Hello all,
I recently got my first character to level 80, my Sylvari guardian Calpernon, and since then I've been fiddling with a few different builds to come up with something largely oriented towards PVE world exploration but which won't be worthless in dungeons or WvW. Although I am 80, almost all my gear is blue or green, and mostly not chosen with an eye towards a particular attribute distribution, so my guardian is not as tough or strong as he'd be with better gear (which will come over time).
I levelled most of the way from 60-80 with a burning / spirit weapon oriented build, which was effective, but kind of frustrating sometimes in term of having to resummon the weapons during combat as well as being more fragile than I liked, especially when I tried dungeons for the first time. I overcorrected after that with an Altruistic Healing tank build which was durable, but not as good at healing when soloing PVE content as when in a group, and at the same time had much worse damage than the spirit weapon build. I tried a greatsword approach with a lot of burning and liked that pretty well, but still wanted more defensive options for tough events, and then earlier this week I was reading a Guardian post that discussed the Monk's Focus trait, and that led me to what I'm thinking of as my Burning Monk build.
My goals with the build were twofold:
* Set guys on fire (and make them wish I hadn't)
* Don't die a lot
For traits I went 10-30-30-0-0, with particular attention to these traits:
Zeal Adept major trait: Fiery Wrath (+10% damage against burning foes)
Zeal Adept major trait: Fiery Wrath (+10% damage against burning foes)
Radiance Master minor trait: Renewed Justice (Virtue of Justice is recharged when you kill a foe)
Radiance Grandmaster minor trait: Radiant Power (+10% damage against foes with conditions [such as burning])
Valor Adept major trait: Meditation Mastery (-20% recharge time for Meditation skills)
Valor Grandmaster major trait: Monk's Focus (Using a meditation skill heals you)
Other handy trait options available with 10-30-30-0-0:
Zeal Adept major trait: Signet Mastery (-20% recharge time for Signets)
Zeal Master major trait: Radiant Fire (-15% recharge time for Torch skills)
Zeal Grandmaster major trait: Right Hand Strength (+15% critical hit chance for mainhand weapons)
Valor Master major trait: Honorable Shield (-20% recharge time for shield skills, shields give +90 toughness)
So basically I run with Scepter/Torch most of the time, using a combination of Justice and Torch skills to ensure that my enemies are always suffering from Burning, and then do most of my damage with Smite off the scepter and Cleansing Flame from the torch, with +20% damage and crit rates on the scepter around 42%, if I recall correctly. For tougher fights or for a brief respite I switch to mace/shield, gaining toughness, some healing, a free block, and Protection. I've thought about running sword/shield or sword/focus, but I haven't really tried that out.
The key trait that keeps me upright in tough fights is Monk's Focus, which heals for around 15-20% of my max health every time I use a meditation - for slot skills I always keep Smite Condition (cure a condition and deal AoE damage, 16s recharge with Meditation Mastery) and Judge's Intervention (stun breaker, teleport to an enemy and burn in an AoE, 36s recharge), with my third utility skill swapping among Contemplation of Purity (another meditation that is a stun-breaker and converts all my conditions to boons), Signet of Wrath (passive condition damage bonus, or activate for an immobilize), Stand Your Ground! (shout that breaks stuns and grants stability), and Purging Flames (creates a Fire combo field that burns foes and cures conditions on allies). I usually use Signet of Resolve for my heal - the extra condition removal from the passive effect is welcome, it heals for a larger amount than Shelter, and
The best test of the build so far was yesterday when I successfully soloed a champion risen spider in Sparkfly Fen - it took about 10 minutes, and I actually did get downed a couple times and have to rally off her hatchlings, but I killed her with no outside aid (and with a LOT of dodging and circle-strafing). The healing from using my meditations was excellent, and the build's ability to shrug off conditions and stuns is a big help in higher level zones where those are more prevalent. I have less than half map completion and I know a lot of places I go are going to be challenging in that area.
One obvious adjustment I think a lot of guardian players might make to this build would be taking 5 points out of Radiance to trade Right Hand Strength for Inspired Virtue, which particularly improves the benefits of using Resolve and Courage. My feeling right now is that while I am mostly soloing and getting good heals off of Monk's Focus, I don't need the extra survivability, and the might when using Justice is nice but probably made up for by the extra scepter crits. That said, I would love to be able to get to 10 in Virtues for Master of Consecrations (to have faster recharge on skills like Purging Flames), but that would require giving up on Fiery Wrath or Radiant Power. In the future when I have map completion and am doing more dungeons, I'm sure I'll be running a different build.
Any thoughts or advice from experienced Guardians would be very welcome. This sort of build balancing damage and durability is always sort of tricky - the ideal build has exactly enough defense to be able to not quite die in the toughest situations and everything else dedicated to damage, and figuring out where to draw the line, not to mention what choices provide the best damage, can be challenging.
» Edited on: 2013-01-17 12:27:25
