19 replies to this topic

[Arn]

Hello guys!
After much consideration, I decided to write this guide and subject it to evaluation regarding the build. From the start, I'll tell you: I've read several guides from several people and this is probably the bastard son of several different sources of information. This is mainly a PVE guide, as my current interest ingame circulates around fractals and dungeons.
This is my first guide so, be gentle!

Before the flame wars eat the build alive, I need to make one thing very clear: This is what works for me and my playstyle. I have tried several different builds, several different weapons, several different sets of equipment and this is what worked the best for ME. Maybe it will work for you? I don't assume to know all.

Cond Removal
Downright not functional for WvW

Let's look at the pros and cons of the build:

Pros:
Great damage output
Mobility
Control (which has to be worked around the Mobility issue)
Survivability
Offensive support

Cons:
Low burst damage
[Requires a certain rotation to work properly]

The traits picked for this build follow the logic: Hitting often, hitting hard, buffing allies while keeping yourself alive to hit once again. Some skills require you to stand in place. So, without much delay, I present to you

Blue Flame Build!






Step 1: The traits
0/30/15/20/5

Explanation:
30 points in Radiance:
-The first 15 points in Radiance are basically self understanding. The blind combo from Justice is Blind + Renewed Justice is just amazing for mob control. You basically have a constant influx of blindness, which reduces incoming damage by a CONSIDERABLE amount.
-Signet Mastery, heals available more often.
-Radiant power : Great synergy with Justice is Blind + Renewed Justice and even greater party synergy.
-30 points in Radiance will also grant you 300 Precision + Cond damage, which we will explore further down.
-Powerful Blades: You'll be using a sword main hand with this build. Powerful blades give you that extra "UNF".
-The next 5 points have a reason! 15 points in Valor will buff your Toughness AND your crit dmg, which are 2 things that this build has in abundance.
-Right Hand Strength: This is what will give that extra edge which makes this build really shine. 15% crit rate on 1h weapons is just downright amazing.

15 Points in Valor:
-The first 10 points are mainly there to unlock Retributive Armor, which will add even more crit rate to the build. The extra 5 are for extra 50 toughness and 5% crit dmg.

20 Points in Honor:

-Some vitality, some healing power, but the key here are these 2: Superior Aria (20% faster shouts) and Empowering Might. Empowering might is downright disturbing and soon you'll understand why.

5 points in Virtues:
-The 5 point minor in Virtues is just too good to ignore, even moreso due to Renewed Justice.

So now you ask: Why these traits? Why not 30 in Valor for more crit dmg and Altruistic Healing? Why not 30 Points in Honor for Pure of Voice or Battle Presence?

Simple: Because, in my case, I already run with another Guardian that runs those traits. Besides, they don't match the build's idea.





The Equipment:
In order to not feel like paper, after running full zerk, half knights half zerk and full knights, I decided on this setup :





Armor:
Head/Chest/Arms : Knight's (Insert name here for exotic)
Legs, Shoulders, Boots: Soldier`s (Insert name here exotic)
Backpack: Soldier or knights, open to personal preference.

Jewelry:
Earrings : 2x Exotic Ruby Beserk
Amulet: Berserk (again, mine is ascended but exotic will work too)
Rings: 1x Knight 1x Berserk (Mine are ascended, but exotics will work too)

Runes: 6x Superior Rune of the Soldier .
Why? Because you'll be using your shouts. A lot. And remember we got Superior Aria? Yeah, that's the good stuff. You'll have 2 passive cond removers and 2-3 ACTIVE cond removers, thanks to the set bonus of the Soldier Rune. Yeah, I went there.





Weapons:
Main Hand - Sword. Now here, you're open to personal preference. Mine has a Knight's Setup. However, You can have a Zerk sword if you feel you can let go of some toughness.
Sigil: Superior Sigil of Strength

Offhand : Torch. Yes, torch. Why? Because it's simply awesome. I'll explain the synergy down there. I use a Zerk torch. But again, all open to personal preference.
Sigil: Superior Sigil of Rage


Same rule applies for the second weapon set, either Knights or Zerk.

Second weapon set:

Scepter/Focus. Why? Full advantage of the build's idea, loads of hits, loads of mobility and a lot of protection for when you just need to go Ranged. Superior
Focus: Sigil of Acuracy / Scepter: Superior Sigil of Perception





With this setup, you should be around 1700 Toughness, roughly 17k hp, 50 - 55% extra crit dmg (200 or 205%), 50% base crit rate and around 3000 power.






Now, this  is where this build really shines:
Lets look at our main hand skills.

Sword of Wrath - Sword Arc - Sword Wave

This is pretty standard auto attack with a very heavy 3 point double damage finisher.


Flashing Blade
Mobility!!!! And some blindness to top it off!


Zealot's Flame -> Zealot's Fire
Burning and a hard hitting ranged attack. Burning everything around you adds some extra damage to those mobs, but that's not the point, we'll get back to this.



Zealot's Defense: This is one of the cake takers. This creates a mini projectile reflection wall and launches 8 projectiles at the target, at mid range.
The high crit rate causes Empowering Might to trigger VERY often.
But, you'll ask, anyones build can crit and trigger that.
Every single one of those projectiles can crit. Every crit is 1 stack of might from Empowering Might (+ Vigor to give you dodge rolls, which heal you btw)


Cleansing Flame:
This.
Is.
AWESOME.
ZOMG WHY DIDN'T I FIND THIS SKILL SOONER?!?!?!!
It hits 10 times. Ten.
EVERY HIT CAN CRIT.
And if it hits allies, it cures conditions.
And you can move while doing it.


Secondary weapon set:

I usually charge up on the 25 stacks of precision with this set, while playing ranged, to empower all the other skills from the main weaponset.  But this set also has defensive skills you can use to stay alive while putting out considerable dmg with the scepter and protecting yourself while buffing allies with the focus.
After I charge 25 stacks, I switch back to the main set (if the situation allows it) to run around 67% crit rate.

So, the rotation:

Start with Flashing Blade

For single target:

Unload Zealots Defense (Pop Virtue of Justice here)
In the middle of Cleansing Flame, open Zealot's Flame
Once Cleansing Flame ends, Throw the Zealot's Fire
Throw Zealot's Fire
Auto Attack 2x
Repeat the process


For groups:
Start with Zealots Defense
Use flashing blade
Unload Cleansing Flame
Pop Virtue of Justice
Pop Zealot's Flame
Auto Attack 2x
Repeat the process


For fractals, I've been running Signet of Judgement, Hold the Line and Stand your ground.


Renewed Focus as an elite skill: I love Renewed focus. It's my "Oh Crap" button, but I only use it right after poping all my 3 virtues, meaning the entire party gets some buffs while I toggle my "Oh crap" button.

Some people like having an extra shout for another cond remover, but I never felt the need for it. Besides, Signet of Judgement`s -10% incoming dmg is really useful in some fights.

At last, but not at least!
This build also contains nearly perma burning, which, due to the Radiance trait line, will tick for nearly 600 damage. And buff your direct damage. And add more dmg. Damage. Daaaamageeee!!!!


Thanks to Lenneth Valkyrborn for the nice looking headlines and images!!!

Edited by Arn, 22 February 2013 - 09:57 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Sure is Blazblue in here.

[zosek]

How can you get 3000 power? I'm using something similar, weapons armor,... and i'm at 2k. Did you mean attack?

Edited by zosek, 23 February 2013 - 01:04 PM.

[Arn]

I'm sorry, attack. I'm at 2.2k power (with buff food).

[Hamosch]

I'm not commenting on the build but, like most ppl, you seem to forget not to use 2 sigils with internal CD becouse they share that CD. Basicly if your sigil of rage procs, both rage and strength will be on CD for 45sec and neither can proc.

[Arn]

The strength sigil was a newer addition to it, but thanks for the heads up. I did notice I had several "either/or" situations.

Edited by Arn, 23 February 2013 - 01:55 PM.

[Kovares]

Internal Cooldowns. They destroy your build. Sorry, but the standard cookie cutter AH build does everything this does and better.

[Thaddeuz]

One comment. PLEASE don't write Great Damage Output. Glass canon have great damage output. You have decent to mediocre damage. On my guardian I have 45% basic critical chances and 80% critical damage and i still consider myself having decent damage not great.

[Placebo]

looks nice on the paper ^^ I should try this soon for a change of the Holy AH Build

anyway, why not full Knight armor ?
can you post a pic of your stats so I can compare to mine and maybe understand better

anyway, thanks for sharing!

[Arn]

I switched a bit from full knights purely due to the sheer lack of HP.

I replaced the strength rune.


Answering to Thaddeuz, I used to run full zerk, as I said up there, with GS and with Sword/Torch. I still have my full zerk equip, 100% pure glass cannon. Sure, I had bigger crits, but if anything turned to me, I went down like a sack of poo. Now, once I get the full rotation out (which is something between 5 to 7 seconds, less if quickness has a proc) I put out something like 18 to 22k dmg all together and I rarely hit the floor so, I'll be doing that same dmg again very soon.  As I said, this is what works for me.

Holy AH has a different outlook and when you compare the damage, this puts out considerably more. I'm not talking outta my ass, I did try several different builds, went way over 100g on gear try outs to fit different builds and have over 300 hours on my guardian.

Edited by Arn, 23 February 2013 - 05:03 PM.

[Arn]

Here, Placebo:





A bit less power atm.

[Thaddeuz]

I didn't say your build was not good or that glass canon was better. I'm just saying about half of the builds on this forum use the words Great Damage. These words don't have any real meaning anymore. Only Glass Canon build have great damage, because they sacrifice all they can in defensive to reach the best damage. How a more defensive build can have more defensive and more offensive at the same time?? Its just a bad choice of word.

[Arn]

What if I said "great damage for the survivability it has?" Better?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

You know Cleansing Flames sucks, right?  Like, really hard.  Sword is the worst thing you could take with it, too, you're losing a ton of DPS since sword auto is so much stronger.  If you want to use a torch, use it with a mace.

[Arn]

Explain to me why exactly does cleansing flame suck .

Just ran a comparison from sword auto vs cleansing flame, just to be sure.

Used an abom from cursed shore, since it's big.

Sword auto :

1.2k, 1k, 3k = 6.2k total dmg

Cleansing flame : 8.2k total dmg.

Edited by Arn, 24 February 2013 - 01:24 PM.

[Zylo]

What food do you eat?

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Arn, on 24 February 2013 - 01:20 PM, said:

Explain to me why exactly does cleansing flame suck .

Just ran a comparison from sword auto vs cleansing flame, just to be sure.

Used an abom from cursed shore, since it's big.

Sword auto :

1.2k, 1k, 3k = 6.2k total dmg

Cleansing flame : 8.2k total dmg.

Cleansing Flame = 1k over 4.5s
Sword chain = 1042 over 2.5s

I think that's pretty obvious.  Your tests are probably screwy because of insufficient number of runs to normalize the crit range.  Do it on an object you can't crit on, like the dummies in LA.  I just double-checked it on a dredge cannon in Frostgorge and got 3600 from sword chain and 3300 from Flames.  Sword chain hits for more and does it faster.

[Cake is Cake]

Sorry, but this build is terrible, and its obvious you haven't spent "100g trying out combinations". You don't understand basics (cleansing flame is terrible, empowering might has an internal CD), and my tank build does more damage.

You also advertise mobility and control, but I see none.

[Arn]

Good, I like feedback!

So, let's adress 1 topic at a time.

Yes, the base for the sword is higher. But my goal was number of hits vs chance to crit vs time. Testing on a mob where critting isn't possible defeats the purpose.

Adressing Cake is Cake: yes, I do understand the basics. Yes, I am aware of Empowering might's internal CD. Yes, I have spent well over 100g trying out things. I understand why most people dislike cleansing flame and it's their right to do so.  I aimed for a build which doesn't follow the common bread and butter and as much as I know this build doesn't do as much dmg as a purely damage oriented build, I'm quite happy with the damage it does. I also ran a pure tank build, tried Sword+Shield, Sword+Focus, Mace + Shield and Mace + Focus, purely oriented for tanking. But the damage from that was abysmal, which is why I changed it around and got to this current build.

Mobility: Flashing blade and nearly 100% uptime on vigor, which allows for faster dodges.
Control : Virtue of Justice blinds, flashing blade blinds, scepter immob, zealot's defense reflects projectiles.

I'm not saying I invented the holy grail here. This is just a different way, which also works, to play a guardian, and not be like everyone else, running the same builds all the time.

Edited by Arn, 25 February 2013 - 09:07 PM.

[Cake is Cake]

Is your priority an effective build or something new?