42 replies to this topic

[Devlin1991]

Please read entire thread, I have answered multiple questions regarding the build and its role in certain comps
Recent changes

Healing Signet: Changed recharge from 40s to 25s; lowered base heal from 7300(8800 with heal spec) to 3200(3950 with heal spec); raised the passive heal from 85(135 w spec) to 250(300 w spec)
Mending: Changed recharge from 20s to 25s
Healing Surge: Now heals more based on your adrenaline level. ~5500,7000,8500
Signet of Fury: Cooldown set from 60s to 30s

When I seen this I worked out the coefficients for Healing Signet assuming lvl 80.

(250 + 0.17 * Healing power) per second for the passive.
(3200 + 2.5 * Healing power) for the active.

So with 1223 healing power (cleric's amulet + 300 compasion) you get 453hps from this signet over 25s you would heal 11325hp or 6257hp if you used the active.. This would make it quite a bit better than mending unless you removed a lot of condition damage with mending.

http://gw2skills.net...WuskZtCZEy j5HA

That is the build I will be running for solo point defense in SPvP, you have lots of condition removal and crazy hps from Healing Signet + Adrenal Health + Vigorous Shouts + Sigil of Superior Leeching.

Healing Signet = 453hps
Adrenal Health = 120hps
Vigorous Shouts = 217hps
SoSL = 80hps
Total of 870hps (this is around 8 bleed stacks worth of hps)

This means that every 20 seconds you get the following.

• 11460 health from unstrippable regeneration.
  
• 3 condition removals + 1 stun removal
  
• 4340 health in aoe from the 2 uses from Vigorous shouts.
  
• 1900 health-leech from Sigil of Superior Leeching

With a total of 17700 health regenerated every 20seconds with ~3196 amor, There are quite a few class builds that will be unable to kill you as they can not put out that sort of dps even if they blow everything into you.

Your damage will not be terrible either due to having 2784 attack + 218 power/condition damage from stacks of might + 70 from the trait. The reason it is so high is because the grandmaster minor trait in the defense line gives 10% toughness into power, which is 191/200 power depending on weapon set. You also have 65% Fury uptime. To top the cake, you have 65% swiftness uptime to avoid those pesky aoe's.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[lmaonade]

Eh I'd still take Mending, you have less condition removal with Healing Signet, especially if you're solo defender, if you're roaming I would take Healing Signet, since you'd be fighting less and moving with a group more. If you're alone, you're more likely to take more conditions and would require more condition removal

[Twigfried]

Very interesting build.

The mace / shield provides control & defense which can be good in a turtle situation.

Axe / sword I am a little less sold on as your condition damage is quite low, I believe (and I'm almost certain to be corrected) that bleed (@lvl 80) is equal to 40 + condition damage / 20.

In your case that would be 54. Based on the fact that your only bleed attack is sword4 - thats 4 x 54 = 216 per second for 12 seconds = 2592 every 20 seconds... not as bad as I initially thought but also not fantastic.

Personally I don't love MH mace and would probably run sword / shield & axe / mace.

In this case set 1 would be mobility & control with some bleed support - and set 2 would be dps & control; this would also have the benefit of giving you an interrupt with both of your sets without having to blow your CD on fear me.

Another option would be to go mace / axe & axe / shield - although in general I think this setup would be better in a high crit bleed build.

Overall looks like a very interesting spec - I'll definitely give it a shot on release

lmaonade, on 14 August 2012 - 12:55 AM, said:

Eh I'd still take Mending, you have less condition removal with Healing Signet, especially if you're solo defender, if you're roaming I would take Healing Signet, since you'd be fighting less and moving with a group more. If you're alone, you're more likely to take more conditions and would require more condition removal

I am also in love with mending - however if it burns adrenaline I could see SoH as an option. If it doesn't burn your adrenaline then it would be quite powerful if the change goes live.

[Kaylos21]

I like your build and was planning something similar, but probably has much less focus on solo point defense.  Instead of using Off hand sword with lung capacity, my idea was to use off hand warhorn with quickened breathing instead.  With Warhorn, I could even be slapping a regeneration buff quite often, especially against bleed builds since bleeds are the first condition converted to a regen buff according to this post http://www.guildwars...ns-compilation/.

http://gw2skills.net...XOvkdtCZEyWkpIA

My idea wasn't to focus on adding condition damage, but upping my power through might into the +20 range by using battle sigils and a combination of runes to get +80% might duration and +60% buff duration, so my warhorn buffs would last 16 seconds ona 17 second cooldown, sigil mights would last 36 seconds, signets buffs last 48 seconds on 48 second cooldown, FGL might lasts 37 seconds and fury lasts 14.4 seconds ona 25 second cooldown.

I would still run into the problem of condition removel, meaning medning might still be better than signet though, or have to run with stamina signet isntead of a better utility.

Basically a support Buff warrior with some control and the capability of boosting damage by over 60% with might stacks.  Running into a corruption necro would be scary and a Null Mesmer extremely annoying though.  Thank god the testing shows might turns into weakness, not a corresponding stack of vulnerability.

Edited by Kaylos21, 14 August 2012 - 01:20 AM.

[Devlin1991]

Large edit since I realised that it is every on swap signet that has a 9s ICD now even the ones that don't mention it in the tooltip, that made SoD and SoSL weaker than I originally thought. I changed the 5points back into the defense line to get the 6.5s retaliation every 15s instead. The huge retaliation buff recently makes it really strong vs fast hitting opponents with channeled abilities which is nearly every single class. It feedbacks over 350damage per hit with decent power levels which with the level of armor you have in this spec means that using any channeled ability vs me would do more damage to you than to me xD.

I like mace shield since the perma weakness and double interupt makes it very strong for outlasting and heal-interupting other classes. The reason I went axe/sword for the other set is that you don't have much in the way of cripples in the first set, the 2 range attacks would let you apply a poison,bleed and cripple all from decent range to allow you to both cover the cripple to prevent its removal while the block lets you catch up without being CC'd from range(it will reflect it with the reflection trait). I will play about with different weapon sets but the traits and utilities are pretty much set in stone.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 01:28 AM.

[Devlin1991]

lmaonade, on 14 August 2012 - 12:55 AM, said:

Eh I'd still take Mending, you have less condition removal with Healing Signet, especially if you're solo defender, if you're roaming I would take Healing Signet, since you'd be fighting less and moving with a group more. If you're alone, you're more likely to take more conditions and would require more condition removal

Mending just got 5s added to its cooldown which is a 25% decrease to its hps weakening it massively. The double condition removal is nice, but you can already remove 3 conditions and a stun every 20s which is enough to get into a cycle of...

"For great justice" > 10s > "Shake it off" > 10s > "For Great Justice" >10s > repeat

That should be sufficient to keep yourself clean of most major stacking CC, especially if you save the first use of "Shake it off" until after a bleed class blows their burst into you. I would save "Fear me" as an emergency condition removal and 2170 heal and to give me 3s of peace to regen 2610 health during the fear. I would also use it to fear someone off the point long enough to get it neutral, 3s of them running + being crippled on the way back should be enough time.

The main advantage of healing signet vs mending is that it can't be interupted. Most smart players are now saving interupts for heals, being able to outlast someone by interupting their heal 1-2 times in a row makes fights that you would have lost a walkover. A lot of classes have really obvious healing animations which makes this even easier.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 01:40 AM.

[Kaylos21]

Devlin1991, on 14 August 2012 - 01:23 AM, said:

Large edit since I realised that it is every on swap signet that has a 9s ICD now even the ones that don't mention it in the tooltip, that made SoD and SoSL weaker than I originally thought. I changed the 5points back into the defense line to get the 6.5s retaliation every 15s instead. The huge retaliation buff recently makes it really strong vs fast hitting opponents with channeled abilities which is nearly every single class. It feedbacks over 350damage per hit with decent power levels which with the level of armor you have in this spec means that using any channeled ability vs me would do more damage to you than to me xD.

I like mace shield since the perma weakness and double interupt makes it very strong for outlasting and heal-interupting other classes. The reason I went axe/sword for the other set is that you don't have much in the way of cripples in the first set, the 2 range attacks would let you apply a poison,bleed and cripple all from decent range to allow you to both cover the cripple to prevent its removal while the block lets you catch up without being CC'd from range(it will reflect it with the reflection trait). I will play about with different weapon sets but the traits and utilities are pretty much set in stone.

That definitely changes things.  Even with a 9 second ICD, I could still build might stacks pretty high, just would take longer.  I suppose I can add Sigil of Intelligence and hydromancy on the Axe/Warhorn to more easily land large Eviscerates.

[Twigfried]

I didn't realize Leeching would have a 10 sec ICD - where did you get this information?

[Devlin1991]

Twigfried, on 14 August 2012 - 01:49 AM, said:

I didn't realize Leeching would have a 10 sec ICD - where did you get this information?

"Common:

Sigils and Runes:

    All swap sigils now have internal cooldown of 9 seconds and trigger on Attunement swap."

There are alpha testers leaking internal patch notes onto various places such as /vg/ and reddit.

[Demonstrative]

Mending is still the greater heal for a bunker build--the condition removal makes it shine even with the increased c/d.

As far as weapons go, I ran a similar build (and I know kwlpp from TL ran the exact same one) taking advantage of the Hammer's control capabilities. Mace/Shield and Hammer were extremely potent in 1) staying alive and 2) keeping opposition off cap points.

I currently play a more balanced build (Tournament play linked in the Video thread), but once the Warhorn trait gets fixed (assuming they keep it) Warriors will be able to have 6 team condition removals. Would I take that over the Hammer? Possibly. Sword/Warhorn for mobility and condition removal, most likely a playstyle decision more than anything else.

Quote

The main advantage of healing signet vs mending is that it can't be interupted. Most smart players are now saving interupts for heals, being able to outlast someone by interupting their heal 1-2 times in a row makes fights that you would have lost a walkover. A lot of classes have really obvious healing animations which makes this even easier.

Good reasoning, but really as a solo point defender/bunker you're waiting for your team to rotate to you, which shouldn't be a long amount of time. From the point a fight is engaged you should be kiting and LoSing where-ever possible between defensive cooldowns. Considering Mending can be casted on the run, interrupts really shouldn't be a big deal. I'd say it's a factor but not a big enough one to justify taking Signet over Mending. The condition removal is vital.

Edited by Demonstrative, 14 August 2012 - 02:10 AM.

[Artaz]

Devlin1991, on 14 August 2012 - 12:36 AM, said:

http://gw2skills.net...WuskZtCZEyujZHA
To top the cake, you have perma swiftness to avoid those pesky aoe's.

This can't be the linked build intended.  Inspiring Banners with no banners?

[Devlin1991]

Artaz, on 14 August 2012 - 02:11 AM, said:

This can't be the linked build intended.  Inspiring Banners with no banners?

Good catch I corrected it. I was checking if 100% regen uptime from the banner trait would be more hps than having 2 shouts on cooldown with the various shouts traits. Turned out it was slightly lower hps on top of giving you poorer buffs and no condition removal.

[Zinn]

I really like the looks of this build, great work!

[Devlin1991]

Demonstrative, on 14 August 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

<snip>
Good reasoning, but really as a solo point defender/bunker you're waiting for your team to rotate to you, which shouldn't be a long amount of time. From the point a fight is engaged you should be kiting and LoSing where-ever possible between defensive cooldowns. Considering Mending can be casted on the run, interrupts really shouldn't be a big deal. I'd say it's a factor but not a big enough one to justify taking Signet over Mending. The condition removal is vital.

Valid point, but a lot of the time especially at the start of a match you will be 1v1 or 2v1. In a 1v1 situation Healing Signet in my eyes is far better than mending, removing 2 conditions that at most would last 10s due to your other condition removals isn't worth the huge hps loss and vulnerability to interupts. In a 1v2 my main objective is to stall the cap as long as possible by staying within the cap radius and trying to survive. The longer I can keep it in my possesion the larger the point deficit grows since going 2vs1 means that some where else on the map a point is 1 man down. If I can hold it long enough to get 5 points then it was better than running away pointswise for my team. By my calculations using a 250% compasion scaling + base, which is very generous since I would guess mending's compassion scaling would be lower due to the double condition removal, surviving 19s is enough for Healing signet to surpass the raw healing from mending. I think 19s is easily mangable considering that you have 3 seperate channeled blocks which reflect all ranged damage and 3s + 2 hits of melee damage. On top of that you have an aoe 3 second fear. The whole point of a bunkering spec is to force the enemy team to have to bring 2+ people to kill you which, if the other team does not have a similar spec, puts them at a numbers disadvantage elsewhere on the map.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 02:32 AM.

[Kaylos21]

I just noticed you said 100% uptime on fury and swiftness.  How are you getting that.  The patch notes said signet of fury was lowered to 30 seconds, not signet of rage.

[Artaz]

From a pure theorycraft, SoSL/SoSD on both weapons seems odd with a 9 second ICD now (based on a typical high swap/Fast Hands at 5 seconds).  It would make sense to load both weapons sets with these Sigils if Fast Hands was not taken though.

EDIT:  Sigil of Superior Energy is way underestimated (adds a ~1.5s invulnerability every 9 seconds) if used with dodge.

Edited by Artaz, 14 August 2012 - 02:45 AM.

[Demonstrative]

Devlin1991, on 14 August 2012 - 02:31 AM, said:

In a 1v2 my main objective is to stall the cap as long as possible by staying within the cap radius and trying to survive.

The whole point of a bunkering spec is to force the enemy team to have to bring 2+ people to kill you which, if the other team does not have a similar spec, puts them at a numbers disadvantage elsewhere on the map.

This, in my opinion, is fundamentally wrong. If you're inserting a bunker build into your team, the main focus is to last until your team can rotate and support. Yes, you are supposed to last as long as possible, but saying that puts your team in the mindset that you're built to sit on a point until you die. It's a team game for a reason. Obviously, I know this is your objective as well, but really it needs to be said first--surviving as long as possible on a point should be a last resort. Your death still gives the other team an advantage in numbers and points.

Even the best bunker players go down fast in 1v1 and 1v2 situations depending on who they are playing against. In our camp, along with some of the more known teams the role has been even called a "Staller".

Edited by Demonstrative, 14 August 2012 - 02:39 AM.

[Devlin1991]

Kaylos21, on 14 August 2012 - 02:33 AM, said:

I just noticed you said 100% uptime on fury and swiftness.  How are you getting that.  The patch notes said signet of fury was lowered to 30 seconds, not signet of rage.

Good catch, 65% uptime swiftness and 5.2 stacks of might vs 8 then for that signet, only a small nerf to the build, its core is still very intact.

[Kaylos21]

Yeah, I wasn't trying to downplay the build, it just caught me off gaurd.  I had to make sure I wasn't missing something.  To get 100%, you'd have to do what I did with my build, but then it wouldn't serve the purpose you are going for.

[Devlin1991]

Kaylos21, on 14 August 2012 - 02:42 AM, said:

Yeah, I wasn't trying to downplay the build, it just caught me off gaurd.  I had to make sure I wasn't missing something.  To get 100%, you'd have to do what I did with my build, but then it wouldn't serve the purpose you are going for.

No worries, I am glad you noticed it. I had to go fix that error on 3 different threads xD I had a gut feeling that I had something wrong since 100% uptime on that signet would make it a tad strong though 5 stacks of might and fury with 100% uptime would still be acceptable for an elite considering that "For Great Justice" is a 2k heal,3 stacks of might, 33% uptime fury, and an aoe condition removal when runed.

[Devlin1991]

Demonstrative, on 14 August 2012 - 02:38 AM, said:

This, in my opinion, is fundamentally wrong. If you're inserting a bunker build into your team, the main focus is to last until your team can rotate and support. Yes, you are supposed to last as long as possible, but saying that puts your team in the mindset that you're built to sit on a point until you die. It's a team game for a reason. Obviously, I know this is your objective as well, but really it needs to be said first--surviving as long as possible on a point should be a last resort. Your death still gives the other team an advantage in numbers and points.

Even the best bunker players go down fast in 1v1 and 1v2 situations depending on who they are playing against. In our camp, along with some of the more known teams the role has been even called a "Staller".

We played with a focus of holding 2 points and only pusing for a 3rd if the enemy screwed up monumentally and fed us 2-3 kills in quick sucession. Being able to split 3 Center:1Natural means that you can have 3 teamfight centric builds hold the main point, 1 bunker build hold the natural, and 1 high mobility person to either scout, roam, backcap when they 4-5man, or aid the natural in 1v1/2v1 fights. This setup will be even stronger now with the huge buff to the warriors passive regenation being able to outheal a constant 8 stack bleed while doing very respectable damage via retaliation, refection, high power and acceptable crit chance.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 02:57 AM.

[Demonstrative]

Devlin1991, on 14 August 2012 - 02:55 AM, said:

We played with a focus of holding 2 points and only pusing for a 3rd if the enemy screwed up monumentally and fed us 2-3 kills in quick sucession. Being able to split 3 Center:1Natural means that you can have 3 teamfight centric builds hold the main point, 1 bunker build hold the natural, and 1 high mobility person to either scout, roam, backcap when they 4-5man, or aid the natural in 1v1/2v1 fights. This setup will be even stronger now with the huge buff to the warriors passive regenation being able to outheal a constant 8 stack bleed while doing very respectable damage via retaliation, refection, high power and acceptable crit chance.

Why have three sitting on a mid point when you can have total map control with flowing rotations?

[Devlin1991]

Demonstrative, on 14 August 2012 - 02:59 AM, said:

Why have three sitting on a mid point when you can have total map control with flowing rotations?

Because winning consistently is about having 2 points and not feeding tonnes of kills. If you spilit 2-2-1 you can easily lose 2 points in fast sucession if a smart team 5 mans you capping their natural then then 4 mans you at center point which you would have 2 people and possibly a 3rd running in late. There is a super risky alternate strat were you 5 man center, then 5 man their natural then camp 4 outside their spawn with 1 good 1vs1'er to hunt down anyone that got past you before the camp set up (only works on Forest and sort of on Kylo). Team fights on center points is generally decided by what team has the better build synergy, venom thief + epidemic necro + Guardian or shout warrior with banner elite is an extremely strong combo that will dominate any other 3man that doesn't have as much build synergy as theirs.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 03:16 AM.

[heatzzz]

May I ask how do you work out the coefficient of the healing signet?

[Demonstrative]

Devlin1991, on 14 August 2012 - 03:09 AM, said:

Because winning consistantly is about having 2 points and not feeding tonnes of kills. If you spilit 2-2-1 you can easily lose 2 points in fast sucession if a smart team 5 mans you capping their natural then then 4 mans you at center point which you would have 2 people and possibly a 3rd running in late. There is a super risky alternate strat  were you 5man center, then 5 man their natural then camp 4 outside their spawn with 1 good 1vs1'er to hunt down anyone that got past you before the camp set up (only works on Forest and sort of on Kylo). Team fights on center points is generally decided by what team has the better build synergy, venom thief + epidemic necro + Guardian or shout warrior with banner elite is an extremely strong combo that will dominate any other 3man that doesn't have as much build synergy as theirs.

Your strategy is extremely linear and extremely easy to counter...

You're forgetting that team fights are also about numbers, and your static positioning gives the other team an advantage at any point. I'm not saying that having two points is a bad thing, I'm saying that the way you're going about keeping two points is inefficient.

[Devlin1991]

heatzzz, on 14 August 2012 - 03:15 AM, said:

May I ask how do you work out the coefficient of the healing signet?

Healing Signet Formula
(3.125 * Level + (1/6) * Healing Power) per second for the passive.
(40 * Level + 2.5 * Healing Power) for the active.

Using the numbers posted in the patch notes I worked out those formulae, I posted the lvl 80 only ones originall for simplicity.

"Healing Surge: Now heals more based on your adrenaline level. ~5500,7000,8500
Healing Signet: Changed recharge from 40s to 25s; lowered base heal from 7300(8800 with heal spec) to 3200(3950 with heal spec); raised the passive heal from 85(135 w spec) to 250(300 w spec)
Mending: Changed recharge from 20s to 25s"

Assuming that by "heal spec" they mean "with +300 compassion from 30 in defense line" its easy to work out the coefficents from the information given.

Pre-buff:
8800 - 7300 = 1500 / 300 = 5.0 scaling on active
135 - 85 = 50 / 300 = 0.167 (1/6) scaling on passive

Post-buff
3950 - 3200 = 750 / 300 = 2.5 scaling on active
300 - 250 = 50 / 300 = 0.167 (1/6) scaling on passive.

The change in scaling on the active makes sense since the cooldown was reduced to 25s from 40s, it is only sensible that they reduced the healing power scaling by a smilar amount.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 03:33 AM.

[Devlin1991]

Artaz, on 14 August 2012 - 02:37 AM, said:

From a pure theorycraft, SoSL/SoSD on both weapons seems odd with a 9 second ICD now (based on a typical high swap/Fast Hands at 5 seconds).  It would make sense to load both weapons sets with these Sigils if Fast Hands was not taken though.

EDIT:  Sigil of Superior Energy is way underestimated (adds a ~1.5s invulnerability every 9 seconds) if used with dodge.

I completely agree, since I found the 9s ICD change I swapped the fast hands trait out for the decent uptime on retaliation from the grandmaster defense trait which, with the power I have should hit for easily 350 per hit with no ICD on it. I also swapped the offhand SoD runes out for Sigil of Superior Energy, if I make a point of emptying my dodge below 50% before I swap I should be able to dodge 2 times per 10s for 3s of evasion per 10s. Pretty awesome especially if you can make those dodges avoid major hits. When playing any burst specs I make a point of baiting out dodges before bursting, having someone weapon-swap dodge my burst would be very unexpected since these runes are not in popular use atm.

Edited by Devlin1991, 14 August 2012 - 03:56 AM.

[Kaylos21]

Is it necessary to go 10 points into discipline in your build if you aren't gettign fast hands?  Losing fast hands means versatile rage isn't as useful either.  You could pick up Restorative Strength in Strength or Unsuspecting Foe in Precision.  Just a thought.

[Draxas]

Devlin1991, on 14 August 2012 - 03:30 AM, said:

Assuming that by "heal spec" they mean "with +300 compassion from 30 in defense line" its easy to work out the coefficents from the information given.

That's a pretty enormous assumption, considering no other heals scale nearly that much.  Only +300 compassion is not much of a "heal spec".  I'm not sure exactly what it is but I think that you are way, way off.  It's probably closer to +1000 compassion than +300.

[Demonstrative]

Kaylos21, on 14 August 2012 - 04:15 AM, said:

Is it necessary to go 10 points into discipline in your build if you aren't gettign fast hands?  Losing fast hands means versatile rage isn't as useful either.  You could pick up Restorative Strength in Strength or Unsuspecting Foe in Precision.  Just a thought.

I'd rather run Fast Hands and/or Restorative Strength over Unsuspecting Foe which is pretty situational. Pretty standard to hold stun break for any type of large burst.