226 replies to this topic

[GuanglaiKangyi]

HunterGuy2, on 06 April 2013 - 01:30 AM, said:

"It's alot cleaner, especially in fractals and certain bosses to have an anchor character which relieves pressure from the other classes to focus on dps while "anchoring" silver groups and bosses so they don't move around"

+1. From what I've seen, lacking said "anchor" role can cause all sorts of pain, even just for burning groups of trash. E.g. a grouped pile of mobs suddenly decides to focus on one DPSer, and one-shots them. Or they escape with a sliver of life, and run around scattering mobs behind them.

If a particular run is most efficiently done with a 5 DPS group (I have not seen many of these), then obviously having a Strife guard is a waste of DPS. If you need a tank for anything, Strife's build is as good as any for that specific purpose. I would argue that if you wanted just one group composition to run everything, having one member with lower DPS ("GK=50% more" -> "Strife=66% of max potential", which is still decent) is less of a tradeoff than missing an anchor when you actually want one.

Anchors aren't necessary if your party is competent.  They're not necessary if your party is incompetent, either, so either way you're just giving up DPS for no discernable benefit.

Plus, "anchoring" doesn't actually make any appreciable difference.  It just feels like you're taking more aggro because you're actively trying to get hit, but it's not like the mobs are actually targeting you any more than usual.  In my experience, 95% of aggro is determined by a combination of DPS and being in melee, which means the melee warriors/guardians will always take the most heat, while the guys in back take less.  Toughness and vitality only really help if the other factors are otherwise equal.  If you're actively giving up DPS for more toughness, odds are you will actually pull less aggro, not more.

[HunterGuy2]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 06 April 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

Anchors aren't necessary if your party is competent.  They're not necessary if your party is incompetent, either, so either way you're just giving up DPS for no discernable benefit.

Plus, "anchoring" doesn't actually make any appreciable difference.  It just feels like you're taking more aggro because you're actively trying to get hit, but it's not like the mobs are actually targeting you any more than usual.  In my experience, 95% of aggro is determined by a combination of DPS and being in melee, which means the melee warriors/guardians will always take the most heat, while the guys in back take less.  Toughness and vitality only really help if the other factors are otherwise equal.  If you're actively giving up DPS for more toughness, odds are you will actually pull less aggro, not more.

Hmm, what you say about aggro makes some sense - I've had bosses run after my mesmer and completely ignore a fully tank-spec'd guardian. On the other hand, I've also had Lupi run after a PVT warrior to the exclusion of all else. I wonder if it's about the power stat and not actual DPS.

[Nespinha]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 06 April 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

Anchors aren't necessary if your party is competent.  They're not necessary if your party is incompetent, either, so either way you're just giving up DPS for no discernable benefit.

Plus, "anchoring" doesn't actually make any appreciable difference.  It just feels like you're taking more aggro because you're actively trying to get hit, but it's not like the mobs are actually targeting you any more than usual.  In my experience, 95% of aggro is determined by a combination of DPS and being in melee, which means the melee warriors/guardians will always take the most heat, while the guys in back take less.  Toughness and vitality only really help if the other factors are otherwise equal.  If you're actively giving up DPS for more toughness, odds are you will actually pull less aggro, not more.

I get the point where complete anchors are unnecessary. But total glass cannons are useless if youre not playing in an organized group. For players that play in random parties, I think that there has to be an equilibrium between glass cannon and tank/anchor guardian. You can´t be too DPS if you can't if even take a simple atack, but also a tank that hits like paper is useless.

What do you think is the inferior limit of toughness and vitality a tank guardian (full melle player) shoud have?

Edited by Nespinha, 09 April 2013 - 08:16 PM.

[KennoArkkan]

I gotta say, this build meets it's objective wonderfully. You absolutely butt* every mob that stands your way D: I tested it on CoF path 1 and 2 with pugs from gw2lfg.com, and except for a couple of downed times caused merely cuz I dived head-first to a couple silvers out of excitement, it did wonderfully. Couple with another guardian or another warrior, and you should be putting 20+ stacks of might to the whole party.

You just gotta be careful of your hp, and to choice either range or melee when it's right, but you should know that already.

I wonder, could using chocolate omnomberry creams (+20% boon duration) would give any important might increment ?? maybe 2 or 3 more stacks?

[Saiph]

Would it be a terrible idea to ditch right-hand strength for elusive power? I understand that elusive power won't always be active but it bothers me a bit that right hand strength doesn't do anything when I'm wielding gs/staff/hammer.Would the loss of crit procs be very noticeable?  I mostly only use my guardian for fractals. My playgroup is at lvl 25 atm but we hope to do 30+ soon.

Edited by Saiph, 10 April 2013 - 02:26 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Nespinha, on 09 April 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

I get the point where complete anchors are unnecessary. But total glass cannons are useless if youre not playing in an organized group. For players that play in random parties, I think that there has to be an equilibrium between glass cannon and tank/anchor guardian. You can´t be too DPS if you can't if even take a simple atack, but also a tank that hits like paper is useless.

What do you think is the inferior limit of toughness and vitality a tank guardian (full melle player) shoud have?

Whatever makes you not die.  If you can't survive with this build, then don't run it.  I do fine with it.  Not everyone does.  That's fair.  Run AH or something if you don't think you're ready to go full glass.

Saiph, on 10 April 2013 - 02:23 AM, said:

Would it be a terrible idea to ditch right-hand strength for elusive power? I understand that elusive power won't always be active but it bothers me a bit that right hand strength doesn't do anything when I'm wielding gs/staff/hammer.Would the loss of crit procs be very noticeable?  I mostly only use my guardian for fractals. My playgroup is at lvl 25 atm but we hope to do 30+ soon.

Elusive Power is virtually worthless.  If you want to use a GS, take the points out of Valor and put them into Zeal instead for Greatsword Power.

[Nespinha]

What are your overall stats with this build? The output damage is enourmous gotta agree with you, but i'm kind of curious the see your Toughness and Vitality stats (only 11615 hp in the video)

[lellyville]

if you go the +boon duration rune route, does that mean you have to go sigil of strength?

What other rune choices are there besides the %boon and eagle?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Nespinha, on 13 April 2013 - 07:35 PM, said:

What are your overall stats with this build? The output damage is enourmous gotta agree with you, but i'm kind of curious the see your Toughness and Vitality stats (only 11615 hp in the video)

Should just be whatever you have at base plus whatever you get from traits.  It is full zerker gear, after all.  You should have +100 toughness from Valor, +63 defense from shield, and +200 vitality.

lellyville, on 15 April 2013 - 03:12 AM, said:

if you go the +boon duration rune route, does that mean you have to go sigil of strength?

What other rune choices are there besides the %boon and eagle?

You can go with Ruby Orbs as well, I just like Eagle Runes.  Scholar runes are also a possibility.

[process.execution]

Ok, since the recent signet buffs, I've switched to Bane Signet for that tasty extra 180 power. However I was a bit undecided as to which utility (out of SY!, SYG! and SoJ) I should give up for it. At first I swapped out SY! because I generally use that for the Fury buff and I figured Bane Signet was fulfilling the same role. But I've since starting considering swapping out SoJ instead.

As awesome as SoJ is, I think that SY! might provide just as good defense (not to mention the offensive goodness!). In the build I run, SY! gives me 14s of protection on a 48s cooldown, which is 29% uptime and equates to 9.6% damage reduction overall. When you factor in the 14s of regen it also provides, it seems to me that SY! actually provides better defensive measures than SoJ, especially if you use it selectively i.e. when you're about to receive a pounding.

GK, can you run your mad math skillz over this and let me know what you think?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

process.execution, on 03 May 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

Ok, since the recent signet buffs, I've switched to Bane Signet for that tasty extra 180 power. However I was a bit undecided as to which utility (out of SY!, SYG! and SoJ) I should give up for it. At first I swapped out SY! because I generally use that for the Fury buff and I figured Bane Signet was fulfilling the same role. But I've since starting considering swapping out SoJ instead.

As awesome as SoJ is, I think that SY! might provide just as good defense (not to mention the offensive goodness!). In the build I run, SY! gives me 14s of protection on a 48s cooldown, which is 29% uptime and equates to 9.6% damage reduction overall. When you factor in the 14s of regen it also provides, it seems to me that SY! actually provides better defensive measures than SoJ, especially if you use it selectively i.e. when you're about to receive a pounding.

GK, can you run your mad math skillz over this and let me know what you think?

There's no real math to do.  The protection boon may or may not be better than the flat 10% reduction depending on what offhand you're using, whether anyone is giving protection, and what kind of attacks are hitting you.  Similarly, the extra damage you get from SY may or not be useful depending on whether you're already getting fury or not.

My genera inclination is to stick with SoJ, just because if you see something worth popping SoJ for, you could probably just dodge out of the way instead.  By comparison, SoJ will protect you from everything, whether you saw it coming or not.

[Niekjuh]

I'm running a 20 0 30 20 0 build right now.
It works pretty good, survivability is high and the dmg also.

Zeal: II and VII (10% more dmg against burning foes and 5% GS dmg)
Valor: VI, V and XI (retributive armor, purity and AH)
Honor: II, IX (superior aura and 2h mastery)

Combined with greatsword and staff (for might).

I use bersekers or full knight gear, depends on the situation.
Sup sigil of strength on the GS, hydromancy on the staff.

What do you guys think about this build?

Runned 10 30 30 0 0 build before with sword/focus, before that 0 0 30 30 10 with GS, but untill now this works the best for me.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Niekjuh, on 21 May 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

I'm running a 20 0 30 20 0 build right now.
It works pretty good, survivability is high and the dmg also.

Zeal: II and VII (10% more dmg against burning foes and 5% GS dmg)
Valor: VI, V and XI (retributive armor, purity and AH)
Honor: II, IX (superior aura and 2h mastery)

Combined with greatsword and staff (for might).

I use bersekers or full knight gear, depends on the situation.
Sup sigil of strength on the GS, hydromancy on the staff.

What do you guys think about this build?

Runned 10 30 30 0 0 build before with sword/focus, before that 0 0 30 30 10 with GS, but untill now this works the best for me.

Your damage will be too low.  It defeats the point of running a DPS spec on guardian.  Might as well just go full tank if you're going to take AH.

[Niekjuh]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 21 May 2013 - 08:38 PM, said:

Your damage will be too low.  It defeats the point of running a DPS spec on guardian.  Might as well just go full tank if you're going to take AH.

I might try your AH tank spec then, cuz I also need some single target high dmg for some dungeons, like CoF when there is no warrior to shut down the gate controller.

Edited by Niekjuh, 21 May 2013 - 08:43 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Niekjuh, on 21 May 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

I might try your AH tank spec then, cuz I also need some single target high dmg for some dungeons, like CoF when there is no warrior to shut down the gate controller.

I don't think I ever posted any such thing.  You may be confusing me with someone else who posted a tank spec.

[Niekjuh]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 22 May 2013 - 12:06 AM, said:

I don't think I ever posted any such thing.  You may be confusing me with someone else who posted a tank spec.

Sorry I made a mistake in that post, I was thinking about the hammer PVE build.
But I tried this build (in this topic) again yesterday and I must say it works a lot better then the last time I used it, maybe I'm a better player now and CAN handle it

Only thing is that without food you get to less healing, omnom is pretty expensive so I switched to mango pies.

[War Siren]

Looking for a new spec for my guardian, (AH Hammer is boring the hell out of me.) however I guess you can call it lazy, but I hate respecing for WvW and Dungeons. How does this Build hold up I'm WvW? Has anyone tried it?