Guild Wars 2

It doesn’t even require a second banner to out-do an ele.

We can achieve (using only our own skills) more pre-fight might stacks than an ele can (assuming he doesn’t weapon switch or run 30 arcana):

GS/Longbow is a perfectly viable weapon set for a Phalanx warrior to run (second weapon is of less concern in battle as you’ll want to sit in GS the whole time).

Pre-fight: Fire field, lb3 (6 stacks), Banner (6 stacks), FGJ (6 party stacks, 3 personal), Signet of Rage (5 stacks).

23 party stacks, 20 personal stacks all before combat’s initiated. That’s minimum 2 more might stacks than an ele, and as soon as combat starts you’ll be at 25 stacks.

NB.
While not ideal, Hoelbrak runes are a good way to casually get into this build without breaking the bank, you lose 7% personal damage and 1 second of might, but save drastically on runes.

interesting concept as a fractal thing?

fractal bosses yes do tend to take longer and are more drawn out. damage still matters. but having a single warrior with this would keep might up for the duration of the fight.

I guess the question again lies in that is the loss of personal Damage out wieghed by the constant 25 might? via phalanx and forcefull greatsword?

maybe not so much a “record” run build, but as a pug or defensible fractal build?

maybe something like 5, 0, 0, 6, 3,

forcefull greatsword as well as fast hands and rending strike. swapping out between axe and GS
swap scholar runes for ranger runes for the extra crit chance?

((( i is learning theory craft… 0.o ))))

Ropechef.6192:

swap scholar runes for ranger runes for the extra crit chance?

Scholar?

hendo.1940:

strength runes
no boon duration food
strength sigil

err bleh.

good catch my bad.

Ropechef.6192:

err bleh.

good catch my bad.

Hehehe <3

I refuse to buy these bloated priced runes tbh.

I certainly wouldn’t kick a phalanx strength warrior from my groups. Diversity achieved imo.

I guess the question again lies in that is the loss of personal Damage out wieghed by the constant 25 might? via phalanx and forcefull greatsword?

+875 power & condition damage (minor but it still does damage) for party with 100% uptime

at the cost of meh dps for an average dps class

personally – I think the tradeoff is worth it as long as you’re using it for the right fights. any instance with long bosses where might drops off – you want the phalanx warrior. otherwise they can just run the regular EA build.

the phalanx warrior can also go double GS, one with a sigil of battle on too for 3x might more for the group if, somehow you aren’t making enough stacks.

now for me personally – I don’t recommend it as a pug build – you’re trying to buff your party but:

1. they have to be in 600 range
2. ideally they need to be in DPS specs, otherwise your extra power isn’t really getting its full effect and you could just run 30/25 to be fully self sufficient since that way you don’t have to rely on the pugs to stay alive

another thing – going double banner + FGJ makes you miss out on sig of fury which means you get less forceful greatsword procs (less crits) – it might be worth dropping FGJ for fury sig or just making sure you have a ranger along with you to get the full benefit of the might stacking.

I certainly wouldn’t kick a phalanx strength warrior from my groups. Diversity achieved imo.

obviously if I was a warrior it wouldn’t matter much since they can buff themselves massively in 30/25 – but if I pugged on like … a thief (which is massively reliant on party buffs), a phalanx warrior would be like a godsend.

hendo.1940:

I certainly wouldn’t kick a phalanx strength warrior from my groups. Diversity achieved imo.

obviously if I was a warrior it wouldn’t matter much since they can buff themselves massively in 30/25 – but if I pugged on like … a thief (which is massively reliant on party buffs), a phalanx warrior would be like a godsend.

Amen to that. You don’t meet that many might stacking elementalists if you go with nondescript pugs. And even if you have one more ofthen than not someone will mess up their fire fields with something else so reapplying the might can be tricky.
But the phalanx warrior seems to be becoming rather popular pretty quickly. And since it’s impossible to mess up his might generation you barely go below 20 stacks in any given situation.
Most phalanx warriors I see open up with combustive shot + arching arrow and FGJ. That gives a solid foundation to start with.

In a premade speedclear group with the proper coordination a phalanx warrior is most likely less feasible than a full dps build warrior because you will have 1-2 elementalists providing any might/fury you need.. But in your general mix-matched pug they are usually a great and reliable damage boost.

Dub.1273:

Comparing 20/30/0/20/0 and 10/30/0/30/0, the latter just misses 100 power and 10% critical damage. Thats about 4% less personal dps but an additional 22 might, considering someone drops a warbanner or blasts a field randomly. And yeah, I wonder where practical application has gone. People are doing paperwork with no end, using wiki values and not even knowing the corrent critchance/critdamage formula. Usually assuming impractical circumstances and totally forgetting about anything but dps. One can theorycraft as much as he want, that doesn’t change the actual ingame viability of a build.

And guang, engis might be good in your calculation, but truth is, they deal worse damage than necros. The solo damage output is comparable, but in a group the engi loses just way too much because of it’s heavy condition reliancy. Its a versatile and fun profession, but not any more worth considering to bring for a speedrun than a necro, a mesmer (no portal), a ranger or multiple guardians.

In the end, I’m curious what casual runs actually meet the perma 25 might/25 vuln assumption. A ps warrior surely isn’t a bright star in the sky when it compes to organized groups, but especially in pugs, or also in casual guild runs, it’s a great alternative that isn’t screwed if some other player tries messing you up.

The difference isn’t the stat loss, it’s the fact that you have to use GS instead of axe for a Phalanx build. That means you’re losing out on 5% for Dual Wielding, 10% crit damage, 100 power, and DWA, and are stuck with the weaker GS to boot. That ads up to a fair bit.

Comparing engies and warriors, it’s true that the warrior doesn’t rely on blasts which is nice in certain fights, but at the same time the engie stacks vuln and the warrior doesn’t. If condtion damage is a problem for you, run bomb engie, still get decent vuln stacking, eliminate any condition damage issues, and get extra might stacks to boot.

I’d personally say that a Phalanx build is primarily limited to specific situations where other classes can’t give might the way you want it, and/or you’re in a pug and you realized too late that no one else is stacking might and don’t want to have to relog to a different class.

So basically it’s a situational/gimmick build at best. I guess we all understood that but the “lol new meta” hyperbole doesn’t really help, least of all not for pugs who are just looking for an easy cookie-cutter build. Especially when I was literally in Rata Sum two days ago and saw like ten guys talking about the “bearbow meta”.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

[…]
Comparing engies and warriors, it’s true that the warrior doesn’t rely on blasts which is nice in certain fights, but at the same time the engie stacks vuln and the warrior doesn’t. If condtion damage is a problem for you, run bomb engie, still get decent vuln stacking, eliminate any condition damage issues, and get extra might stacks to boot.

I’d personally say that a Phalanx build is primarily limited to specific situations where other classes can’t give might the way you want it, and/or you’re in a pug and you realized too late that no one else is stacking might and don’t want to have to relog to a different class.

So basically it’s a situational/gimmick build at best. I guess we all understood that but the “lol new meta” hyperbole doesn’t really help, least of all not for pugs who are just looking for an easy cookie-cutter build. Especially when I was literally in Rata Sum two days ago and saw like ten guys talking about the “bearbow meta”.

Since we’ve moved on to being fastidious: GS autoattack and Rending strikes don’t apply vulnerability anymore?
I am aware that an engineer can deliver more vulnerability than that but “no” isn’t entirely correct now, is it?
If you want to be fastidious, then be it all the way, please. Thank you very much.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The difference isn’t the stat loss, it’s the fact that you have to use GS instead of axe for a Phalanx build.

What? Noone forces me to do that.

Edit: Nevermind, all my axes magically disappear when I equip Phalanx Strength. Help!

guanglaikangyi calling people out on hyperbole

l0l

on topic – I probably won’t use this in dungeons, and I never do fractals, but this seems pretty useful for stacking might brainlessly.

Dub.1273:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The difference isn’t the stat loss, it’s the fact that you have to use GS instead of axe for a Phalanx build.

What? Noone forces me to do that.

Edit: Nevermind, all my axes magically disappear when I equip Phalanx Strength. Help!

Forceful Axesword

20/20/0/30/0 = 13791 ep
0/30/0/30/10 = 14212 ep

I didn’t count the free 180 power from sig of might which makes the dps of 0/30 way better because its going to eventually be fixed. One consideration is that Signet of Rage is pretty good, but I doubt it’s worth sacrificing personal dps for.

The build seems viable but with one or two eles it is a bit redundant. The 20/30/0/20/0 axe build does quite a bit more personal dps assuming 25 might stacks, so my guess is that phalanx strength fills some niche where you have a group with no ele in which case it’s probably better than alternative might stacking measures. Seems like a good build for skilled but disorganized pugs or perhaps some fractal group comps.

edit: I messed up and originally gave 20/20 the Attack of Opportunity 10%. Removing that changes the math.

I think that is really what it is.

the Phalanx build concept is simply for groups that do not have an Elementalist. or to be more accurate, a might stacking Ele.

10/30/0/30/0 works well with axe, even together with an elementalist. Even easier might capping without sacrificing more personal dps.

Ropechef.6192:

I think that is really what it is.

the Phalanx build concept is simply for groups that do not have an Elementalist. or to be more accurate, a might stacking Ele.

Or has a hammer guard that screws that up preventing the might from being maintained through a fight… so annoying.

Dub.1273:

10/30/0/30/0 works well with axe, even together with an elementalist. Even easier might capping without sacrificing more personal dps.

But remember, Greatful Forcesword will eat all axes in your inventory. :O

Losing a couple stacks of “quality might” from fire combos or shouts is a little bit of a downer, but all in all I’d consider this build as a very solid framework for unorganised but still decent runs. Sigils/Weapons/Food/Traits may need some tweaks, but that’s marginal.

How good is this without the runes though? The runes right now are ridiculously expensive and I just don’t see it getting used for PvE specific situations.

I main an ele and I find this offensive.

Charming Rogue.8071:

I main an ele and I find this offensive.

^ This.

Also, we run 3 Ele’s in CoE/AC and 2 Ele’s in the other 6 dungeons, and I find this trait useless. Go run it in Fractals if you want, sure, but don’t you dare say that Phalanx in dungeons is better than an Ele. It’s simply not.

You sound like you don’t actually understand why this build can actually be relevant to fractals. Do you do fractals?

And phalanx does actually have some minor application for dungeons, unfortunately for you.

I’ve ran this yesterday in fractals 49

- 25 stacks of might for the whole party even on tougher bosses like Mossman or Archdiviner (although as a result of paying attention to might stacking more than animations, I did get downed a few times). This was without signet of rage, as I took warbanner instead (was a pug).
- I did feel the loss in personal DPS pretty heavily, although stuff went down fairly fast, so I guess it is not a bad choice of a build for fractals at all

EDIT: Oh, and almost forgot. My ele would most definitely still outperform this build in any regular dungeon by far, but I would really recommend running this for high level fractals. Ele can just swap to staff for superior DPS instead of bothering with might upkeep with all the different fields in various fractals (smoke/light/chaos ect.).

hendo.1940:

You sound like you don’t actually understand why this build can actually be relevant to fractals. Do you do fractals?

Of course I do fractals. Which is why I said sure, you can run it in fractals. That way, the guard can spam hammer auto and it’s annoying light field all day long and the team won’t run out of might.

hendo.1940:

And phalanx does actually have some minor application for dungeons, unfortunately for you.

No, it does not have an application in dungeons. The only light field in dungeons is WoR, and I am always careful to ensure that a fire field is placed down BEFORE WoR (usually HG). The only other fields used are: SR, Dark, and once again, that is placed down just before Fiery Rushing, after the fire fields, to activate the new GM trait; and Feedback/Null field, Chaos, which are placed down AFTER fire fields. No other fields or fields placed after fire fields means the Ele’s can might-stack away. Hence, Phalanx is useless in dungeons.

No, it does not have an application in dungeons. The only light field in dungeons is WoR, and I am always careful to ensure that a fire field is placed down BEFORE WoR (usually HG). The only other fields used are: SR, Dark, and once again, that is placed down just before Fiery Rushing, after the fire fields, to activate the new GM trait; and Feedback/Null field, Chaos, which are placed down AFTER fire fields. No other fields or fields placed after fire fields means the Ele’s can might-stack away. Hence, Phalanx is useless in dungeons.

So basically you don’t understand how it can be relevant. I’ll just let you figure it out.

Gaaah the temptation.

hendo.1940:

No, it does not have an application in dungeons. The only light field in dungeons is WoR, and I am always careful to ensure that a fire field is placed down BEFORE WoR (usually HG). The only other fields used are: SR, Dark, and once again, that is placed down just before Fiery Rushing, after the fire fields, to activate the new GM trait; and Feedback/Null field, Chaos, which are placed down AFTER fire fields. No other fields or fields placed after fire fields means the Ele’s can might-stack away. Hence, Phalanx is useless in dungeons.

So basically you don’t understand how it can be relevant. I’ll just let you figure it out.

I don’t think I’m understanding it either then. Please explain why the warrior should be stacking might when the party is already getting a permanent 25 stacks. The only situation I can think of that this might be useful is high level fractals because of hammer guards but you keep acting like this has multiple uses.

Think about the time it takes to stack might. And the number of encounters that allow it without slowing you down (boss being friendly for a period of time).

Spoj The Second.7680:

Think about the time it takes to stack might. And the number of encounters that allow it without slowing you down (boss being friendly for a period of time).

Depending on the coordination of the team it can be nearly instant. edit: And most of the time it doesn’t even have to be instant, the time taken is irrelevant because of the time it takes to pull the boss.

Still missing it. Keep trying.

Also, I like pretending groups have permanent 25 might too, it makes me feel good.

Only time you can easily get to and maintain the 25 might with eles is if you bring 2 and one runs S/D and the other runs staff to open with the S/D combo in LH spam the ele firefields, however this obviously doesnt work well in fractals so the Phalanx build might be better there. And obviously has the problem of.. needing 2 eles so you might not have that. But in dungeons like SE or TA or something its pretty realistic to get to 25 might and maintain with just 2 eles, and the S/D combo is rather quick. (altho the champion wurm does have some issues due to how long it is counting the silvers)

So overall i think Phalanx has a place for sure, but there are still situations, mainly in the none fractal dungeons where 2 eles is better in almost every way so ya. Also this is about casual runs, record runs are completely different where you might need the warriors speed or the eles conjures and you adjust composition accordingly.

Phalanx would be nice in Fractals. Most of the time, your ele cannot keep up 25 stacks of might without being extra mindful of their own survival. Unless you are in a really good care of an excellent guardian.

hendo.1940:

Still missing it. Keep trying.

Also, I like pretending groups have permanent 25 might too, it makes me feel good.

After watching DnT’s streams I’m not surprised you can’t maintain 25 stacks considering most of the time there aren’t any eles in the party.

Streams are just casual runs, if people have more fun on none ele classes then they play those classes and its whatever, not like the tour will take a huge ammount of time longer. After all this is still a game, people running whatever classes they want optimaly without being a burden to a group (like no 3 zerker necros >_>) then its fine, dont have to be top optimal all the time, since that gets boring quickly. Trust me, back in LOD i would run 3 eles everywhere for over 3-4 months and it got old. Running different team comps, while at time slower, is alot more relaxed and fun IMO and still gets the job done quite quickly.

This whole “my dungeon guild is better than your dungeon guild” Is getting nauseating.

Y’all gotta remember who the real enemy is.

Clumsy.6257:

hendo.1940:

Still missing it. Keep trying.

Also, I like pretending groups have permanent 25 might too, it makes me feel good.

After watching DnT’s streams I’m not surprised you can’t maintain 25 stacks considering most of the time there aren’t any eles in the party.

What you don’t understand is that when Nike streams tours, he’s literally getting four other randoms from guild chat and we play whatever class we want, as long as most DPS modifiers and utility are present in the party (so 1 war and I suppose 1 guard dependent on the instance or maybe an ele for something like COE where it’s just the epitome of stacking in corners and pressing 4 to win) – beyond that we play how we want since it’s just a casual daily tour – as long as we aren’t doing dumb stuff like double mesmer, double guard or triple warrior.

Also, if we have lack of might in non-ele comps – doesn’t that make phalanx warrior actually good then? You know, since it literally maintains perma-23+.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

This whole “my dungeon guild is better than your dungeon guild” Is getting nauseating.

Y’all gotta remember who the real enemy is.

we just need a new anti skip thread to unite us again, ill be waiting

Lilith Ajit.6173:

This whole “my dungeon guild is better than your dungeon guild” Is getting nauseating.

Y’all gotta remember who the real enemy is.

Y u no want me 2 touch u?

But yeah, the only thing that makes phalanx strength “useless” is running multiple eles in casual runs and paying attention to fire fields all time, but again, noone except DD really does that. And noone really has to, I’d but very surprised if I saw runs casual runs with perfect might stacking being faster than our usual one’s, even containing no eles at all.

In the end, there’s only one best dungeon guild. And that is heitred’s. They are excellent and unmatched in what they are doing.

Delay.6908:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

This whole “my dungeon guild is better than your dungeon guild” Is getting nauseating.

Y’all gotta remember who the real enemy is.

we just need a new anti skip thread to unite us again, ill be waiting

Done.

Dub.1273:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

This whole “my dungeon guild is better than your dungeon guild” Is getting nauseating.

Y’all gotta remember who the real enemy is.

Y u no want me 2 touch u?

But yeah, the only thing that makes phalanx strength “useless” is running multiple eles in casual runs and paying attention to fire fields all time, but again, noone except DD really does that. And noone really has to, I’d but very surprised if I saw runs casual runs with perfect might stacking being faster than our usual one’s, even containing no eles at all.

In the end, there’s only one best dungeon guild. And that is heitred’s. They are excellent and unmatched in what they are doing.

The nerf to the merge party exploit has been fixed in a way I believe. So merge-kicking is impossible now. You can still join + boot the host though.

how good am I at speaking casualese, did I hit the key words?

hendo.1940:

Dub.1273:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

This whole “my dungeon guild is better than your dungeon guild” Is getting nauseating.

Y’all gotta remember who the real enemy is.

Y u no want me 2 touch u?

But yeah, the only thing that makes phalanx strength “useless” is running multiple eles in casual runs and paying attention to fire fields all time, but again, noone except DD really does that. And noone really has to, I’d but very surprised if I saw runs casual runs with perfect might stacking being faster than our usual one’s, even containing no eles at all.

In the end, there’s only one best dungeon guild. And that is heitred’s. They are excellent and unmatched in what they are doing.

The nerf to the merge party exploit has been fixed in a way I believe. So merge-kicking is impossible now. You can still join + boot the host though.

how good am I at speaking casualese, did I hit the key words?

You did not use the word “zerg” when referring to zerk exploiters so no. You didnt.

Clumsy.6257:

hendo.1940:

Still missing it. Keep trying.

Also, I like pretending groups have permanent 25 might too, it makes me feel good.

After watching DnT’s streams I’m not surprised you can’t maintain 25 stacks considering most of the time there aren’t any eles in the party.

Let’s talk about the stuff we see on each other’s streams again! You definitely want to start that topic back up!

Dub.1273:

In the end, there’s only one best dungeon guild. And that is heitred’s. They are excellent and unmatched in what they are doing.

Ty, almost spit out my drink, lol…

Dub.1273:

But yeah, the only thing that makes phalanx strength “useless” is running multiple eles in casual runs and paying attention to fire fields all time, but again, noone except DD really does that. And noone really has to, I’d but very surprised if I saw runs casual runs with perfect might stacking being faster than our usual one’s, even containing no eles at all.

/thread

Now heres a major question: Why don’t you run several eles in your casual runs? In DD we almost have to fight over who gets to play ele. Thats why we normally end up with 3.

Clumsy.6257:

Now heres a major question: Why don’t you run several eles in your casual runs? In DD we almost have to fight over who gets to play ele. Thats why we normally end up with 3.

Maybe because some people don’t want to play ele… since there are 6 other classes the can play.

I wonder if ele will be so popular when they fix fgs.

I always wanna play my thief now! Cutest Asura thief NA.

My group usually has 1 or 2 eles but sometimes none of us feel like playing it. We arent so worried about taking a minute longer for each path especially as we dont rush to every dungeon. The runs take pretty much the same time no matter what composition we use. Casual day for me involves chatting on ts, doing some dungeon runs, maybe a fractal and taking it easy. We will often spend 5-10 minutes between dungeons doing absolutely nothing in game while deciding what to do next. Such is the way of the casual!

Saint.5647:

I always wanna play my thief now! Cutest Asura thief NA.

Probably true because I do not have an asura thief.