Guild Wars 2

Maybe this could go in the “Warrior” or “Players Helping Players” forums, but it pertains to dungeons so here it goes.

I need some advice/ clarification from any warrior players or people that regularly group with warriors in high level dungeons. I myself just got to lvl 80 on my warrior last week and figured I’d start on my first dungeon. I was in blue mis-matched gear of different levels and bought the cheapest lvl 80 green knight’s armor I could find and slotted it with Medallions of the Soldier, since I was broke. I traited into defense and tactics so as to hopefully not die too quickly as I learned the ropes.

I’d prefer soldier gear, and would not have felt the need to run a dungeon if you could craft it or buy it. At the time, I was not aware of the exotic karma armors in Orr. Fortunately, the starter AC dungeon had soldier armor, so off I went.

My first run, the group consisted of an 80 ranger, an 80 greatsword warrior in full Citadel of Flame armor and the rest of the team were lvl 35’s — don’t recall the classes. I’m thinking good, we got some 80’s, one of them a warrior in exotics. We should be OK even if I mess up a bit. I informed the group this was my first run and everyone was cool.

Well, we start, get to the spider champ and halfway thru, one of the 35’s goes down, then the other warrior. I’m at about 75% life, so I’m thinking WTF? How is that possible, the warrior has way better gear, so I figure he lagged out.

I’m told what to expect for Kholer, but he tags me the first time with the hook and pulls me in. He drops me to about 60% life before I get up a shield block. The second time, the ranger’s fat bear must have obscured the hook animation and the other warrior and one of the 35’s gets pulled in and die. At the Howling King, me and the warrior get hit with the death scream, but I manage to roll away with about 20% life, the warrior dies. We do finish, and it wasn’t even that bad, but I was getting very worried about how hard the later dungeons must be if experienced players, in exotics no less, were dying on the starter dungeon.

Well, fast forward a week later, AC and me are old friends. I have 4 exotic pieces already and an exotic shield and sword. However, 99% of all the warriors I see are using a greatsword. I assume the level 80 warrior on my first run was pure damage spec—had to be, he died too fast.

It’s come to my attention that many people ask for zerk warriors for high level dungeons and that some groups may even gear check. Am I gimping my ability to get into groups by staying with a sword and shield? I’m assuming that a zerk warrior can only really shine in a blanced group with people acting as support—is that the case? I’d just feel so fragile.

Lastly—what exactly IS a zerk warior?
1). I’d assume you need to trait into strength and arms, yes?

2). Does that mean I’d have to wear berserker’s gear? If I used soldier or knight’s, would traiting into strenght and arms still be a respectable damage to survival ratio, or do people that gear check expect berserker’s gear?

3). Conversely, if I traited into defense and tactics and wore full zerk gear—that’s still going to give me good damage, no?

4). Greatsword going to be pretty much mandatory?

Keep in mind, I may be in your group one of these days. Thanks for any advice in advance.

The best thing you can do right now is to learn the encounters from the dungeons regardless of what armor/trait setup you have. You will realize that your dodge button is your best friend and your most important tool in a dungeon. Once you get the hang of those encounters, you’ll slowly realize that all the survivability and tankiness youve setup for yourself starts to become useless since you can negate most of the damage from smart play + good timing on dodges.

PS: that warrior you’re with was not very good if he was dying repeatedly in AC. Full lvl 80 in exotics does not mean experienced. You’ll know experienced when you see a player dodge very important 1shot attacks from bosses.

A couple of things:

1) My warrior is traited 20/20/0/30/0, and I have a love of being traited deeply to tactics. I wear a blend of ’zerker’s and rampager’s gear because I like my bleeds to hit a bit harder and you get a bit more crit rate for the rampagers than the berserkers…. all my trinkets are berserkers.

That being said, by traiting heavily into tactics, I have a deeper well of HP than many of the warriors I run with…. and that well of HP lets me do exactly the sort of thing you described in some boss encounters… I walk out at low health, my pure berserker companions are downed.

2) Don’t worry about gear checks so much, it tends to only happen in speed clearing groups, avoid those and you’ll be fine.

3) One of the keys is to make sure your gear complements what you’re trying to achieve. I focus on critical damage, maintaining fury (I stack fury to 3 minutes of duration), and triggering on crit procs. So, berserker’s gear = more crit rate and more crit damage, rampagers gear = more crit rate and more condition damage…. I let my traits and my dodges take care of survivability. If things are really hot, I can always drop out to long range.

If you aren’t working a crit focused mentality, and your goal is more to maintain boons / banners / shouts on the party, and hold agro….. you don’t need the crit rate, but doing things like running Cleric’s gear to put more umph behind your heals may be worth while.

In the end, it’s your warrior. If you don’t like GS, that’s fine. People tell me all the time that I would be better off with a rifle instead of a long bow for my ranged weapon, but…. I’m traited for the condition damage to leverage the burning to greater effect, so I ignore them and go about getting the job done my way :P Besides, rifle has no AoE, and I love being able to set a fire combo field with waves of trash to clear

Hope all that helps, it’s a bit rambly

I’d definitely reiterate what was said above me about learning the fights and learning to dodge effectively.
Here are some of my thoughts in running dungeons as a warrior.

1. Greatsword is not the only path available to you. I am built around Axe/Axe and swap my offhand weapons out consistently depending on what dungeon/encounter is looming. I personally like Axe/Axe because it allows me to be a little more mobile and I can still throw on my greatsword for an increase in my DPS rotation.

2. Don’t be afraid to use ranged weapons. In fact, you should always have either a rifle or bow available. I was relying heavily on my rifle for a long time, but have recently found that longbow really compliments my Axe/Axe rotation (I’ll explain that below.)

3. Combo fields, learn them. Learn what other classes are likely to be dropping in the way of combo fields and take advantage of them. A timely blast finisher inside a water field can really boost your survivability. Similarly, blast/whirl finishers can really up your DPS. If you drop longbow 3 and the longbow burst skill (I’m ashamed to say I haven’t actually looked at the name of the skill) and then drop a banner inside it or Axe 2/Axe 5 inside it you will see groups of mobs melting fast, and if you have a Guardian in your group, whirling through his fields will erase conditions extremely fast. Combo fields are your friends and since you really can’t count on pugs to be too cohesive, learning what to expect and just taking advantage when you can really will make a difference.

4. Gear. I’m just starting to work up a full DPS set, but have been running Knights armor with 6 Soldier runes for the condition removal. It’s a survivability set but I still see good numbers by slotting most of my jewelry with berserker stats. Also really look at the sigils you have on your weapons and try to plan ahead factoring in weapon swapping. I personally use a bloodlust sigil, but another warrior in my guild really likes the one that grants perception. Also the sigil of battle on your offhand can help you keep a few stacks of might up at all times assuming you are weapon swapping quite a bit.
5. Lastly, don’t be too married to your utility skills. Take the time to swap them up once you understand the fights. That AC fight, for example. No matter how good you are at dodging that pull, you will get caught in it from time to time. Why not slot Endure Pain just for that fight (assuming you don’t already.) Same goes for stability, condition removal (Shake it Off!) and countless other utility skills. The warrior you describe in your OP sounds like he was either not very experienced in the dungeons or just not very good. I have found it VERY difficult to get caught in that Howling King shout even once. I can understand how you might get hit with it when it’s your first time there (especially considering my experience with how effectively pugs communicate with people learning an encounter) but once you’ve gone through that fight a few times it is cake.

Hope this helped, I’m no expert but also no slouch. I’m sure the trolls are circling and licking their chops.

Thank you all for your responses, especially you Cassie—it wasn’t rambly . . . makes me feel like there is hope.