for Elemental Blast after activating it. The possibility of Equilibrium procs does not exist so use whatever as long as you can spam Searing Fissure.

DPS Rotations

• Glint + Mallyx – Activate facets -> Searing Fissure -> Temporal Rift -> Elemental Blast -> Demon Stance -> Embrace the Darkness -> Searing Fissure -> Echoing Eruption -> Auto and Searing Fissure off cooldown -> Dragon Stance -> Activate facets -> Searing Fissure, Echoing Eruption, Temporal Rift off cooldown -> Elemental Blast -> Autos -> repeat Demon and Glint using everything listed off cooldown

Skills

Facet of Nature

• Keep it always active if you have a mesmer in your group/split at bosses
• If you don’t have a mesmer with you then using it out of combat to stack boons like fury and swiftness out of combat and consume it before combat
• Impossible odds can’t be used when it is up so you will need to use up your energy in the prior legend used or consume it if you activate it in combat

Legends

• Glint – DPS & boons
• Shiro – DPS without mesmer
• Dwarf – DPS with mesmer, stability, damage reduction, aoe mob tagging
• Centaur – Projectile defense or perma blind
• Demon – Close to Dwarf with less dps, aoe, and survival so not worth taking unless you are playing condi or Dwarf hammers are getting interrupted

Glint

• Facet of Light – Turn on if desired. Consume it when damage is expected to heal
• Facet of Darkness – Turn on if you are responsible for fury. Don’t consume it.
• Facet of Elements – Turn on out of combat to stack swiftness. Consume it in combat for a DPS gain as much as possible
• Facet of Strength – Turn on if desired. Consume it in combat for 20 vuln at the start of a fight if you expect it to take awhile to get to 25 vuln or will get nowhere near there
• Facet of Chaos – Turn on if desired. Use it as a CC. Don’t use it for DPS since it is a loss. Perma prot can be achieved if you use it with Facet of Nature

Shiro

• Enchanted Daggers – Use for DPS if a heal is not needed
• Riposting Shadows – Useful when absolutely necessary but a big DPS loss otherwise. Good for switches that put the condis it removes on you
• Phase Traversal – Useful for mobility
• Impossible Odds – Use as much as possible.
• Jade Winds – Last resort CC since it tanks DPS

Centaur

• Project Tranquility – Use immediately. Spam Ventari’s Will with the Blind Truths trait (Salvation) for blind spam on hard trash if no one else can do it
• Protective Solace – Use for projectile defenses

Dwarf

• Soothing Stone – Heal or condi removal
• Inspiring Reinforcement – Use for stability
• Vengeful Hammers – Use as soon as you swap to Dwarf. If using with Facet of Nature then turn it off before you run out of energy.
• Rite of the Great Dwarf – Use at the start of a fight if it would be useful

Mallyx

• Empowering Misery – Heal
• Pain Absorption – Use as a last resort to clear group conditions
• Banish Enchantment – Use as a last resort to strip important boons off bosses if no one else will
• Unyielding Anguish – Good for a super legit maw
• Embrace the Darkness – Use as much as possible

Weapon Skills

• Sword (Main Hand) – Use Precision Strike in boss hitboxes off cooldown. Use Unrelenting Assault instead of dodging or to get might in low might situations
• Sword (Off Hand) – Use Duelist’s Preperaion as a block if needed but don’t use Shackling Wave. Use Grasping Shadow for CC
• Axe – Use Frigid Blitz as a gap closer. Use Temporal Rift for CC
• Shield – Use Crystal Hybernation for a block
• Mace – Use out of combat as a fire field to pre stack might if need be
• Hammer – Use Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer for blasting fields out of combat. If ranging with it spam Coalescence of Ruin while not in Shiro.
• Staff – Use Surge of the Mists for CC but try not to be stuck in it for long

How Am I Supposed to Survive?

• Blind Spam – Spam Ventari’s Will with the Blind Truths trait (Salvation)
• Block Rotations – Infuse Light, Duelist’s Preperaion, Unrelenting Assault, Crystal Hybernation
• Projectile Defense – Protective Solace
• Crowd Control – Temporal Rift, Grasping Shadown, Surge of the Mists, Jade Winds, Chaotic Release
• Condition Removal – Cleansing Channel, Soothing Stone, Empowering Misery, Natural Harmany
• Boon Strip – Banish Enchantment
• Prot – Perma prot from Glint and damage reduction from Dwarf
• Dodge – Usually useful
• DPS – Stuff will die faster than you! Rallying off good dps is usually better than reviving.

Rotation Notes

• Precision Strike can hit a target up to 3 times if you are in the target hitbox. This does a lot of damage and should be used off cooldown
• Keep Facet of Nature active when a mesmer is in your group/split
• Enchanted Daggers is a DPS increase so use it off cooldown if a heal is not expected to be needed
• Staff5 off the start is good for break bars or as a last resort if a lot of cc is needed
• These are just sample rotations. You can activate whatever facets you want. You will want to use Darkness for Fury since it’s typically up to a Revenant to provide fury and Elements for Elemental Blast after activating it. If you activate more than Darkness you might not get equilibrium procs. The additional boons might be more useful or add more damage given damage multiplier on boon count traits for the group

DPS Rotations

• Glint + Dwarf (Mesmers providing quickness and alacrity) – Activate facets -> Elemental Blast -> Dwarf Stance -> Activate F2 if it’s not up already -> Vengeful Hammers (turn off around 8s into legend so you don’t run out of energy) -> Sword Auto and Sword 2 when it is up -> Dragon Stance -> Activate facets of choosing -> Elemental Blast -> Sword Auto and Sword 2 when it is up -> repeat Dwarf and Glint
• Glint + Shiro – Activate facets -> Elemental Blast -> Assassin Stance -> Enchanted Daggers -> Sword 2 -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto and Sword 2 when it is up -> Dragon Stance -> Activate facets -> Elemental Blast -> Sword Auto and Sword 2 when it is up -> Assassin Stance -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto and Sword 2 when it is up -> repeat Glint and Shiro off cooldown
• Shiro + Dwarf (No Herald) – Enchanted Daggers -> Sword 2 -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto and Sword 2 when it is up -> Dwarf Stance -> Vengeful Hammers -> Sword Auto and Sword 2 when it is up -> repeat Dwarf and Shiro off cooldown

Builds

Build

• No Mesmer in Group
• Mesmer in Group

Traits

• Hardening Persistence can mess with aggro so swap it to Radiant Revival if it’s an issue
• Swap Cleansing Channel to Fierce Infusion or Cruel Repercussion if conditions aren’t an issue. You should have more than enough fury anyway
• Swap Invocation for Salvation and take Blinding Truths when blind spam is needed. Spam the tablet move skill where you LoS

Legends

• Glint should always be equipped
• Shiro is generally the best to run if you don’t have a mesmer in your group/split.
• Use Dwarf if you have a mesmer in your group/split for bosses, if you need stability, or for aoe mob tagging events
• Use Centaur if projectile defenses are needed

Starter Build until Herald Unlock

• No Herald Build
• The order of importance of traits is Devestation, Invocation, Corruption, Salvation, Retribution
• The order of importance of legends is Shiro, Dwarf, Centaur, Mallyx
• Drop Corruption as soon as you unlock Facet of Nature

DPS Charts

Soon – see video guide for now

Taking DH means more dps. You give up blind spam though.

Assuming all buffs strength wins by a trivial amount. You should be able to maintain fury all the time so you won’t benefit from rage. You are far from hitting a glass ceiling with might yourself though so strength would be better. It’s possible to not cap out on might in groups (pugs, downs, didn’t prestack, etc) and especially for solo (where they would really shine) so I’d say go with strength if you have the gold.

It would be bad. Sinister guard was around half direct an half condi damage from what I remember from running calcs. It’s not like engi which the majority of your damage is condi so you would lose very little for them. Purge is somewhat important to run too so your stuck with something that isn’t that great for most fractal content.

Hammer ends up doing more dps than gs if you go zeal/radiance/honor after about kitten and can keep the target from moving too much. Raid fights are longer than typical fights so it’s pretty good. It also has more cc. GS is better for shorter fights since hammer burst is not existent. Here are dps charts https://youtu.be/8cumRAX8krE

Guard was pretty underwhelming for the first wing of raids. The utility of the guardian didn’t really have much use so it would be better to just take a higher dps class. Hopefully they will be more useful in the other raid wings.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Guard didn’t really feel useful compared to engi or something. That said I felt more useful on hammer than GS. If my dps is meh anyways I can at least bring some utility like short cd blast and some CC for the break bars and these red orb thingies. Also the protection can be somewhat useful since you kinda have to facetank a bit.

You can have a revenant equip a sword and press 1 with the prot facet active and do the same dps as a guardian with perfect rotations, feel my wrath, bane sig, 50% UC when applicable, and targets never moving out of a symbol. Guard is going to be so OP when expansion hits!!!

Sword is worse than mace for zerk and sinister setups. It’s not as bad for sinister though for trash. You want to run scepter for bosses for sinister though. Valor is also not a good line for pve. Condi guard might be worse in expansion as well so I wouldn’t invest in a set yet since they might change stuff. So basically, just use mace as guard and sword for other classes like rev and mes.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Have you given any thoughts to Dragon Hunter and how this will effect the Meta?

I ran some calcs and it’s way too situational. They made the two damage multipliers work so that you can’t get both. You need to not use F1 to get one and spam F1 to get the other. For it to outdamage the current builds you need another person in your group to maintain cripple for most of the fight as well as take the damage trap (I used bane sig for both calcs as well). The only thing I think currently that will reliably give cripple is warrior using bladetrail, but it’s not a priority to use it especially off the start in their rotation. The bow was slightly also slightly worse dps over mace/torch.

The utility of it is bad. All virtues have cast times. Virtue of resolve is a leap which makes it annoying and a dps loss. Virtue of courage is not instant so it can screw you as you do block rotations and get the aegis too late. It also doesn’t do much or anything when people are stacking in melee since the block is too far away. It could be useful for raids though but you would have to stand back a bit and range stuff.

I’d drop radiance to take it. If you drop Virtues then Retribution wouldn’t be worthwhile and Radiant Fire would take a hit without Supreme Justice. You would also want your spear to recharge as quick as possible for bosses. This would make you lose blind spam for trash as a tradeoff.

Dragonhunter just isn’t looking worthwhile for the most part given how situation the dps is the way it’s set up, it’s clunky, the utility, and virtue activation times. Mesmer will be better in HoT and revenant is really good. Guardian remains basically the same so it will fall behind them for some content like dungeons by quite a bit. They are still great for fractals and probably will be for raids so they will still have a place.

In order of importance I’d say go for GS, Mace, Torch, Focus, Scepter, Hammer. You can just use an exotic staff since it’s not really for fighting as well as hammer if you’re just going to use it to blast or niche cc things. Same for sword and shield if you really want them. If they buff dragonhunter to the point of worth using a bow you can worry about that later.

Berserker is better. Condi has a burst at the start around the same as hammer which makes it bad for short single target fights and it’s not that great for longer fights. For trash it has a high ramp up time so it’s worse for quick trash fights. The only place it would excel over berserker is if 3+ trash mobs will last 10+ seconds or maybe if stuff is weak to condi in future content. You can see the charts I made for comparisons of DPS over time here to get a better picture https://youtu.be/8cumRAX8krE

I updated the guide a fair amount and made a new video guide and rotation video.

I can look into things myself now and that was next on my list. I’ve looked into gs and hammer so far and refined somethings but still have scepter and condi left. I’ll let you know soon.

Edit – I’m finding Scepter -> GS to be top dps for shorter fights in which bosses won’t really move much. This would would assume 10+ smite hits and I didn’t look into frostbow. I still need to look into mobbing more and get some new condi rotations added in and I’ll update the guide with everything I’ve looked into.

It would probably be better for you to take retribution then if you have other sources of retal other than spamming your virtues like you said.

Using virtues gives you retal

Vero.7013:

May I ask why Kindled Zeal instead of Binding Jeopardy? Does the added condition damage outdamage the vulnerability stacks considering you will be spamming Virtue of Justice due to Radiance specialization?

You won’t be using F1 on bosses. With a 30s rotation and using zealot’s embrace it’s over 1k dps loss for a few stacks more vuln so it’s not really worth it. For trash it would be good but that dies fast anyway.

Jerus.4350:

As a question of curiosity Obal, do you happen to have calculation on the potential of Retribution + Focus vs the optimal Radiant Fire + Torch? Just curious as I find myself using that a decent amount as that block is ohh so sweet.

I can’t run numbers for Retribution correctly. Only justice is programmed in so I can’t get the retal from the other 2 so I added in an additional 2 voj to compensate which skews it in retributions favor. It is skewing it more since triggering voj in the calc doesn’t stop it from adding in passive procs too so the number is inflated. It comes out to 13045 so it seems bad with all those additional burns being added that you won’t get.

For GS + Mace/X
Radiant Fire Torch – 15293
Radiant Fire Focus – 13004

You should use the second part of it always since it will add a lot of damage.

They are in the upper middle in terms of dps across all classes.

Nomads is the worst gear for pve. Keep your gear as is though I’d suggest replacing the runes with scholar or flame legion. Purging flames is generally enough cleanse needed as well as a fire field.

The first though I had when I saw the numbers was that people are going to get kicked anyways and it gave me a laugh. You mine as well kick zerk hammer guards or zerk guards that are still clinging to sword too since they will be as much of a loss or more!

That’s what I was thinking when I read it so I kept saying for pve in response