12 replies to this topic

[Umi Sonoda]

http://gw2skills.net...HCAMV/hUAmoMC-w

This is the build that I run on my Umi Sonoda. This build is meant more for fighting in a larger group setting rather than roaming, and I run this build when I command. Currently I run full clerics on my weapons, accessories, and armor.

After the recent patch, I changed from focusing on boon duration in my runes to just using 6 monk runes. I used to mix runes of water, monk, etc, to max boon duration, but that's nerfed now afaik.

0/3/0/6/5 with traits and skills focusing on condition removal.

Shouts remove 1 condition in your party.

Virtue of Resolve (F2) removes 3 conditions in your party.

Purging flames removes another 3 conditions to the people around you.

Always bring "Stand Your Ground!" and "Hold the Line!". In my opinion, they are too valuable to be replaced. These utilities are short cooldown shouts and they provide stability and protection, which is a must in a teamfight (at least the stability part).

The last utility is situational. My preference is to get rid of conditions because as a guardian, conditions can cripple you and kill you fast. Other good options are Save Yourselves, Wall of Reflection, Hallowed Ground, Retreat. I'm sure there's other traits out there, but if I switch out my traits, that's what I'd be resorting to.

I will explain some of my sigil choices below. You have a lot of room to customize your hammer with sigils that you want. I just threw things that looked cool to put in a hammer with 2 sigil slots.

Staff, however, needs the sigil of stamina. The rest is honestly up to you. Sigil of stamina is CORE to my playstyle.

How I play:

• Start with staff out. Stack and use Empower (4).
  
• Enter zerg fight with using "Stand Your Ground!" and then dropping Line of Warding (5) where the commander wants it.
  
• Spam Virtue of Justice (F1). Spam Wave of Wrath (1). Put people on fire. Every time you pop F1 you blind, inflict vulnerability, and burn your enemy, along with giving your party 3 stacks of might.
  
• Roll on cooldown. 3 points into Honor trait line, Selfless Daring, will heal the people around you every time you roll. Rolling is fun.
  
• When you get a kill, spam F1. Your Virtue of Justice will refresh its cooldown.
  
• When you get a kill, roll more. Your energy will be fully restored due to sigil of stamina.
  
• Repeat steps 3-6. You shouldn't die and you should keep healing the people around you with your rolling.
  
• Dodge roll.
  
• Press F to pick up loot.

Feel free to post questions here or pm me in game. If I'm missing anything, lemme know.

[Slein Jinn]

You could really be doing a lot more with those 15 points than going into Radiance to trait Virtue of Justice.  The Grandmasters in Virtues might suck, but you can always take two Masters instead, so going 30 deep in Virtues gets you another source of Stability.  There's a lot worth having from the Valour line, too.  If you're worried about the loss of Precision from Radiance, you could swap a couple pieces of Cleric's for Magi's (you could do with some Vitality anyway by the look of it), but there's also the option of taking Retributive Armour, which would just about cover the Precision gap itself.  The best choice for the Adept from Valour, though, is generally Strength in Numbers, which is a rather large boon to survivability (and not just for yourself).  Purity is also a situationally viable option here.  

I guess it's nice to get to spam Virtue of Justice when you're steamrolling, but I'm always weary of building too much around steamrolling.  When you're crushing bads, you don't need a perfect build, and when you actually need a perfect build, being optimised for crushing bads isn't helping you.  I don't push Sigils of Restoration/Stamina too much for the same reason; when you really need those effects most is when you're not getting the kills to utilise them; Sigil of Energy is there when you really need it.  

You've got some doing to convince me that Runes of the Monk are a stronger choice for a Guardian than Runes of the Trooper, too, even if you're committed to running Cleric's, but that is at least a more open question than the investment in Radiance.

[Umi Sonoda]

Blind, burning, and vulnerability spam from Virtue of Justice is very nice in my opinion. If all goes well, you shouldn't die unless you are really out of position and caught by too many conditions. I look to put out more condition and utility rather than going for the damages. In a zerg fight, getting kills on downed people is not uncommon, and once you get the resets, it really helps your party out a lot to be able to apply the resets, along with the dodge roll heals.

Running full clerics - the only way I end up dying is if I get bombed by conditions even after I blow my elite and heal.

[Grav]

Not bad.  I can see how it relies a bit on the momentum you get from fighting zergs, it wouldn't be so effective when roaming really.

If they made commander tags account wide, I'd be up for trying this out during peak hours.

[Slein Jinn]

Umi Sonoda, on 06 May 2014 - 07:18 PM, said:

Blind, burning, and vulnerability spam from Virtue of Justice is very nice in my opinion.

Well, you only get to spam it when you're steamrolling bads.  When you really need an optimal build is when you're fighting a strong force that isn't filled with rallybots, and that 15-point investment in Radiance isn't really doing anything for you at that point.  But even assuming you only ever fight rallybot-laden karma trains, you'll still get better utility out of Strength in Numbers plus Indomitable Courage.  

Blind is a really strong condition in small-man situations where you can time it to prevent specific attacks, and it's decent when you can put out a ton of it with something like Necros' Plague Form (although, even with Necros, the blind spam is more of a delivery vessel for Chill spam), but the blind from Virtue of Justice really doesn't have much of an impact in a zerg, because it can't really be used strategically.  Vulnerability isn't bad, but you're not putting out enough of it to be a gamechanger compared to other options.  Burning is a nice condition, but it's single-target, and considering only the Burning from the player with the highest Condition Damage stat actually takes effect on a target, it will sometimes not actually do anything at all.  Compare that with a permanent 150 Toughness for five players, and an additional source of Stability (two sources if you count recharging it with Renewed Focus separately), plus the overall stronger passives (+100 Toughness/Ferocity, +5% Boon Duration/Virtue Recharge vs. +150 Precision/Condition Damage), and you're definitely getting less out of the Radiance than you could from other options.  

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Running full clerics - the only way I end up dying is if I get bombed by conditions even after I blow my elite and heal.

This is one reason why "Cleric's" Guardians invariably run some Magi's pieces mixed with the Cleric's.  The precision from Magi also helps you to get more Vigorous Precision procs, but even as strongly as I believe Toughness to be the overall better defensive stat compared to Vitality, a frontline Guardian sitting under 14k Health is asking for trouble.  Losing the Power sucks, but you've already got so little Power in this build that your DPS is pretty much negligible, so you might as well double down on survivability and support.  

It also bears mention that Cleric's Guardians typically run Mace/Shield rather than Hammer or Greatsword; if you're going to go all out stacking Healing Power, you might as well get the most out of it.

[Umi Sonoda]

I see where you're going out with your post above. However, there's a lot to say in our differences.

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 05:30 AM, said:

Well, you only get to spam it when you're steamrolling bads.  When you really need an optimal build is when you're fighting a strong force that isn't filled with rallybots, and that 15-point investment in Radiance isn't really doing anything for you at that point.  But even assuming you only ever fight rallybot-laden karma trains, you'll still get better utility out of Strength in Numbers plus Indomitable Courage.  

In my opinion, regardless of who you are fighting (skill group, zerg from a gold tier server, etc), if your commander makes a good push followed up by enough dps and crowd control, your group should be able to down other players from their group. This reset coming into your virtue of justice isn't uncommon at all, especially for our server. I don't think your wrong at all, but from what I'm seeing, the value of using the 3 points into Radiance is more valuable to me than building more toughness. For me, your party shouldn't NEED that toughness if they stay on top of the commander and push with the commander. Your dodge roll heals, Staff 2 and Staff 4 skills should help keep their hp up. As long as your on the commander tag and they are as well, your party members should fully benefit from those heals coming from your skills.

With 3 points into Radiance, activating Virtue of Justice gives burning to your entire party if they are nearby. As a guardian, you won't be able to build up much damage with your burns alone, but party up with a necro or condi thief/warrior and they'll benefit immensely. VoJ does AoE blind around you, which then inflicts vulnerability, while giving your party burning on next hit and 3 stacks of might.

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 05:30 AM, said:

This is one reason why "Cleric's" Guardians invariably run some Magi's pieces mixed with the Cleric's.  The precision from Magi also helps you to get more Vigorous Precision procs, but even as strongly as I believe Toughness to be the overall better defensive stat compared to Vitality, a frontline Guardian sitting under 14k Health is asking for trouble.

Cleric's does cut your hp. However, with Applied Fortitude (from maxing Defense against Guards in WvW abilities), I sit around 20k hp. In a team fight, I'm the last person to die because of stacking toughness. That's the benefit of stacking cleric's - while you have a lower HP pool, your healing abilities are heavily enhanced. Dodge rolling, Virtue of Resolve, Staff 2, Staff 4, Shelter, and using Renewed Focus along with all of your shouts should keep you alive for the longest time.

I disagree with using Magi's. WIth what I'm running, I have less than 20% crit chance. Spamming Wave of Wrath on a group of people, hitting 5 max, is more than enough to proc a crit, which then grants you vigor due to the first trait in your Honor line. Precision with my build is unnecessary, and I would go Toughness > Vitality.

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 05:30 AM, said:

It also bears mention that Cleric's Guardians typically run Mace/Shield rather than Hammer or Greatsword; if you're going to go all out stacking Healing Power, you might as well get the most out of it.

We're talking huge scale fights here. In my opinion, while being constantly on the move, Mace/Shield isn't going to do much for you compared to Hammer or Greatsword. You won't benefit from the 20% cooldown reduction on 2h weapons either. Hammer brings alot of crowd control effects (AoE Immobilize, Knockback, Ring of Warding to trap people without stability) and actually puts out good damage for running full clerics. Greatsword gives you a bit less crowd control but a bit more DPS, but I would go Hammer over Mace/Shield and Greatsword. In my opinion, blasting a water field with hammer will do you more good than putting on a mace/shield.

[Umi Sonoda]

Grav, on 07 May 2014 - 01:27 AM, said:

Not bad.  I can see how it relies a bit on the momentum you get from fighting zergs, it wouldn't be so effective when roaming really.

If they made commander tags account wide, I'd be up for trying this out during peak hours.

You don't need to tag up to run this at all. I find that this build can't really roam around or 1v1 effectively, simply because if you fight someone with condi spamming skills, chances are that you'll drop first. However, with roaming around with a small group of 5, this build still works out in my opinion.

[Grav]

Umi Sonoda, on 07 May 2014 - 11:57 AM, said:

You don't need to tag up to run this at all.

True, but my problem is I usually find myself having to command out of necessity.   And it's unlikely I'll ever be able to afford a second tag since I could never afford my first tag (people donated for it).

Anyways back on topic.  Regarding Magi's vs Cleric's, I've always run some Magi's with my Cleric's when I used to run 0/0/30/30/10 pre-patch, not just to balance my vit, but also to take some advantage of the crit damage bonus from the Honor line.  But with no Honor in this build, I could see myself focusing more on Cleric's.  Exactly how much of either I guess would come down to personal preference/experience.

[Slein Jinn]

Umi Sonoda, on 07 May 2014 - 11:54 AM, said:

In my opinion, regardless of who you are fighting (skill group, zerg from a gold tier server, etc), if your commander makes a good push followed up by enough dps and crowd control, your group should be able to down other players from their group.

When skillgroups fight, usually nobody dies--or maybe one or two people who make a critical mistake die--for the first couple of minutes of the engagement, and once a couple of people on one side die, it's usually the start of a collapse whereby the whole encounter is over within less than a minute more. Obviously the fights for EBay in this tier will never be that pronounced, but the same principle applies.  Sometimes you roflstomp a couple of uplevels on engage, but that doesn't usually translate into momentum, and by the time you get another wave of kills, the fight is usually more or less won, and what's left is a matter of mopping up.  At any level, the really critical moments in a fight, where it's most important to be at your absolute best, are almost invariably moments where your side isn't getting much in the way of kills.  

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This reset coming into your virtue of justice isn't uncommon at all, especially for our server. I don't think your wrong at all, but from what I'm seeing, the value of using the 3 points into Radiance is more valuable to me than building more toughness. For me, your party shouldn't NEED that toughness if they stay on top of the commander and push with the commander. Your dodge roll heals, Staff 2 and Staff 4 skills should help keep their hp up. As long as your on the commander tag and they are as well, your party members should fully benefit from those heals coming from your skills.

Even if we concede the previous point to you, however, and operate on the assumption that you can reliably expect a steady flow of kills throughout a fight, you're still a long way from a convincing argument that the Virtue of Justice refreshes are contributing more than reallocating those 15 points would.  You can say the people around you should be able to survive without Strength in Numbers, but having Strength in Numbers will let them build in that much more DPS.  (Or, in the case of a server population like EBay's, it lets you keep the people with bad builds alive that much more reliably.)  An extra 150 Tougness on five players is nothing to sneeze at, especially in a build centred around keeping your allies vertical.  

You also completely glossed over Indomitable Courage, which is probably the biggest reason to readjust the build.  You've got a Virtues build that is missing one of the biggest Virtues traits there is.  Not only is more Stability always better than less Stability, it allows you to use other skills more effectively.  Instead of popping Stand Your Ground on engage as you've described, which fails to take advantage of the condition removal and stunbreak portions of the skill, you can pop Virtue of Courage on engage, saving Stand Your Ground for more reactive use.  Furthermore, because Virtue of Courage also gives Protection, this gives you both crucial engagement boons on one cooldown, so you can also hold Hold the Line in reserve longer so as to utilise its condition removal, too.  When you further add Renewed Focus into the mix, taking Indomitable Courage essentially triples your sources of Stability, which is really strong.  

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With 3 points into Radiance, activating Virtue of Justice gives burning to your entire party if they are nearby. As a guardian, you won't be able to build up much damage with your burns alone, but party up with a necro or condi thief/warrior and they'll benefit immensely. VoJ does AoE blind around you, which then inflicts vulnerability, while giving your party burning on next hit and 3 stacks of might.

All that's nice, but none of it is nearly as potentially game-changing as the alternative ways of investing those points.  Vulnerability is a nice condition, but Virtue of Justice never going to stack enough of it to have a big impact on spiking someone down.  More Might is always nice, but the short duration and unreliability really decreases it's desirability.  Compare that with a Phalanx Strength Warrior who can reliably sustain 10-15 stacks of Might on five players indefinitely, or even what HGH Engineers and Venomshare Thieves put out, nevermind your own Empower, and it's clear that there are far better sources of Might stacking.  Burn is also a nice condition, but again, five people might be getting it, but it's still a single-target application, which may not even land for some of those five players because it's a condition that stacks duration instead of intensity.  (If you give 5 players the Burning, but three attack the same target, then only the Burning from the player with the highest Condition Damage will actually take effect.)  

Moreover, Virtue of Justice is on a short cooldown to begin with--23 seconds with a 30-point investment in Virtues--so in situations where you get a kill when it would be refreshing in a few seconds anyway, it really isn't adding much at all.  I don't mean to sound too negative about this stuff--all of what you're getting from Virtue of Justice is nice to have--it's just that it really isn't nearly as strong as what you're giving up in order to have it.  

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Cleric's does cut your hp. However, with Applied Fortitude (from maxing Defense against Guards in WvW abilities), I sit around 20k hp. In a team fight, I'm the last person to die because of stacking toughness. That's the benefit of stacking cleric's - while you have a lower HP pool, your healing abilities are heavily enhanced. Dodge rolling, Virtue of Resolve, Staff 2, Staff 4, Shelter, and using Renewed Focus along with all of your shouts should keep you alive for the longest time.

I disagree with using Magi's. WIth what I'm running, I have less than 20% crit chance. Spamming Wave of Wrath on a group of people, hitting 5 max, is more than enough to proc a crit, which then grants you vigor due to the first trait in your Honor line. Precision with my build is unnecessary, and I would go Toughness > Vitality.

Toughness is better than Vitality, but up to a point.  Traiting 0/0/10/30/30 is going to give you even more Toughness, and even less Precision--without any Magi's gear, just the base 4% crit rate--so taking a few pieces of Magi's is a clear choice.  It's good to have at least 10-15% crit chance to keep Vigorous Precision running, and trading some Toughness for Vitality will help you with the problem you've acknowledged with conditions.  

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We're talking huge scale fights here. In my opinion, while being constantly on the move, Mace/Shield isn't going to do much for you compared to Hammer or Greatsword. You won't benefit from the 20% cooldown reduction on 2h weapons either. Hammer brings alot of crowd control effects (AoE Immobilize, Knockback, Ring of Warding to trap people without stability) and actually puts out good damage for running full clerics. Greatsword gives you a bit less crowd control but a bit more DPS, but I would go Hammer over Mace/Shield and Greatsword. In my opinion, blasting a water field with hammer will do you more good than putting on a mace/shield.

Mace scales upward as well as anything else.  The third attack on the auto chain is a party heal, plus you've got another source of party Protection (potentially two, but in practice Protector's Strike will usually be triggered early), Shield of Absorption can be used as a defensive cooldown, as CC, or for a heal (or a combination, ideally), and Symbol of Faith is yet more healing for five allies (and you may choose to take Writ of the Merciful instead of Two-Handed Mastry for even more party healing).  If you're going to stack Healing Power, Mace/Shield utilises that Healing Power far more than Hammer or Greatsword.  Let the traditional Power stacking (Soldier/Zerker mix) Guardians run the Hammers and Greatswords, since they'll get more out of them anyway.  

---

At the end of the day, a lot of this comes back to one of the general principles I talked about in my Buildcraft Basics post.  You need to identify a clear function for a build, and then build around that as much as possible.  You seem to be trying to do just a bit too many things with this build, when you could contribute more by playing to your strengths.

[Umi Sonoda]

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

Even if we concede the previous point to you, however, and operate on the assumption that you can reliably expect a steady flow of kills throughout a fight, you're still a long way from a convincing argument that the Virtue of Justice refreshes are contributing more than reallocating those 15 points would.  You can say the people around you should be able to survive without Strength in Numbers, but having Strength in Numbers will let them build in that much more DPS.  (Or, in the case of a server population like EBay's, it lets you keep the people with bad builds alive that much more reliably.)  An extra 150 Tougness on five players is nothing to sneeze at, especially in a build centred around keeping your allies vertical.

Honestly, 150 Toughness to me isn't worth putting in just so my party members can build more DPS? To me, that's very questionable. That's like swapping, for example, 1 soldier's armor piece into 1 valkyrie's armor piece just because you have a guardian in your party. I don't think many people will build into more DPS just because of Strength in Numbers, simply because their builds would be set with traits and stats.

For Virtue of Justice, it's like asking, why do people run superior sigils of battle? In the end, the might, vulnerability, and etc will stack up. I'm not disagreeing with your build and your uses of your build, but if your not convinced, put 3 points into the radiance trait line and try it yourself when your fighting in EBG or running with a guild.

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

You also completely glossed over Indomitable Courage, which is probably the biggest reason to readjust the build.  You've got a Virtues build that is missing one of the biggest Virtues traits there is.  Not only is more Stability always better than less Stability, it allows you to use other skills more effectively.  Instead of popping Stand Your Ground on engage as you've described, which fails to take advantage of the condition removal and stunbreak portions of the skill, you can pop Virtue of Courage on engage, saving Stand Your Ground for more reactive use.  Furthermore, because Virtue of Courage also gives Protection, this gives you both crucial engagement boons on one cooldown, so you can also hold Hold the Line in reserve longer so as to utilise its condition removal, too.  When you further add Renewed Focus into the mix, taking Indomitable Courage essentially triples your sources of Stability, which is really strong.  

Personally, I prefer the 3 condition removal over indomitable courage. It's my preference, and people who run a build similar to me (not having 6 points into Virtues) interchangeably choose Absolute Resolution or Indomitable Courage. From what I've seen frequently while tagged up, if your gonna get hit by hard crowd control, it's usually before your just about to push into the other group, hence why I pop Stand Your Ground first. As a Cleric's build as well, you lose the 2.7k heal if you enter the fight with stability from your Virtue of Resolve.

From my experience, stacked conditions are what gives my group trouble and if you can't get rid of it, you or your party will be nulled in a fight. Hence, that's why I emphasize the condition removal coming from Virtue of Resolve and Purging Flames.

Again, if you don't agree with running 3 points into radiance, I would try giving it a shot. To me, it's an addition to my play style. The extra tankiness coming from the Valor line is unnecessary to me since I can keep my HP with my setup.

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

Toughness is better than Vitality, but up to a point.  Traiting 0/0/10/30/30 is going to give you even more Toughness, and even less Precision--without any Magi's gear, just the base 4% crit rate--so taking a few pieces of Magi's is a clear choice.  It's good to have at least 10-15% crit chance to keep Vigorous Precision running, and trading some Toughness for Vitality will help you with the problem you've acknowledged with conditions.  

Like I said before, with my traits and running clerics, I have no problem keeping vigor up. When you spam 1 with staff and you're hitting 5 people with about 15% crit chance with my setup, you're bound to proc a crit in 1-3 autos. Vigorous Precision is on a 10s cooldown, while the vigor lasts 7 seconds. You don't need to swap to magi's just to try to proc a crit that you can already get with my build in 1-2 hits.

I want to emphasize that the vigor uptime is, to me, not as important. While it does keep your energy up, which allows you to dodge roll to heal about 1.6k hp to your party, Sigil of Stamina plays a huge role in sustain. Every kill adds up to a refresh in your Virtue of Justice and your entire energy bar. That means you'll be able to dodge roll twice after a kill, and you really can't be DPS'd to an extent when you dodge roll.

Vitality and conditions? If your party gets hit by chill, immobilize, cripple, poison, fear, then what will vitality do for you? You can't break those with stability, except for fear, but all of those conditions above are very detrimental to my play. Here's my reasoning:

• Chill kills your cooldown recharge speed, along with cutting your movement speed. Generally, if you can pin a target down, they cannot do much in a fight.
  
• Immobilize - same idea as above. Get caught in a fight and it can be very bad for you.
  
• Cripple - same idea as above, only less severe.
  
• Poison really cripples Cleric builds, particularly my purpose in a teamfight. If your only healing for a fraction of your potential, that'll add up.

From my experience, people drop to conditions the fastest, whether directly or indirectly. Sure, I can withstand a few stacks of bleed, but when you or your party has 7 conditions on them, you gotta get rid of them fast or you'll drop.

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

Mace scales upward as well as anything else.  The third attack on the auto chain is a party heal, plus you've got another source of party Protection (potentially two, but in practice Protector's Strike will usually be triggered early), Shield of Absorption can be used as a defensive cooldown, as CC, or for a heal (or a combination, ideally), and Symbol of Faith is yet more healing for five allies (and you may choose to take Writ of the Merciful instead of Two-Handed Mastry for even more party healing).  If you're going to stack Healing Power, Mace/Shield utilises that Healing Power far more than Hammer or Greatsword.  Let the traditional Power stacking (Soldier/Zerker mix) Guardians run the Hammers and Greatswords, since they'll get more out of them anyway.  

In the middle of a fight, I'd want to be putting crowd control down. Immobilize from Hammer 3 and Ring of Warding from Hammer 5 is way too valuable in a large scale zerg fight. If you trait to accommodate Mace/Shield, you'll lose the benefits of the 20% CDR for 2h weapon skills. The 2h 20% CDR is too valuable to me to just drop, since your empower on staff 4 will make sure might from staff 4 is up 90% of the time (2 second window where you won't have might, assuming you always pop empower off cooldown).

Mace/Shield is nice, but I find it unnecessary to use when I run around. Especially since I call for water fields, blasting it with a hammer will do more good than using symbols and fields that you cannot guarantee that you're party will cross in a fight or benefit as much from it.

Slein Jinn, on 07 May 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

At the end of the day, a lot of this comes back to one of the general principles I talked about in my Buildcraft Basics post.  You need to identify a clear function for a build, and then build around that as much as possible.  You seem to be trying to do just a bit too many things with this build, when you could contribute more by playing to your strengths.

I posted my build to show others what I run in WvW as a commander and what I would run in a group setting. I couldn't tell you how well or not this works in a skill group vs skill group situation, since our matchups don't really have skill groups... but likewise, my reasoning comes from practical experience, not just theorycrafting. 0/0/2/6/6 is very standard in WvW, and while I see your reasoning, I would still prefer running 0/3/0/6/5 regardless.

I've been running this since my first days of tagging up and I have 0 complaints with it. All I can say at this point is to give it a shot in game.

[Slein Jinn]

Umi Sonoda, on 07 May 2014 - 08:51 PM, said:

Personally, I prefer the 3 condition removal over indomitable courage. It's my preference, and people who run a build similar to me (not having 6 points into Virtues) interchangeably choose Absolute Resolution or Indomitable Courage. From what I've seen frequently while tagged up, if your gonna get hit by hard crowd control, it's usually before your just about to push into the other group, hence why I pop Stand Your Ground first. As a Cleric's build as well, you lose the 2.7k heal if you enter the fight with stability from your Virtue of Resolve.

You seem to misunderstand the function of these traits at a very basic level.  For one, if you go 30 into Virtues, you're taking Indomitable Courage in addition to Absolute Resolution, not instead of it, so you still have the condition removal; there's nothing preventing you from taking two Masters rather than a Grandmaster.  Furthermore, Indomitable Courage adds Stability to Virtue of Courage, not to Virtue of Resolution, so you're not losing the heal in any way. A fully traited Virtue of Courage is a much better engagement cooldown than Stand Your Ground because it gives Protection in addition to Stability, and using Virtue of Courage early isn't costing you the additional uses that Stand Your Ground offers after the initial engagement.  

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Mace/Shield is nice, but I find it unnecessary to use when I run around. Especially since I call for water fields, blasting it with a hammer will do more good than using symbols and fields that you cannot guarantee that you're party will cross in a fight or benefit as much from it.

Even if you were blasting a water field every single time Mighty Blow is off cooldown, which is never going to come close to happening in practice, you're going to barely be exceeding the healing just from the auto attack chain on the Mace.  Symbol of Faith is a bonus; it's not the reason you run Mace/Shield.  You run Mace/Shield for the auto attack chain, the Protection boon, and the many applications of Shield of Absorption.  (You seem to dramatically undervalue Protection; it is every bit as important as Stability.)  Hammer is indeed a great weapon, but can be better utilised by Guardians with more Power, whereas Mace is only effectively utilised by Guardians with high Healing Power, so why not play to your strengths?

Beyond that, I'm not going to go through point-by-point because there's really nothing new to say at this point.  I will also say that I have run a variety Radiance builds in WvW, though, and I've found them to have in practice all the drawbacks I've stated.  Like I've said, it's not that what you're getting from Radiance isn't useful, it's just that it is significantly less useful than the alternatives.  You correctly observe that 0/0/10/30/30 is fairly standard; well, there are very good reasons why it's standard.  I know everyone wants to be a unique snowflake and 'reinvent the meta', but cold fact is that the majority of the time, that individuality comes at a cost of effectiveness; the so-called 'meta builds' didn't get that status by accident.  If people want to run sub-optimal builds, that's fine; it's a game, and everyone is entitled to have their fun in a game, but I do object to people advocating sub-optimal builds for others to run.  If you've been running the stated build for so long, maybe it's you who needs to give the alternative a shot in game.  

The sense that you're trying to make one build that does everything just runs deeply through your whole post, though.  There is no build that is excellent at everything, so let your build maximise what it is excellent at, and trust your allies to bring builds that do those other things.

[Ehmry Bay]

IF transfer is free again i would move out just to go kill umi-chun while he on his guardian

[Twinkkles]

Umi Sonoda, on 06 May 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

http://gw2skills.net...HCAMV/hUAmoMC-w

This is the build that I run on my Umi Sonoda. This build is meant more for fighting in a larger group setting rather than roaming, and I run this build when I command. Currently I run full clerics on my weapons, accessories, and armor.

Thanks for linking your build using a "build editor" it makes things so convenient rather than having to do a lot of extensive reading