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[Brand]

Sehetxt

__________Introduction:

__________With the help of a great Theory Crafter, Sithicus Dias, this build was born. Sithicus is the master on all things __________Shout-Warrior, and so I came to him looking for a build. I wasn't into being a Tank or Control Warrior, __________however, and I yearned for some way to utilize a Greatsword in conjunction with shouts to create a __________high damage support build. After a few lengthy discussions, Sithicus offered me an untested prototype build __________that stacked Might duration in order to increase damage output. This sounded perfect for me, and so I __________began testing it. After many changes, which I will detail in the sections following, a new build was forged. __________However, note that this build isn't for speedrunning or optimal groups. It is for the casual player or "pseudo-__________optimal" groups, refer to another build if speed is your main priority.

__________Weapon Skills:

More often than not, the weapon you choose defines your build, as is the case here. Greatsword is the only weapon in our arsenal that will work with this build. Your Autoattack applies two stacks of Vulnerability every 2.5 seconds that last for eight seconds. This means that you will have between six and eight stacks of Vulnerability constantly. This not only increases your damage, but that of your allies as well and as such should be considered a type of support. Your next skill, and the most powerful one you have, is Hundred Blades. This skill roots you in place for a few seconds while you tear the enemy apart, and using it will generate a lot of Might from the abundant Critical Hits. If you move it will end the cast, however, so it's important that you time this skill well to avoid wasting it or taking heavy damage. Your next three skills are almost completely for mobility. These skills are Whirlwind Attack, Bladetrail, and Rush. Whirlwind Attack will shoot you forward a good distance, damaging any enemies in your path. The important thing about Whirlwind Attack is that you cannot be hit while using it, meaning it acts as a free dodge roll. Bladetrail is a standard Cripple skill with a few perks. Not only is Bladetrail ranged and can be thrown behind you, but it hit's anything in the direction you throw it twice. Rush is a mobility skill that does decent damage, the only thing it is really useful for is getting back to your target quickly after a Whirlwind Attack. Last and most definitely least is our Burst, Arcing Slice. Arcing Slice does pitiful damage and gives us nine seconds of Fury when at full Adrenaline. Since we already have permanent Fury, there is no reason to use this skill at all.

__________Healing Skill:

The skill we choose here is Healing Surge. The amount that this skill heals for is based on your Adrenaline level, and since we won't be using our Burst we will always have max Adrenaline. Healing Surge heals for almost 9k with this build and full Adrenaline.

__________Utility Skills:

I cannot overstress how important Shouts are to this build. They are the "Sonic" in "Sonic Boon", and as such need to be used wisely. "For Great Justice!" is by far your most important Shout. This skill gives you and all nearby allies Fury and Might, and should be used every chance you get. Constant use of this skill will equate to twelve seconds of Fury every 20, and three stacks of Might for 42 seconds every 25. This means that if your allies are getting eight seconds of Fury from another source, you can permanently maintain Fury and six stacks of Might on your whole party."Shake It Off!" is next, removing Conditions from you and all allies is no small feat. This skill should be used whenever needed, and not for Conditions like Cripple or Chill."On My Mark!", though underrated, is also a very useful skill in single target fights. With 10% extra damage on an enemy for twelve seconds every 24 seconds, we're getting a five percent damage boost for the entire party, which is pretty significant. Your traits will make each of these Shouts heal you and four nearby allies.

Elite Skill:
Your Elite will be Signet of Rage. It is important to remember that this Signet is not taking away from team support, as supporting yourself is in fact supporting the team. The cooldown on the Battle Standard is too long, it lacks mobility, and only lasts for one minute every three. The resurrection ability it has is situational at best, and almost always remains useless. Signet of Rage on the other hand allows you to maintain permanent Fury and Might when in conjunction with "For Great Justice!". Not to mention the Swiftness you also get for increased mobility. Taking this Elite does not make you a bad person, a glass cannon, or unintelligent.

__________Strength Traits:

__________Disregarding the minor trait, the only trait we get in Strength is Berserker's Power(S:V). This trait gives us __________twelve percent damage when at maximum Adrenaline, which as mentioned earlier will be always. This is the __________clear choice for your leftover points when combined with the Power and Condition Duration the Strength line __________offers. The minor trait here damages enemies near you when you dodge roll in combat, which is a nice little __________boost albeit somewhat unimportant.

__________

__________Arms Traits:

We will also put 20 points in Arms to pick up Rending Strikes(A:V), and Forceful Greatsword(A:X). The traits and stat gains here are very important and crucial to the build. Rending Strikes(A:V) gives you a 33% chance on a Critical Hit to apply Vulnerability. This trait synergizes well with the Greatsword Autoattack, "On My Mark!", and the Rifle skill Brutal Shot. This can be viewed as a support mechanism in and of itself, since Vulnerability just ensures the whole team kills enemies faster and easier. Forceful Greatsword(A:X) is the most important trait this build has. While using this trait, any Critical Hits you get will grant you a stack of Might for 5 seconds. Due to this trait, we can attain 25 stacks of Might simply by having high Precision. The first minor trait here is fairly useful as well. With it you gain a 33% chance on Critical Strikes to cause Bleeding for three seconds. With our high Malice, it's not a bad boost.

Tactics Traits:

__________We need to allot maximum points in Tactics for Vigorous Shouts(T:XII), Lung Capacity(T:VIII), and __________Empowered(T:VI). The main reason for putting points in Tactics is to get the 30 percent Boon __________duration. The Boon duration is essential to the build, but everything else is just an added bonus. Vigorous __________Shouts(T:XII) will cause your shouts to heal for 1192 plus 80% of your Compassion. Our Compassion is __________114, which equates to three 1,323 heals every ~21 seconds. Lung Capacity(T:VIII) reduces Shout __________cooldowns by 20%. This means "For Great Justice!" and "Shake It Off!" now have a 20 second cooldown, __________and "On My Mark!" has a 24 second cooldown. Lastly, Empowered(T:VI) grants you about 1.5% damage __________for every Boon on you. We maintain three Boons by ourselves (Fury, Might, and Swiftness) which means we __________have about 4.5% increased damage constantly. Any Boons we receive from allies will increase this __________percentage as well. The basis behind these choices is to build stacks of Might for significantly increased __________damage, and still maintain proactive healing and Boon/Condition support. None of the minor traits here are __________really worth mentioning, the bonuses they give are nice but not important.

__________Discipline Traits:

__________Here we also grab some huge benefits. Heightened Focus(D:V) gives us a huge boost of 9% Critical __________Strike Rating while we are at full Adrenaline. This trait is very similar to Berserker's Power(S:V). We also __________get a bonus 10% to Prowess, which is another great asset to the build.

Weapons:
Greatsword is your primary weapon here due to it's extreme power and synergy with the build. Greatsword is the "Boon" in "Sonic Boon" due to Forceful Greatsword(A:X) granting you a ton of Might stacks. Forceful Greatsword(A:X) works with this build like... something that works really well with something else. Seriously though, the combination is obscenely powerful. Your secondary weapon is fairly negotiable, but you are most likely going to want Rifle. It's an easy swap to change Forceful Greatsword(A:X) to Crack Shot(A:VII) during a ranged fight, it's Burst is too slow to be of use to you, and it provides synergy with Vulnerability and Bleeding.

Sigils:
The Sigil on the Greatsword in this build can be Superior Sigil of Strength or Superior Sigil of Fire. The prior ensures that you are going to have 25 stacks of Might constantly and the latter is better for experienced users of the build. With the Superior Sigil of Fire, your damage will go up and you will still remain at about 25 Might stacks. On your Rifle, however, Sigil of Superior Bloodlust works very well to increase your Power, and therefore increase your damage when you swap back to Greatsword.

Armor:
You are going to want to balance Knight's Armor and Berserker's Armor in this build. What this means is that you are going to have Berserker's Gauntlets, Shoulders, and Boots. The rest of your armor will be Knight's. This choice gives you enough Toughness to remain standing, enough Power to hit hard, and enough Precision to get your Might stacks up. There is also the added bonus of some extra Prowess. No negotiating here, it is the most useful.

Runes:
The Runes you choose should always be augmenting some core facet of your build, and for us that is Might stacks. As we are now, we get all the Might stacks we need, but most of them only last a few seconds. The solution is to use Runes that give you Might duration and Boon duration. We will use two Superior Runes of the Fire, two Superior Runes of the Monk, and two Superior Runes of Water. These will give us 20% Might duration, and 30% Boon duration. The reason we don't use Might duration on all our Runes is fairly simple. With full Might duration Runes we end up with ~57 seconds of Might on Signet of Rage, when we change that to this set up, we have ~54 seconds of might. Three little seconds is not enough to sacrifice the extra Boon duration Superior Rune of the Monk applies to all Boons, not just Might. Not to mention that your Boon duration will apply itself to Boons you cast on allies, meaning "For Great Justice!" is doing a lot for supporting your team.

__________Accessories:

Due to damage being a focus of this build, we run Berserker's Accessories for anything that isn't Ascended. These increase our damage by giving us enough Critical Damage to get respectable returns on our Critical Hits. One exception is that of the Ancient Karka Shells, which we use for the Celestial stats. For Ascended gear, pick up all Berserker's stats, with the exception of one Ring and the Amulet, which should be Celestial and Cavalier, respectively.

__________Upgrades:

I would recommend that for the Gems you use all Exquisite Ruby Jewels for some bonus Precision and Prowess. They are very nice for their damage aspect, and will help you keep up your Might stacks. The amount of Prowess on them is also very high compared to their other stats, making them a great choice for Precision centric builds such as this one. As for Infusions, you should use Mighty Infusions in all but the Back. In the Back you should put a Malign Infusion, which bumps our Critical Strike Rating up a percent.

Q: This is a Shout build, why don't you use Soldier's Runes?
A: It's true that Soldier's Runes are great for Shout support, but this build isn't centered around support. We are still damage centric and we want our damage to be higher. Thankfully, we can bring support and do more damage with Boon duration Runes, which is essentially why we choose them.

Q: Won't our Bleeding hurt other player's Condition builds?
A: Well, yes, but keep in mind that in order to get Forceful Greatsword(A:X) we have to get the minor trait that gives us Bleeding on Critical Hits. This cannot be changed.

Q: What type of Rifle do you recommend?
A: I recommend a Berserker's Rifle, as it will keep your damage fairly high when not using the Greatsword.

Q: Can I use a Longbow instead of a Rifle?

A: You can, but technically Rifle is better for the build.

Q: Is there any specific gear that you recommend?

A: Please check the spreadsheet in the post below, as it contains all of the current gear choices and stat values.

Edited by Brand, 22 February 2013 - 11:10 PM.

[Brand]

Visual Build

Note: With this new Builder, the spreadsheet isn't really required.

Contributions:
Sithicus Dias: Helped me with the ideals for the original build.
KrayZ33: Pointed out some things that could be better in the runes/gems.
Lilitu: Did excellent math and calculations for me.
laek: Updated and enhanced the spreadsheet for me. Values have changed but the design is still his.
Nonlinear: Gave me some ideas regarding Prowess and the ratio of critical returns.
Thorfinnr: A great help in keeping the thread rolling in my absences.

Additional Reading

(Posts I've made showing things you may not know)

Nikephoros, on 06 February 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

But what, really, are the boon stacking/shout builds doing?  They are sacrificing personal DPS for a small increase in team utility.  This only a slight improvement over the signets.

So what do the Tactics builds get for their huge investment into Tactics that the DPS builds don’t get?  Slightly longer boon duration and some marginal party-wide healing.  The lesson here is that the team-wide utility is generated by the Utility Skills themselves, and the Tactics-related bonuses are more or less meaningless.

Putting 20 or 30 points into Tactics or Defense in order to gain a very tiny benefit is an extremely poor investment of your trait points.

Is a Warrior with 30 Tactics for shout heals, or for maximizing Rune of Lyssa, providing significantly more team utility with their FGJ and OMM than a generic 25/25/0/0/20 DPS build?  I would argue not.  They are giving away between 25-30% DPS (my estimate) for an immeasurably small amount of team utility in case of the shout build, and in the case of boon stacking, for a minor amount of Vitality.  This is not a worthy trade off, in either case.

Finally got around to actually reading the rest of this (Had to stop halfway last time) and onto replying. I'm only going to talk about the bits I think can be argued against, and also the ones that almost directly target Sonic Boon. I've deleted the irrelevant bits in the quote above, for post-length's sake. I was thinking of arguing in segments, like I normally do, but I just realized that the entire thing I'm arguing against is something you say over and over again. So there is only need for one segment, I think. For ease, I'm going to argue directly about Sonic Boon, since I don't support many variations anyway, and talking about one set of traits is enough writing I think.

So, to start off I'd like to point out that the benefits from having 30 in tactics are no where near as small as you think. I'm not sure if you're just ignorant on the matter or if you actually think the bonuses are that small, but I'll go through them.

1) 30% Boon Duration, one of the hardest stats to acquire. What does it do? It increases the length of Boons that you put on yourself and others. What does this mean? Well, in Sonic Boon, we already have 30% boon duration, and this brings us up to 60%. This is not small. This increases the length of FGJ by over half. FGJ gives 8 seconds of Fury and 25 seconds of 3 stacks of Might, with Sonic Boon it gives 12.8 seconds of Fury and 45 seonds of 3 stacks of Might. It also allows us to keep up 25 stacks of might by ourselves, increasing our damage significantly.

2) 20% Shout CD reduction, causing your shout CDs to be 24(OMM), and 20(FGJ, SIO). The biggest benefit here at this point in my explanation is with FGJ. We can now buff our party with 6 stacks of might constantly (Hitting 9 for a few seconds, too) and the upkeep of Fury on the party is now 64% (compared to 32% without Boon duration) Yes, for 12.8 seconds every 20 seconds, our entire team has Fury. Why is this a big deal? Well, I don't know if you noticed, but almost no classes have access to a fury generator (Something that can generate fury reliable or perpetually). Here is a list of things that grant fury, you'll notice that the only other class that can reliably supply Fury is Ranger, and only 20 seconds every 120 seconds (On themselves) unless they use Warhorn and/or have a Moa Bird. What this means for your party: You are probably the only one in the group providing Fury, and you're providing it for nearly 2/3 of the time. You are basically giving everyone in your group 12% crit (In fact it is better than that, since 20% crit every 2 seconds on a 3 second CD would be much better than 12% crit constantly).

3) Shouts heal. Ok, they don't heal for that much, but they still heal. With Sonic Boon, currently, you get 1323 heals per shout. This is 3969 healing for each party member every 21.3 seconds. That's 186.3 hps for every party member, which is 56.3 more hps than a Regen buff (Over 40% better). Not only that, but unlike banners or etc, shout heals will STACK with Regen. This means that if you have an Ele or a guardian pumping out Regen, your heals will add to theirs instead of overlapping and getting wasted. Furthermore, the heals are great in a pinch, and popping them (Personally) has saved my life countless times, and many time my ally's lives.

4) The minor traits. 400 toughness while reviving, revive 10% faster, and you grant a stack of might for 12 seconds when you revive a person. These are incredibly helpful in a non-elite dungeon setting or a pug, especially on a Warrior. Sure they don't add to DPS, but they are useful anyway. Already (Since the waypoint-zerging-nerf) I've fought a handful of bosses that killed my teammates and it was me and another guy downed with no hope but to wipe, with the boss at about 10%, and I popped vengeance and rezzed the guy, gave him my boons, died, and he killed the boss. These help with Teamwork, and they're a great asset to have.

5) Lastly, we have 300(It actually gives us 315, not sure why) Vitality. It's not a lot, and it's kind of unnecessary, but it still helps with conditions and with Oil on it also means we get an extra 12-13 precision, so not too shabby.

So, if you look now, you can see that the benefits for US aren't super overwhelming, but the benefits for our team are huge. Would you still argue that Sonic Boon does not carry significantly more utility than a generic Glass cannon? Also, your estimate there is a bit off. According to this (Credit to Stigma) a glass cannon will do about 26% more damage than a Sonic Boon Warrior. However, the values for Sonic Boon are slightly off in that spreadsheet, and I estimate the damage loss to be 20% or less (I'm missing 28% Crit Dmg and 14% crit in the spreadsheet). Furthermore, that chart does NOT account for damage you are providing to allies, and as I just showed you, we are helping our allies quite a bit. I estimate the damage loss to be about 10% when you account for allies which means Class Cannons clocked in at just 10% more damage than us overall. Note that we can also provide a lot to a teams survivability via our Fury (On Crit effects for others; Omnoms). We are simply trading a small amount of damage for better survivability, heals for the teammates, easier rezzing of allies, etc. Which I think is pretty well worth the cost.

Experiment Gone Bad, on 18 February 2013 - 08:45 AM, said:

Example AH Guardian Build : armor/traits/trinkets/food
Skill Build : skills/list of boons and their duration

If you'd notice, the armor is completely a copy of Sonic Boon, sans a few trinket differences. It loses 25% boon duration due to the trait tree, but make up for using Omnom Creams (when i was using Sonic Boon i was using Ghosts/Pies/Sharpening Stone, the build doesn't really state your preference).

Finally I get to reply to you! First of all, the build you posted uses the Omnom pies, but I'll assume that's an error on your part. The use of the creams obviously means you lose some survivability and precision, which does hurt.

Now, the very first difference in the builds I see are that this is a Warrior build and that a Guardian build. The issue that arises here is that Warriors inherently have much more health than Guardians. About 8k more in fact, or 800 vitality's worth. Considering our vitality isn't different by much, this causes you to be at a serious disadvantage (Especially with the lack of Omnoms).

Furthermore, the healing provided by this build is a mere 105 hps from your virtue. There is also Regen up nearly 33% of the time equating for 57.3 hps. In total you have about 162 hps, which is 21 less hps than us. This is not only assuming that people can be healed (For both of us) but also assumes that your Regen is not stacking with another party member who is supplying constant Regen (Where yours becomes useless). You get more hps on yourself due to AH, and more Regen on yourself.

You apply many boons to yourself, but only for 32% up time. These include everything barring aegis and stability. They do assist you quite a bit, particularly the protection. You also grant protection to allies for 22% uptime which increases their survivability by some. The Protection and Regen you apply to yourself is should be 54% and 65% respectively. You apply Stability and Retaliation for 32% of the time as well. Also, your condition removal on yourself is much higher than ours, though you lose condition removal on allies in most cases. You basically need to use your shouts on CD, and HtL removes all conditions every 48 seconds from allies. In most cases, this is none or one. Our condition removal can be timed with greater leisure (Though not much since we want to keep up hps) and also timed to affect longer more dangerous conditions. Say someone got poisoned for 30 seconds right after you used HtL, they'd be hard pressed. Whereas if we just used SIO, we could spare them 10 seconds of poison.

In fact, in common/"optimal-ish" scenarios where SIO removes 1 condition from at least 3 allies each time it is used, and HtL removes 1 from 3 each time it is used, and your two 10 second condition removers remove 1 every 10 seconds, we heal 14.4 conditions total every 48 seconds, while you only heal 7.8 total. You remove a lot of conditions from yourself, but most allies never see these, causing us to be far superior in group condition removal.

In the Mists, I tested the build. Not the best, I know, but it provided nearly the same crit chance, the boon duration did take a 34% hit though. With GS AA and all the traits and shouts being used, I was able to maintain 4-6 stacks of might. To further gain data, lets look at the numbers (AA is 6 strikes every 5 seconds):

AA gives 1 might stack for 5.25 seconds every 2.5 seconds = About 2 Might stacks constantly
You have 57% Crit with your fury = 3.4 stacks of might for 8.75 seconds each on AA = 3-4 stacks constantly (Nearby allies)
33% on Crit to apply might for 17.5 sec = 19% chance for a might stack of 17.5 = 3 stacks constantly
1 might stack for 17.5 seconds every 48 (Shout) = .4 might stack constantly

All in all you get 4+2+3+.4= 9.4 might stacks constantly on yourself. Your party (Probably only 3 people, as it's not shout range, only nearby) gets 3-4 stacks constantly. Note that the actual amount here is also lower since I neglected to factor in Internal Cooldowns.

Given the boons you produce, lets look at your AH healing:
7 every 48 seconds
10 (5 party members in range is the value I'm going to use for all shouts AKA optimal) every 24
10 every 28
3 (3 for "Nearby" things) every 40 (Virtue)
3 (3 melee [Nearby]) every 16 (Symbol)
1 every 2.5
12 every 28.5 (Assuming VoJ is used on CD)
10.2 every 5 seconds
1.14 every 5 seconds

In total we get 203 boons applied every 48 seconds (Empowering Might being the biggest contributor) and each one heals you for 72.5 health. This is 307 hps. Sithicus tested a while back for us and found Omnomberry pies to heal Sonic Boon for about 293 hps, tack on our extra 21 hps from shouts and we get 314 hps. Ergo, we provide as much self heals as you, and 21 more hps to each ally assuming your Regen isn't wasted.

In the end, we gain Permafury and 64% fury for our allies, we give 6 stacks of might constantly to allies, we maintain 23-25 stacks of might without Sigil of Strength (Sigil of Fire is now recommended for experienced players), we supply about a constant 15 stacks of Vulnerability, we have 80% swiftness, we have an additional 20% crit over you, we have over 10k more EHP than you, greater overall condition removal, better group healing, bleeds (Pumped by our large condition damage), at least 6.5% more damage than yours at base value (No might, etc) and I guarantee you we have much more damage overall.

You get self Regen to match ours (When you add in the extra healing our 6 skill does more than yours), 3-4 Might for 3 perhaps more party members, 9 stacks of might for yourself, burning for allies, 20% more Crit damage, 22%, 32% and 32% for protection, retaliation and stability respectively for the party, you get 54%, 65%, and 32% for protection, Regen, and everything else respectively on yourself.

That in totality is ever difference I see, all in all, our defenses are fairly similar I'd say. You supply the party with more defense, I supply them with more offense. In the end, the biggest difference between our two builds is the damage, in which you supply much less of than me. The biggest boon you give to the party is 22% protection (Stability requires there to be knockdown, retaliation means they need to be getting hit directly, both of which are shaky for boons only up for 1/3 of the time) which is easily overshadowed by the benefits of our 64% fury and at least 2-3 stacks more of part might (Most likely more, due to shout radius).

All in all though, the biggest difference between the builds is their direct damage. We have much more than you between 100B, at least 6.5% base, ~15 more stacks of might, ~15 stacks of vulnerability (Buffs party dps too), etc.

However, do not be discouraged! Your boons are still very useful for a party, and I personally recommend all Sonic Boon warriors run with an AH guardian like yours. Together we supply tons of boons that make a party successful, we are survivable enough to take hits for the group, and we both have GREAT damage for the amount of support we are packing. Not to mention, we supply each other with the buffs were missing, including the extra 2-3 stacks of might we Sonic Boon warriors can use to stay capped at 25 easier, extra defense so we can stay dpsing longer, and we give you Fury and more might. It also means that we never have to switch to banners when fights are incredibly condition heavy ^^ (I hate doing this because I hate banners v.v)

The two builds really do synergize perfectly.

I hope you enjoyed this post and all the work that went into it! It took me a good four hours to write up. I hope it's been informative for  you (I also learned a lot ^^) and that I have thoroughly answered your question to the best of my abilities. If there is any issue with this response or you have a question on something PLEASE do not hesitate to leave another comment! Thanks for the great question!

Also just a note, I say "My build" and "your build" just because it's easier, I don't mean anything by phrasing it like that.

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

What do you consider is "significant"? I see a lot of debates here in these forums that x.x% DPS, EHP, Healing, Crit, Crit Dmg etc etc is significant. Is 25% significant? Is 12.5? Is 6.25?

How do you consider uptime? Uptime becomes more important when the fight lingers on longer, the problem is, most fights don't really last "that" long (sans a few boss fights, fractals)

How did you compute for the healing AH does?

What is your concept of "over-healing"?

What are the disadvantages of Sonic Boon? (since you don't really discuss it)

I wish I knew exactly what you were asking here haha. Did I say "significant" in a place you do not agree with, or are you just asking me as a sort of off topic question? Anyway, my definition of significant can't really be applied to %s or numbers. When I see two things, and one of them is better than the other by a  margin big enough for me to consider it heavily, that is significance to me. Take for instance the healing, 21 more HPS on the group is certainly not very significant as the game plays (By itself) but if your other options are lower by a margin that would seem to make the +21 HPS stand out, it is significant to me. I hope that makes sense.

Your uptime of skills is usually not a flat percent like I showed; for most skills it is a short duration on a short CD. This means that 50% duration doesn't mean your skill will last 5 minutes every 10 minutes, it will last perhaps 10 seconds every 20 seconds for the entire 10 minutes. Ergo, it isn't really dependent on the duration of the fight since most important fights will last over 2 minutes. If you had 5 minutes every 10, then you would have 100% uptime for a five minute fight. However, since they work at lower intervals, your uptime will remain the same as long as the fight is not shorter than the CD and the skills duration does not exceed its CD. Both of those exceptions are very hard to come by. Therefore, when you say, "Uptime becomes more important when the fight lingers on longer" it's actually quite false. Uptime is more important on SHORTER fights, ones that might break either of those exceptions. Uptime for longer fights is always (Skill Duration/Skill Cooldown) and so as long as neither of those exceptions are met, uptime will remain a static percent. (Example: FGJ will always give 64% uptime on Fury unless a fight lasts <25 seconds or we exceed 210% Boon Duration.) Also, as I said, builds are made with Boss encounters in mind most all the time, and most boss encounters last over a minute.

I thought I showed it pretty well. I took all of the boons you produce and how often they are produced (I could not account for your elite resetting your virtues though, sorry, but this shouldn't change a lot since you presumably use it as an "Oh Sh*t!" button, rather than a tool to recharge your virtues). I assumed 3 party members gain the boons if they were described as "Nearby" and had all 5 allies gain boons if they game from a Shout. I also assumed you were using Virtue of Justice on CD because it's 3 might stack bonus is huge.

The numbers came out as follows(I showed this in my post):
7 every 48 seconds
10 (5 party members in range is the value I'm going to use for all shouts AKA optimal) every 24
10 every 28
3 (3 for "Neaby" things) every 40 (Virtue)
3 (3 melee [Nearby]) every 16 (Symbol)
1 every 2.5
12 every 28.5 (Assuming VoJ is used on CD)
10.2 every 5 seconds
1.14 every 5 seconds

These numbers show all of the boons you create reliably and the amount of time it creates to make the specified number (Usually the CD). Then we take 48 (Easiest number) and divide it by each of the "CDs" (For "Stand Your Ground!" you get 2 boons every 24 seconds, assuming the shout hits all 5 members you get 10 boons every 24 seconds. We then divide 48 by 24 and get 2). The number gained here is then used to multiply the number of boons, this shows how many boons from that skill are created in 48 seconds ("Stand Your Ground!" creates 20 boons every 48 seconds assuming it hits 5 allies). Then we add up all of the boons, and we get 203 boons over a period of 48 seconds. AH heals you for 72.5 (69 + 0.01 * Healing Power) for each boon applied, so we multiply 72.5 by 203. Doing that, we get 14,717.5 which is your total healing from AH over 48 seconds. Divide that number by 48 and you get 307 (In the first post I said 306 by accident, will fix) which is your HPS on yourself via AH.

The same as everyone else's, probably. It means you healed for too much and that it becomes ineffectual. However, these tests were done with two similar builds that healed and required people in range. To get proper results, I assumed that all of our heals/boons always found their mark and healed for the correct amount. Take note that these tests were never meant to simulate a real word environment, but simply to show under optimal conditions (For both of us) which build performed best. This is turn also reflects how the builds will compare to each other in suboptimal conditions. So, for all shouts I assumed they hit all 5 members and applied the appropriate heals/boons and for all "Nearby" skills I assumed they hit 3 people.

Ah, I tried to put in some bits. First of all, Guardians apply lots of boons. Stability, Retaliation, Regen, Protection, etc all for around 20-30% uptime on the whole party. That's great and can often be a very big deal in fights. Overall, Sonic Boon warriors probably have a bit less defense. You make up for the advantages we have with protection, dodges (Vigor), Regen and more. Especially in the case of getting hit by a large attack, you will probably outlast us (Though we make up for this by having superior damage). Too generalize, an AH Guardian brings the party defense, and in turn his overall defense is higher. A Sonic Boon warrior gives his party offense, and in turn his overall offense is higher. However, we both do heal for about the same amount (To ourselves and allies). Therefore, it is very easy to say that we are the two sides of a support coin, one focusing more on damage with the other on defense. This is why we synergize so well together, we give double our heals when alone, and provide the party with not only high defense, but also high offense.

Quote Section

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

While they are 2 different builds, for 2 different classes, they do arguably the same job, which deal DPS and support at the same time. While Warriors do have in fact, more health as guardians (base 18k vs base 11k I think), and I think the "disadvantage" is removed with the presence of protection and aegis. The visual builder doesn't consider these 2 in it's equation. Pies on the other hand are a different story all in all, that's why I asked you above on your concept of over-healing, as I found AH on it's own is enough to supplement a guardian's self-healing (every 3rd GS AA gives heals, as well as every proc of Strength sigil and Empowering Might [EM], and all the buffs you supply to yourself and the party).

Well, as I said, they do arguably two different jobs but on the same coin, support. I know it does not consider those, and there really is no way for me to consider those. It won't be so very accurate, but our EHP is 30539, and yours is 19850 (Shown in the spreadsheets). So, if you consider that EHP is your defense from damage, and Protection reduces damage by 33%, then with Protection at 100% uptime, you would get 26401 EHP. You only have 54% Protection though, which puts you at 23383 EHP. Of course these values aren't super accurate, and things like this depend on other variables like how much damage an attack did and etc. Anyway, continuing on, Aegis will provide you with a little more, and then Regen and etc. All in all, it's very likely that you have more defense than us. I only put in the extra health factor of the Warrior because it does matter, and can't be so easily forgotten. To say that Omnom heals are a different story, your thinking here is already flawed. In order for our builds to be compared, one must consider optimal settings. If my Omnomberries overhealed, why would your Regen or AH heals not do the same? And yes I know how AH works and it does supplement your healing well, but that does not mean that Omnomberries are ineffective.

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

Actually, Healing Surge heals for just over 300 more than Signet of Resolve (base, around 600 more with your build, which in return i ask again, is this significant?), not to mention that Healing Surge is Adrenaline reliant. We also have the passive in Virtue of Resolve, Regeneration from Hold the Line/Save Yourselves, as well as AH. I don't have math to support this, but I think guardian self healing is better (not by much), even without pies.

First of all, the healing skills with our respective builds heal for 8554 (Ours) and 8587.5 (Yours). However, there is one crucial factor here you left out; our CD is a mere 30 seconds while yours is 40. This is a huge difference and assuming that we both use our heals on CD, the difference is 285.2 HPS (Ours) and 214.7 (Yours) for a grand total of 70.5 HPS in our favor (Also, it doesn't matter that Healing Surge is Adrenaline reliant, because we always have our adrenaline full). Secondly, I went over your condition removal in the main post and showed that yours was superior on yourself, but not on others. However, lets not talk about the party and just consider ourselves for a moment. Now I made an error in my first post and said we get 263 HPS from Omnomberry Pie, but we dont; we get 293. So, lets tally up the sources:

You:_______________________________Us:
Virtue = 105 HPS_____________________Omnomberry = 293 HPS
65% Regen = 113 HPS ________________Shouts = 184 HPS
AH = 307 HPS _______________________Heal = 285 HPS
Heal = 215 HPS

Total: 740 self HPS ___________________Total: 762 self HPS

So as you can see, about 22 HPS in our favor. Take allies into account and you have 1447 HPS and we have 1495 HPS.

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

On might stacking:

I think that might stacking is fairly trivial on either Sonic Boon, or AH-EM guardians, as the number of enemies directly affect the number of mights you get on yourself. However, Warriors have automatically 8 stacks of might to work with (SoR/FGJ). Though once you're talking about hitting mobs (Whirling Wrath hits more opponents, and for more hits (7x2(?) hits opposed to 8) than 100b, which help empowering might), as the number of opponents go higher, we'd be looking at roughly the same amount of might stacks.

I'd also like to point out that you missed the usage of Staffs. Using Empower grants your party 12 stacks of might for over 17s (in this setup), given that Empower CD is reduced to 16s due to 2-handed mastery. Again it benefits from AH (you can go from 0% to around 100%hp depending on how much allies are hit with empower), and gives your party a base heal of 1200 (increases with healing power), Orb of Light while more of a crutch heal, is a heal on it's own. Symbol of Swiftness also grants your party 100% swiftness. There are other things you've missed as well, such as Virtue of Resolve (both passive and active effects), dodge healing, near permanent self vigor, etc.

I was assuming one enemy for all this. As I said, builds are usually built with boss encounters in mind where you face one enemy. But you are right, as opponents go higher we will be looking at the same stacks, that is 25. The cap is there, and eventually due to AoEs we will both reach it. Again, I was talking about a single mobs for these equations as bosses are arguably the most important things in a dungeon. So in this case, Might stacking is far from trivial.

You are correct, I left out your staff might. I did this for a few reasons:
It's on Weapon Swap, meaning it is fairly unreliable.
It is a Channel, meaning you can't do anything while it is going.

For these reasons, I deem it unreliable and not worth it. Also, your 12 stacks of might last only 14 seconds, or 87.5% uptime. For those stacks of might you have to weapon swap first, which is on a 10 second CD. Assuming you use it directly after you swap, you will be channeling the skill for 4 seconds and then you will only have your staff to dps for the other 6 seconds before you swap again. Then it goes on CD for another 10 seconds. This means that you CANNOT keep up those stacks permanently as by the time you are able to swap to the staff again, it will have been 20 seconds after using the skill. This is at most 70% uptime on 12 stacks of might for those nearby (Probably not the whole party) and also the stacks degrade quickly after about 10 seconds. So in order to get 70% uptime on (We'll say 10, due to the degrading) 10 stacks of might, you need to be constantly weapon swapping, channeling, and ultimately dropping the stacks you are normally getting from Empowering Might and other attacks by A LOT. You are simply wasting dps by using the staff skill. However, it does have a small silver lining, and that is that it would be a good healing tool in a pinch. I can't really incorporate this into your healing though, as using it should be sporadic at best. I did count Symbol of Swiftness for mostly the same reasons as other staff skills, if you swap to staff you are losing considerable dps and also considerable might stacks. I did incorporate Virtue of Resolve, perhaps you just missed it? It's in the first line of my third paragraph.

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

Aside from the Vulnerability, Whirling Wrath deals at least half the damage of Hundred Blades (the animation is gimped, and doesn't show the real damage most of the time), and as I said above, empower not only gives you, but your whole party automatically 12 stacks of might to work with. Not to mention that this specific build has 20% more critical damage than Sonic Boon.

To a single target? I highly doubt it. But it might, even so that is only half the damage and it's AS won't be as high (Less crits). Again, I left out empower for the obvious reason that it's wasting tons of your dps and isn't reliable or sustainable. It's only good as a flash heal sometimes. I told you about the crit damage, but it doesn't help you as much, since you have a flat 20% less crit than us. You're also forgetting about Sigil of Fire, Sigil of Bloodlust, the extra might stacks and fury (To us and party), the vulnerability (Not forgotten but cast aside), and I'm sure there are other things I am forgetting about at this moment.

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

The thing I like about the guardian is, that it isn't "pigeon holed" into the build. AH guards have a lot of options both in traits and utility, as opposed to warriors. Banners are more or less inferior to shouts, and that's the only build your trait selection can really branch out to. A guardian can easily turn from AH Empowering Might, to AH Hammer Heal (while it does require people to stack, it gives the party near permanent protection and a ton of healing to you and your party mates. You can easily change your utilities/traits to match a certain event (need party condition removal? Get Pure of Voice || Wall of Reflection and Shield of the Avenger are a godsend in fractals and some dungeons).Warriors just don't have that much luxury, and in turn, versatility.

While it is true that a guardian has more versatility, a warrior simply doesn't really need it. Like I said, we are more damage oriented, and there aren't many different situations that call for a "different kind of damage". There are however, many situations that need different kinds of defense. We are also talking about two distinct builds here, and I'm sorry but I cannot make posts like this for every single guardian build haha. I'm unsure if you are trying to use your opinion on guardians to back your argument? But that isn't really how it works. It's great that guardians are versatile, but a Sonic Boon warrior goes into a group to deal damage and support heal/dps. We can do both of those things in any situation, even swapping to banners if it's really needed (Condition heavy fights).

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

I'm sorry if I got a bit picky with my quotes, the ones I quoted are those I found a bit iffy, the rest I either agree with, or just don't have data on my hands to respond properly with.

My post also seems to be all over the place, just got off from work and fairly tired, so I hope you forgive me if some of it seem incomprehensible at times.

It's no problem haha, I hope you forgive me if I seem arrogant. I'm trying to keep it on the facts as much as possible, because you asked me to compare the two builds. I cannot eschew data because it is not in your opinion or you don't like it I hope you understand this and don't take these posts as me bragging about my build over yours, or etc.

Experiment Gone Bad, on 20 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

While I have graduated from using your build (gone GC, since I'm usually in organized groups now, I still have my Boon Duration armor though!) I'd still recommend it to the lot who don't have the luxury of re-rolling into a guardian, or don't have consistent organized groups to play with. I learned a lot from using your build, and I hope for others to learn something as well.

Traitor! D:< But honestly I'd recommend both this build and the AH build to anyone looking to be support. Full support is too tough on your dps, and these builds are great, especially together. If you want to have more dps, go Sonic Boon, more defense, go AH Guardian. As you can see, the builds are fairly similar, and both offer great things. If we can get more people rolling both of these builds, perhaps we can see their synergistic qualities far more often in groups! ^^

Edited by Brand, 23 February 2013 - 12:53 AM.

[MacG]

I like it. It seems a good balance between survivability, support, and damage. One question -- wouldn't it be easier to use Water runes instead of Monk, since you can only get Monk from AC tokens? (Fire, Water, Strength instead of Fire, Monk, Strength.) If the wiki is right it should be the same.

[Oinkeye]

Nice write up!  I have been running a very similar build with great success over the past couple weeks in wvwvw.  It isn't unusual to go into a 5v1 encounter and be alive as 2 or 3 enemies flee.

Nicely done.

[Brand]

MacG, on 09 November 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:

I like it. It seems a good balance between survivability, support, and damage. One question -- wouldn't it be easier to use Water runes instead of Monk, since you can only get Monk from AC tokens? (Fire, Water, Strength instead of Fire, Monk, Strength.) If the wiki is right it should be the same.

The build now requires 2x Runes of Water, 2x Runes of Fire, and 2x Runes of the Monk.
2x Runes of Fire can be substituted with 2x Runes of Strength, or 2x Runes of Hoelbrak.

Oinkeye, on 09 November 2012 - 07:56 PM, said:

Nice write up!  I have been running a very similar build with great success over the past couple weeks in wvwvw.  It isn't unusual to go into a 5v1 encounter and be alive as 2 or 3 enemies flee.

Nicely done.

How close exactly?
You basically need everything in here to stay the same or it won't work as good, everything is very crucial to this build. So I'm just curious about your build, how it works, and maybe even if there is any room for it to improve!

This build is for PvE/Dungeons, I haven't tested it in PvP.
Glad you liked the build!

Edited by Brand, 17 November 2012 - 12:06 PM.

[Zurieal]

Will deff try this out. I've been looking for something a little more supportive than my current build and this looks like it.

Tried 1h sw and horn/shouts, was very useful, but damage was to gimped. Tried a hammer build for support still to gimped on dps.

Hope this hits the spot!

Thanks in advance eitherway.

[Brand]

Cool, always looking for more people to use it!

Edited by Brand, 17 November 2012 - 12:04 PM.

[Brand]

Also, does everyone like the name of it?

Personally I think that title is awesome as it is a reference to a Sonic boom, because we are using Shouts (Sound, Speed of Sound, the animation looks sort of like a Sonic boom or sound wave), and Boon because of the boon support and duration the build provides. Sonic boom may also refer to the Rifle as the secondary weapon (Boom!), or the speed at which the Greatsword is swung.

Is it something you would say? Like, "Yeah man, I'm running Sonic Boon (Or SB) currently, great build!" I'm hoping people think it is clever and fun, like the build is ^^

If you don't like it, and/or you have a different suggestion, please voice it! (Aha, get it.. Voice.. Shouts... Yeah I'll be here all night...)

Edited by Brand, 10 November 2012 - 02:16 AM.

[KrayZ33]

Im not sure about this, but on terms on what stats are "worth" wouldn't it be more clever to use exq. ruby orbs instead of the cleric ones and choose different equipment accordingly?

I'd have to check but if I compare the stats of a knights greatsword with that of a berserker's then each % crit damage is worth ~14-15 stat points

If I apply this on jewelry then exq.ruby orbs would give 25/15/45, while others only offer 15/15/25(?) worth of stats

you could change your runes to water/monk and that other rune which offers boon duration to get the healing power back... and on top of it. all of your boons would last longer and not just your might stacks, thus supporting your team even further

Edited by KrayZ33, 10 November 2012 - 04:37 AM.

[RyuuAkari]

Just of curiosity.. what are the attributes on the great sword?

[KotCR]

Very similiar to what I was already using on my Warrior; Although I was planning to edge more on the support side ultimately with offense taking the wayside a little and ultimately most done through additional conditions caused by Crits.

Also similiar to what my Guardian does too; Stacking Might on crits with plenty of Shout Support. Crits + Might always helps bridge any offensive shortcomings a more supportive build may have.

It is nice to see an optimized version of it though. Nice writeup.

[SpelignErrir]

Looks pretty sexy. I'll try this out.

[Matsy]

Been running this basically since release, works really well for all situations ^^

[MacG]

KrayZ33, on 10 November 2012 - 04:32 AM, said:

Im not sure about this, but on terms on what stats are "worth" wouldn't it be more clever to use exq. ruby orbs instead of the cleric ones and choose different equipment accordingly?

I'd have to check but if I compare the stats of a knights greatsword with that of a berserker's then each % crit damage is worth ~14-15 stat points

If I apply this on jewelry then exq.ruby orbs would give 25/15/45, while others only offer 15/15/25(?) worth of stats

you could change your runes to water/monk and that other rune which offers boon duration to get the healing power back... and on top of it. all of your boons would last longer and not just your might stacks, thus supporting your team even further

I don't follow. Are you saying run Beserker weapons and Ruby orbs with Beserker trinkets? Also, what changes to runes? Thanks in advance for clarification.

[Brand]

RyuuAkari, on 10 November 2012 - 02:42 PM, said:

Just of curiosity.. what are the attributes on the great sword?

Berserker's Greatsword for Power/Precision/Prowess, as detailed in the spreadsheet.

KotCR, on 10 November 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

Very similiar to what I was already using on my Warrior; Although I was planning to edge more on the support side ultimately with offense taking the wayside a little and ultimately most done through additional conditions caused by Crits.

Also similiar to what my Guardian does too; Stacking Might on crits with plenty of Shout Support. Crits + Might always helps bridge any offensive shortcomings a more supportive build may have.

It is nice to see an optimized version of it though. Nice writeup.

I feel that conditions are harder to control, mostly due to you needing condition damage and duration, you don't need "Boon damage". However, with this build you get powerful 4 second bleeds on critical hits.

I agree though, it fills in the offensive gap nicely.

Thanks for reading and I'm glad you liked it

SpelignErrir, on 10 November 2012 - 04:23 PM, said:

Looks pretty sexy. I'll try this out.

Nice! Always looking for more to try it out ^^ Hope it works for you!

Matsy, on 10 November 2012 - 05:13 PM, said:

Been running this basically since release, works really well for all situations ^^

I think so as well ^^ Glad you're a supporter, we need more people running support builds.

MacG, on 10 November 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

I don't follow. Are you saying run Beserker weapons and Ruby orbs with Beserker trinkets? Also, what changes to runes? Thanks in advance for clarification.

He was offering another way to do the gems/runes in a way that is beneficial.

Edited by Brand, 20 February 2013 - 09:03 PM.

[Ernest1337]

KrayZ33, on 10 November 2012 - 04:32 AM, said:

Im not sure about this, but on terms on what stats are "worth" wouldn't it be more clever to use exq. ruby orbs instead of the cleric ones and choose different equipment accordingly?

I'd have to check but if I compare the stats of a knights greatsword with that of a berserker's then each % crit damage is worth ~14-15 stat points

If I apply this on jewelry then exq.ruby orbs would give 25/15/45, while others only offer 15/15/25(?) worth of stats

you could change your runes to water/monk and that other rune which offers boon duration to get the healing power back... and on top of it. all of your boons would last longer and not just your might stacks, thus supporting your team even further

I don't think there's another rune that offers boon duration besides water/monk unless you're willing to go for major rune of Sanctuary with only 10% boon duration. I'm running water/monk/haelbrok and it's doing good.

TS, this is an amazing build, was running a similar build but you put the finishing touches to it. I run with zerker jewels tho. Does anyone have a variant for WvW? I'm working on one but it does not seem to be doing quite well

[KrayZ33]

true, I thought there was another set of superior runes for it, but I didn't even know that the +%might duration applies to me AND my allies alike

I thought only boon duration would affect my buffs on other party members....given our nature of having tons of might buffs for the group we could always keep +%might duration runes instead of +%boon duration ones.

a few weeks ago I read about a longbow/shout build on this forum and now I'm starting to see how great that build could work with these runes.

Bow Fire Field -> at least 2 stacks of FGJ -> Elite banner blast finisher + its own stacks of might -> use Bow's 3 on field -> pick up flag and do 5 blast finisher

you can buff your group with ~23 stacks of might for over a minute long and around 15 stacks forever, do sick shout heals (2k ones because you can go full HP) and still do more damage than most, if not all full-supporters.

you can either go full power OR condition damage because burn scales wonderfully with condition damage and bows 3 scales greatly with power

still, the damage should be lower than what this one here can offer.

Edited by KrayZ33, 11 November 2012 - 10:11 AM.

[Sithicus Dias]

KrayZ33, on 10 November 2012 - 04:32 AM, said:

you could change your runes to water/monk and that other rune which offers boon duration to get the healing power back... and on top of it. all of your boons would last longer and not just your might stacks, thus supporting your team even further

Are you certain that your own Boon duration affects your allies? I'm pretty sure it does not. I remember using "Charge!" on allies before now, and their buff expired several seconds before my own. As such, the true nature of boon duration should be considered when judging if it is actually a worthwhile support mechanism for your team.

[KrayZ33]

im 100% sure, just tested it 3 seconds after reading your comment

Edited by KrayZ33, 11 November 2012 - 06:24 PM.

[Shadowfront]

Has there been any headway on what rings/earrings/amulet to wear with this build along with what weapons and runes to equip to best maximize stats and support boons?

Right now I am leaning toward wearing all Knight's armor, coupled with a berserker greatsword and berserker rifle along with all berserker trinkets.  I will augment the loss of healing with monk and water runes coupled with a hoelbrak rune for the might duration.  Does this sound about right?

I am pretty confused on how exactly stats stack and interact with each other in GW2 so am basing my setup on what I have been able to glean from the above posts.  One thing that has me confused though is KrayZ33 mentions exquisite ruby orbs but I have no idea what those are.  Is he referring to exquisite ruby jewels (i.e. Ruby Orichalcum Earrings/Rings/Amulet of the Berserker)?

Edited by Shadowfront, 11 November 2012 - 06:30 PM.

[KrayZ33]

yes i am

there is a sheet out there that shows that on some item slots +% crit damage is more "effective" than on other, keep in mind that you can only gain a certain amount of stats from equipment..

for example:  berserker's greatsword will give you 9% crit a knight's greatsword will give you 128(?) toughness

128/9 = 14,2

meaning that 1 % crit damage "consumes" what could have been 14 points of toughness

now look at the exq. jewels

berserker's = 25 power 15 prec. 3% crit damage  -> 40 stats 3% crit damage
knight's = 15 power 15 prec. 25 toughness -> 55 stats

prec/power/condition/healing power etc. etc. are "equal", a greatsword of any kind will always have something like 178a 128b 128c unless it features magic find or Critical damage

so we can compare the jewels like this:

55-40 = 15

15/3 (crit damage)  = 5

each % crit damage will only take up 5 stats worth of toughness (or any other stat)


so imagine you are in full knight's equioment and now you want to get some +% crit damage keep in mind that its far more effective to change your exq. jewels instead of changing your greatsword for example

Edited by KrayZ33, 11 November 2012 - 06:43 PM.

[Shadowfront]

Thank you very much for the clarification, KrayZ33.  I'll admit that the stats stuff is still a little over my head but I'm sure I can find some threads on the topic.

Back to the point at hand and just to clarify your original post, are you hinting at wearing Sapphire Orichalcum Rings/Earrings/Amulet of the Cleric but swapping out the exquisite sapphire jewels with exquisite ruby jewels?  I'll admit I have never really considered swapping out just the jewel part before because I always thought that changed everything about the trinket, but it makes sense that it would only affect the jewel part.

Edited by Shadowfront, 11 November 2012 - 08:59 PM.

[KrayZ33]

if you feel too tanky/supportive and want to boost your damage, then yes change the jewels before you change anything else

[ramwee]

Hi nice build up there, I would like to ask,  if I would insist of using 6 runes of soldier would it work out fine?

[Dirk Hardpeck]

ramwee, on 12 November 2012 - 12:34 AM, said:

Hi nice build up there, I would like to ask,  if I would insist of using 6 runes of soldier would it work out fine?

I have been running with these same traits and weapons for some time now, with clerics armor and runes of the soldier, and berserkers jewelry. It is certainly an enjoyable and viable build set up this way.

That being said, the thing that really makes this particular iteration so interesting is the rune choice. I have no problem keeping pretty high might stacks during large wvw battles, stacking the extra defense from soldier runes is very useful there, and having a good bit of +healing is multiplicative when healng an entire zerg. But in small battles and PvE, this build will easily ourclass it by virtue of those boon duration runes. I am personally going to pick up the runes and a knights set tonight to try this out.

So yes, no reason you can't run soldiers, it would be a more traditional setup in fact. But the damage potential that this version of the classic gsword/shout build can give without sacrificing much healing or survivability is *very* interesting and worth your consideration.

[Brand]

Sithicus Dias, on 11 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

Are you certain that your own Boon duration affects your allies? I'm pretty sure it does not. I remember using "Charge!" on allies before now, and their buff expired several seconds before my own. As such, the true nature of boon duration should be considered when judging if it is actually a worthwhile support mechanism for your team.

The Boon duration that you have does indeed affect Boons that you put on your allies.

Edited by Brand, 17 November 2012 - 11:50 AM.

[Brand]

Gems and Runes that KrayZ33 suggested have been implemented. Credit to him.

Edited by Brand, 17 November 2012 - 11:47 AM.

[ramwee]

I found it in the skill calculator regarding to my questions
-edit-

Edited by ramwee, 12 November 2012 - 03:33 AM.

[Shadowfront]

I'm sure I will sound like a noob, but your spreadsheet shows 6 ruby gems.  Where does the sixth one go?  2x rings, 2x accessories, and 1x amulet is only five and I am unable to place a jewel in the back slot.

[Lucav]

You can place a gem in your back slot corresponding to the level of the item, the low level back piece can only accept level 1 gems, the higher level back pieces from the guild vendor or the personal story can accept the higher level gems.