cat.8975

Stick to Radiance for most fights. The Virtues variant is reliant on having high aegis uptime, which requires knowledge of a fight and how to play around the enemy attacks to avoid getting hit.

It's not as bad as people said it was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuHdbnAhHsQ As for how it stands against DH, it'll probably be equal-or-better than DH in longer fights, but worse in very short bursts. The extra mobility is another thing to consider, as there are loads of places in instanced PvE where mobility is good to have (and it's pretty dang good in open world PvE too). Words of wisdom: Ignore Obtena. You will not get through to them, no matter how hard you try. "Do not feed the troll."

As a dps pick it was looking pretty solid during this last beta. The alac build is *almost* fine too, it just needs a bigger radius and maybe the addition of Absolute Resolve increasing the base duration of the regen/alac by 25%. (And before you bring it up, I'm sure they'll add another power mod or two when they fix the current bug w/ TM and chill.)

Any traits that increase the duration of a boon/condition on some skills (but not all) work by increasing the base duration of the skill. That allows these traits to work multiplicatively with normal boon/condi duration. In this case, Amplified Wrath increases the duration of Justice burns from 2s to 2.4s, which can then be boosted up to 4.8s at 100% burn duration.

Why do people keep saying this? Have you actually tested these trait interactions in-game? Absolute Resolve works just fine with Flowing Resolve. It increases the on-5-hits heal by 25% and cleanses conditions on yourself and nearby allies. The only missing trait interactions I've seen on WB so far were Battle Presence not sharing the alacrity of Phoenix Protocol (now fixed), and Justice is Blind not applying the light aura when you cast Rushing Justice (not fixed yet). Edit: Ah, it seems Absolute Resolve's 25% boost doesn't apply to the regen/alac when Phoenix Protocol is selected, but the cleanse still works. I still wouldn't call the spec an "absolute trainwreck with zero synergy" though.

Condi is pretty dang good in PvE right now. viper+sinister: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAw+FlVwUZdsKWLW0WXxSA-zRRYfBtbGNcElRuJQHFgDTTKOrA-e grieving: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAw+FlVwUZdsKWLW0WXxSA-zRRYmBxwGdczhRSF0lC2TzEOrA-e

I'm surprised nobody pointed out how incorrect this post is. When you cast a virtue on Willbender, you get a buff that lasts for 4-8 seconds (depending on traits) that proc an effect every 5th hit you land on enemies. They are not passives like the other Guardian virtues. Alacren presses alac button, pulses pbaoe alacrity to nearby allies. Willbender dashes in a line with Resolve, pulsing pbaoe alacrity every 5th strike on enemies for the next 8 seconds. I'd argue the Renegade skill is easier to use, by quite a bit.

A mixture of good damage, CC, and mobility will still make it very good. The new version of Restorative Virtues will probably bring some interesting strategies to the table.

This is just... incorrect. I found plenty of places in open world where it was incredibly useful, and it's fantastic in dungeons/fractals (especially any parts where you're running ahead solo to trigger something).

==BORING PVE PERSPECTIVE== Most have failed to see the potential nerfs these changes bring to power builds in PvE, assuming the bugged +10% damage against chilled foes was fixed. Before factoring in the cooldown reduction trait (Restorative Virtues), we're looking at 31k zeal/rad and 35k zeal/virtues benchmarks. It's hard to estimate where these numbers will end up with lower weapon skill cds, but I wouldn't be surprised if people end up thinking power wb is trash in PvE. For an offensive alac share build, you're pigeonholed into playing with UC (you need to keep aegis), you're reliant on your total number of boons, and you need to be PUMPING out hits for 60% of the fight if you don't want to drop alac. I'm almost fine with this if a strong condi-focused dps build exists, but it would still be a shame for power builds to be relegated to a harder-to-play-for-less-payoff version of alacren.

Initial thoughts on the Willbender changes in PvE: Power may underperform a little bit now, but we'll have to wait and see how Restorative Virtues affects everything. Condi may actually be too strong now, but we'll figure this all out in the beta.

As someone that did t4+cms ~14-15 times during the beta, I think WB will be fine if they tune some numbers and maybe tweak an animation or two. It's not as fundamentally flawed as the people on this forum or reddit want you to believe. People need to stop pretending to be experts with these new elite specs when they've played them for less than 10 hours.

Loved WB during the beta, still love WB now. It has a few issues, majority were number problems plus a little clunkiness in the virtue animations (mostly f1 being a two-parter and f3 giving boons with the impact instead of the teleport). Fix some numbers and tweak the virtue jank and it'll be a great spec.

I'd be sad to see the -240 toughness go away, at least in PvE. The extra risk when playing WB made it so much more exciting to play in fractals/raids. Conceited Curate should increase self-healing by a percentage, rather than just giving the WB more healing power. If Boon Pact is going to kill boon output to allies, it needs to give much more than 16% self BD. It's just pitiful in its current state and is the biggest stinker of the bunch.

This would kill any non-FB condi build. Stop trying to nerf elite specs through core traits. Tune the spec skills/traits instead.

I played condi WB during the beta and it was performing better than core condi by a little bit (~5-6% more dps). Factoring in the virtue mobility, it was pretty dang fun, and would have a solid place in the meta if they change Lethal Tempo to work on condis.

I've wished for scepter to have some sort of damage condis on it for a while now. Nerfing Ashes of the Just and buffing scepter (keeping FB in roughly the same spot, if not a little lower than where it is now), while buffing condi core/dh/wb would be great. It's boring when a class is only effective with condis (or power) on a single spec, instead of the specs just being sidegrades that introduce new ways to play.

It really isn't. They nerfed it to make sword better (sword got some buffs, too), but then they just kept nerfing it further for some reason. It's absolute garbage now and doesn't feel good to use.

In fractals, your pre-buff rotation is pretty simple too. Feel My Wrath Purging Flames Holy Strike (Staff 2) Symbol of Swiftness (Staff 3) Empower (Staff 4) Mash through your heal and quickness mantra charges during empower, take the mistlock to refresh cooldowns, and run in. If you want to sweat a little, put Hold the Line on your bar and cast it before taking the mistlock, then swap it to whatever third util you'll be running for the fight. Similarly, if you're planning on taking the stab mantra (elite), you can swap FMW to it after the mistlock. Don't make the mistake I see so many other healbrands make, where they try to cycle through every tome and apply every boon. It's a total waste of time once quickness, fury, swiftness, and might are covered.

Try a celestial healbrand. Leadership runes for a little more party support (and the ability to use ascended food for the +10% outgoing healing or -10% incoming damage effects), or Firebrand runes for more dps. In raids or crowded open world events, I'd recommend taking Honorable Staff over Empowering Might (the might is typically covered by other people in these cases). Leadership runes: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAc+ZlRweYdYkYRL9+8B-zxIY1oj/MSQKEiKwjTTA+qA-e Firebrand runes: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAc+ZlRweYdYkYRL9+8B-zxIY1oj/MSQF0hUQszCPTbA-e (It's possible to make the monk and traveler rune sets work too, but I've had a hard time justifying either of them over these two.) Third util intentionally left blank, as you should think of it as a free space for whatever utility is needed for the next fight. In a pinch, you can also give up purging flames if you really need to bring two strong support utils. Great utils: Sanctuary: Fantastic CC, a little bit of healing, can keep trash off of allies when you're trying to res too. Bow of Truth: Solid healing skill. "Hold the Line!": Normally garbage, but it's a great source of protection with the high boon duration of this build. "Stand Your Ground!": Ten-target stability and a personal stunbreak on a 30 second cooldown. This skill is busted. Abuse the hell out of it. Wall of Reflection: Very good reflect with a short cooldown. Good utils: Hammer of Wisdom: Decent CC when you need something with a shorter cooldown (Artsariiv split phases). Usually worse than sanctuary. Signet of Mercy: Sometimes helpful if you need a long-range (900 units) res. "Advance!": More aegis is occasionally great to have. Mantra of Lore: Usually overkill (you have purging flames, cleansing flame, and tome of resolve), but sometimes you need more condi cleanses. Sword of Justice: If your group has poor vuln rampup/upkeep, SoJ is a solid pick if you don't need to bring any extra defensive utils. Additional note: You can take the elite mantra (stability/resolution/aoe stunbreak) if you need more stab, but you need to change Legendary Lore to Weighty Terms to make up for the lost quickness from dropping FMW.

The virtues, personally.

it's gonna be really nice to not deal with all the bandwagon players on my class for once

For raids, maybe, but in dungeons/fractals/open world, the mobility aspect is sometimes HUGE when it comes to speeding up how quickly you can kill things.

This is easily remedied by running a different rune set. Monk, leadership, traveler, and firebrand are all great options.

They downed because they walked into fears well after I was expecting them to tbh. PI is good, but it costs you another util slot and is likely to be a wash in terms of total dps contribution outside of groups with very good players (where you'd be playing cqb instead anyway). I'll go farm some better logs (this was literally my first pug run with it) and report back if you're still skeptical. Any logs to prove this? How good were your pugs? How fast was the kill? There are a ton of factors at play when it comes to individual dps numbers, which makes % contribution a more useful metric in most cases.