41 replies to this topic

[GuanglaiKangyi]

EDIT: Build is massively outdated. Don't use it.  Superior replacement build here.

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 21 February 2013 - 08:27 AM.

[Gilles VI]

Oh almighty GuanglaiKangyi thanks for posting this best build ever!

/bow

[Scizzor]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 08 January 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

-snip

Awesome post! I have different runes so I will try those ones. So is Mace > Hammer? I always thought protection would be better for survival than just the healing from mace.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Scizzor, on 08 January 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

Awesome post! I have different runes so I will try those ones. So is Mace > Hammer? I always thought protection would be better for survival than just the healing from mace.

You can use hammer as your main but mace is better for weapon swapping.  Hammer symbol has substantial lead-in to the protection boon so it won't be much help in an emergency.

[lmaonade]

Question: How do you reach 96% critical damage? D:

I have full Berserker's everything and only get 90% crit damage (backpiece has 3% and runes have none)

Edit: Oh wait just remembered ascended stuff, 2% extra on back, ring 1, and ring 2 would definitely put you at 96%

Edited by lmaonade, 09 January 2013 - 10:21 AM.

[Starmage]

Q: Would 0/0/30/30/10 be viable too?

I want the consecration & spirit weapon traits, think it helps in certain dungeon encounters. And the minor triat improvement in virtues are quite good too,

Do you think its worthwhile to loss 10% damage when buruning? Not sure of overall chance for burning, I think it depends on group combination,

Edited by Starmage, 10 January 2013 - 07:20 AM.

[Evans]

Can I ask a probably stupid question?

Retributive armor gives 5% of toughness as a bonus to precision right? As I see your weapon and jewel choices, I understand that you have 300 toughness from traits alone. That makes 15 precision added by this trait.

Do I get this right or is there something I'm missing? 15 precision doesn't seem worth the trait slot to me... =/
Why is this trait a must have?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Evans, on 10 January 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

Can I ask a probably stupid question?

Retributive armor gives 5% of toughness as a bonus to precision right? As I see your weapon and jewel choices, I understand that you have 300 toughness from traits alone. That makes 15 precision added by this trait.

Do I get this right or is there something I'm missing? 15 precision doesn't seem worth the trait slot to me... =/
Why is this trait a must have?

You have a base 916 toughness.  You get about 60 precision which is about 3% crit rate.

Starmage, on 10 January 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

Q: Would 0/0/30/30/10 be viable too?

I want the consecration & spirit weapon traits, think it helps in certain dungeon encounters. And the minor triat improvement in virtues are quite good too,

Do you think its worthwhile to loss 10% damage when buruning? Not sure of overall chance for burning, I think it depends on group combination,

The 10% from burning, 5% from power, and the extra Symbol of Wrath add a ton of damage.  Incidentally, Zealot's Speed doesn't always actually have to be at 25% to trigger, I've seen it proc when I'm still at 50%.  It's a weird trait.

And yeah, you can go 10 into Virtues instead but I like power better.  The spirit weapons trait isn't that good, it's only +10% uptime on Sword of Justice.  The consecrations one is okay but you don't always have a use for Wall of Reflection, while you always have a use for killing things deader faster.

[Evans]

Thank you, that's very good to know!

[lmaonade]

another question:

how would you decide between pure of voice and 2 handed mastery if you were both main boon support AND main damage dealer in a party? >_>

I built my character for support and stuck all berserker's gear on, but I find myself dealing more damage than most people I party with anyway, so I'm not sure which would be better for my situation...

mainly run GS/Staff

Edited by lmaonade, 10 January 2013 - 10:01 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

I only use Pure of Voice if it's a boss where scepter will be my primary damage output and I know there's a lot of conditions coming my way.  Volcano Fractals boss is one example.

I should also note that Writ of Persistence and Two-Handed Mastery actually give the same overall damage output on GS.  I would use the former if your offhand is mace, and the latter if it is staff.  Otherwise I would recommend you use Persistence if it's a tossup since Persistence also affects your downed symbol and the symbol from Zealot's Speed.

[Mack88]

Is it possible to work the staff into this build?

[Evans]

How much of a crime is it to have a full armor set of healing power, precision and vitality? I don't fancy buying another set again =/
Supplemented by berserker jewels and weapons, is it still acceptable?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Mack88, on 11 January 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

Is it possible to work the staff into this build?

Sure.  Use it as your alternate weapon.  I recommend you "buffer" your swap for when you won't be doing damage otherwise (when you are kiting away from some boss's PBAoE, running between two mobs that are far apart, etc.) then start throwing orbs and symbol.  Wait until you're about 5s away from the weapon swap CD to use Empower, then throw one last orb and detonate it.  You'll get moderate ranged damage and the might stack from Empower will carry back over to your GS.

Evans, on 11 January 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

How much of a crime is it to have a full armor set of healing power, precision and vitality? I don't fancy buying another set again =/
Supplemented by berserker jewels and weapons, is it still acceptable?

Armor constitutes about 30% of your total stats from gear.  Losing that much power and crit damage is far from optimal but you can maybe get away with it in most content.  If your accessories are Magi as well though I honestly wouldn't even bother trying to build for DPS.  It's just not going to happen since your power will be so low.

[Evans]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 16 January 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

Armor constitutes about 30% of your total stats from gear.  Losing that much power and crit damage is far from optimal but you can maybe get away with it in most content.  If your accessories are Magi as well though I honestly wouldn't even bother trying to build for DPS.  It's just not going to happen since your power will be so low.

I have berserker weapons, jewels and backpiece on it. I understand it's not optimal, but it's already a huge improvement over what I used to have.

[jthamind]

does a shield always go with a mace for a Guardian? at least for this build. sorry if this is a dumb question, but i don't have a Guardian yet so idk much about how they work.

[indure]

jthamind, on 16 January 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

does a shield always go with a mace for a Guardian? at least for this build. sorry if this is a dumb question, but i don't have a Guardian yet so idk much about how they work.

Assuming your GS is your Damage and your mace is your defensive set, then it should be paired with either the shield or the focus. Either would work and is largely based on which defensive tools you find more helpful. Many people think the shield is slightly better at PVP due to the knockback, while the focus is better at personal survivability since it can block 3 attacks.

[Mr_Tights]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 08 January 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

Gear: Full Berserker.  Self-explanatory.  Put Strength sigils on everything, Accuracy if offhand.
Runes: 2x Superior Monk, 2x Superior Water, 2x Major Sanctuary.  This gives you +40% boon duration, probably the best buff you will get from any rune combination in general.

First of all thanks--been looking to dust my Guardian off but...
What are these runes you speak of? Monk? Sanctuary is a sigil and goes not on armor but weapons no?
Everything else seems straight-forward

cheers

[SirGamesalot]

Really good build, but I am starting to get a bit tired of all the altruistic healing builds! It has/is starting to become a cookie cutter build.

The build itself is solid though.

[jthamind]

Mr_Tights, on 16 January 2013 - 06:55 PM, said:

First of all thanks--been looking to dust my Guardian off but...
What are these runes you speak of? Monk? Sanctuary is a sigil and goes not on armor but weapons no?
Everything else seems straight-forward

cheers

Sanctuary is a rune that adds vitality, frozen duration, and chances to gain stability and retaliation. Monk adds mostly healing and boon duration. i forget what the procs are.

[G L J]

Mr_Tights, on 16 January 2013 - 06:55 PM, said:

First of all thanks--been looking to dust my Guardian off but...
What are these runes you speak of? Monk? Sanctuary is a sigil and goes not on armor but weapons no?
Everything else seems straight-forward

cheers

http://wiki.guildwar...une_of_the_Monk
http://wiki.guildwar...ne_of_Sanctuary

Both are dungeon runes, which means that you cannot purchase them from the trading post.

I personally use 2x Monk, 2x Water, 2x Dwayna as it gives 30% generic boon duration and 50% regeneration duration.

~~~

also, on certain Fractals, I highly recommend using a combination of Wall of Reflection, Sanctuary, and/or Shield of the Avenger. Blocking projectiles from the harpies in Uncategorized or the Sons of Svanir in Snowblind gains more importance as you go deeper.

Edited by G L J, 17 January 2013 - 01:37 AM.

[KaptainO]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 08 January 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

- Use Tome of Wrath as your elite.  The party buffs are even better than Warbanner or Timewarp and on a shorter cooldown to boot.  Otherwise, use Renewed Focus if the party is going to be really spread out or you don't think you'll be able to survive through a tome activation.

I have almost no experience with the Tomes, I avoided them while levelling and my complete unfamiliarity with them mean when I try to use them now I end up having to mouseover the skills to see what they do!

Can you "show your working" so to speak on how Tome of Wrath is better than timewarp? and how much it increases group dps?

Thanks!

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Tome of Wrath:

Your "rotation" on Tome of Wrath should be:

Zealot's Fervor > Smiter's Boon > Affliction > Conflagrate > Judgment > Affliction > Smiter's Boon > Conflagrate > Affliction > Smiter's Boon > Affliction > Zealot's Fervor.

Affliction and Conflagrate deal about 600 base each, and Judgment deals 2k.  In terms of raw damage output, you are dealing 5.6k total base damage over 20 seconds.  Add in crits, might, and fury and divide by time spent and you get about 732 damage/sec overall.  This is almost a 75% loss in damage, but this is offset by the fact that the last two Smiter's Boons and Zealot's Fervor will carry back over to your main weapon as well.  You get 3 seconds of quickness, 10 stacks of might for about 10 seconds on average, and fury for 14 seconds.  This results in about a 50% average damage boost over 14 seconds.  This means that in actuality you only lose about 25% DPS over the entire 34 seconds.  Meanwhile, the boost in damage to your entire party should be obvious, basically being your 50% damage boost over 34 seconds.  This means that the Tome, in total, will add a total party damage equal to about 60 time its usual damage per second.

By comparison, Time Warp gives a flat 10 seconds of quickness (4 more than Tome) to the entire party, without a personal DPS loss, but does not stack might or fury, so it gives a 200% (which is generous since quickness doesn't affect CD) damage boost over 10 seconds.  This is about 50x your party's base damage per second.

Depending on your party composition the latter may be better worth it (particularly if you are already capping might and permafury) or if you constitute so much of your party's damage that your personal 25% loss actually results in a net loss of damage (I've actually had this happen in some particularly bad groups), Tome will give a better overall damage boost, and on a shorter cooldown.

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 17 January 2013 - 09:50 PM.

[KaptainO]

Thanks for that explanation, I'll have to consider it.  It sounds like it might require your boon duration rune setup to be worth it (is that right?)and I'm not currently setup that way.  I'm going to crunch some numbers to try to quantify the boon duration runes effect on my "regular damage" and may end up switching, if I do I'll also consider working Tome of Wrath in.

Right now I have a Knights, Berserker and Cleric set of armour.  I primarily use the Knights set with soldier runes and sometimes use Berserker but that has 5 Ranger 1 Lyssa on it currently.  I almost never use my Clerics (that has the boon duration runes on it) and kinda wish I never crafted it (or at least never equipped it!).

It seems that trait-wise you're the same as other AH builds except while everyone else switched from 10 radiance (for the -20% cd to healign signet) to 10 Virtues for better Consecrations or Shield of the Avenger in Fractals you've put 10 in Zeal for Power and +10% damage?

How do you feel not having the trait spot to support Wall of Reflection/SotA has hindered you?  They seem to be an important piece Guardians bring to Fractals.

Thanks for your insight!


EDIT:  Also, what Heal do you use?

Edited by KaptainO, 17 January 2013 - 08:51 PM.

[Flour]

Quote

Gear: Full Berserker.  Self-explanatory.  Put Strength sigils on everything, Accuracy if offhand.
Runes: 2x Superior Monk, 2x Superior Water, 2x Major Sanctuary.  This gives you +40% boon duration, probably the best buff you will get from any rune combination in general.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask, since it's not that self-explanatory to me. I've been away for some time from the game now.
But do you mean every little single gear piece should be Berserker stats? Gear, Weps, Rings, Jewelry etc?

[TastySlop]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 17 January 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

Tome of Wrath:
<snip>

What happened to "if you are playing support you are probably a bad player" and "support is useless"? The party should be able to get all of these buffs (except quickness) without a player gimping their DPS by 75%.

[Erein]

Nice post,
Was wondering if you had any experience with this build in higher lvl fractals (20+) and what do you think of kinght's armor instead of berserker's?

[tinywolves]

Hello could you please post your stats, would really like to see numbers.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

To be honest I don't think this build is really viable anymore.  I'm looking into alternatives now.  I think I've got something but I'd like to test it a bit more first.

[heatrr]

Actually, for a dungeon build, this is pretty self-explanatory....