Guild Wars 2

Hey I’ve been playing my warrior since the BWE’s and I’m seriously stuck.

Just can’t seem to decide on greatsword or axe/axe. I run shout heal, sometimes with frenzy sometimes without. The mobility on the greatsword is great – I think this is the reason I’m so attached to it. Hundred blades (even without rush or bolas as a setup) is nice situational/positional damage though quite limited in use. However the burst skill is trash.

Double Axes have less AOE than the greatsword, at least that’s how I look at it. However there are times when I just butcher people so quickly that I don’t even know what happened (I almost always run frenzy when using a/a so… yeah to be expected). Also the damage feels similar overall, if not better than the greatsword, when you take hundred blades out of the equation. On top of that, the burst skill is sick.

The reason I’m asking this is because I only see people running gs but there are times when I run into a good warrior and get merked by a/a… And I’ve run the typical bullsrush frenzy endure pain greatsword warrior build before, I just want to move away from that to something more skill intensive and rewarding – hence the shoutsheal build. Any thoughts?

Many builds are viable 8v8 sPvP and even some Free teams. But in paids where its not about being competitive vs. other teams as much as it is a competition for a spot on a team to begin with - no other build really shines as well as gs/axe-shield.

Because of that, most Warriors are forced into that style of play.

I’ll break it down a little further, by weapon.
Remember, this is from a tPvP perspective

Greatsword:
Pros: High mobility, high damage, high burst.
Cons: Little direct survivability, needs to be paired with a second weapon set thats defensive.

Axe:
Pros: High damage, high burst, good pairing with offhands (shield or mace).
Cons: Low mobility.

Hammer:
Pros: Medium+ Damage, high control.
Cons: Slow. Easily countered via Stability and Blinds.

Mace:
Pros: Good for tanky builds. Decent damage.
Cons: Final primary attack takes to long to cast (1second). No burst, no mobility.

Longbow: No comment – damage increase was nice but its more of a problem with projectile tracking.

Rifle:
Pros: Great damage, utility.
Cons: Low mobility, easily countered if focused.

Sword:
Pros: High mobility.
Cons: Low damage, Doesn’t stack enough bleeds unless you’re very squishy, at which point you won’t live long enough.

Shield:
Pros: Easily paired with many weapons. Blocking, Stun.
Cons: Long cooldowns.

Essentially, GS/Axe-Shield wins out because it offers high damage, high mobility, high burst, high survivability.

I just made a new build on my warrior and ended up going dual axe long bow most of the time, sometimes I’ll switch to the great sword with the long bow, but mostly axes. There is something just so satisfying about catching someone in your hundred blades with frenzy inside your longbow burst skill (the burning combo field). The spike damage potential is just absurd. That being said the axes inside the same combo field with frenzy, probably on par with a full axe 5 alone then throw in your 4 and 2 which are both aoe and you also have a pretty good amount of sustain damage.

I use a power/crit build getting some condition damage out of it, taking the trait that is 33% chance to cause bleeding on criticals and putting a sigil of earth (60% chance to cause bleeding on critical on the weapons, (off hand axe I went with hydromancy so when I swap to it it’s harder for people to escape my chop shop). Then I went with lyssa runes I think they’re called… They have a bit of condition duration, then they have precision and since I only have condition removal on my heal the perk to remove all conditions and gain all boons on elite use is also great.

Finally take the trait to give you might each time you’re blocked. When you’re in a group or even single target situations and you use the axes it’s basically a free 10-15 ish stacks of might consistently, even the long bow procs it fairly consistently.

Lastly, I’m dead set on the long bow now. I’ve tried every weapon combination and just couldn’t find one that felt right. Until the longbow. The damage really can be pretty good and it’s rare to find one on ones that make the rifle shine. Plus the bow affords you some good utility as well as the all important fire combo field. If you use that combo field properly with your axes or great sword even without frenzy it’s just astounding how fast you drop people or clear of points if anyone stands near you.

Actually sword stacks very high bleed. With the proper traits it isn’t hard to get 25 stacks.

About axes, dual axes are a bad idea for PVP. Get a shield or a mace in your offhand. The offhand axe skills are pretty sub-par when compared to mace (which has a long range knockdown) and shield (block and a stun).

So basically longbow for its fire combo field but not for real use until projectile tracking is fixed (i recognize this problem on other bow classes as well – its quite limiting at times) or axe/shield for increased survivability or to counterbalance an increased DPS/burst damage focused build.

I have to admit going axe/shield with shouts heal would definitely allow me to run frenzy more easily with a greatsword or axe/axe… But again, the mobility aspect of the greatsword is just too overwhelming both in advancing and retreating. if they made an axe skill that allowed for a leap (like swords leaping cripple) it would definitely make axe/axe much more attractive…

I did run axe/mace and rifle at one point… but it just felt too single target focused. And rifle was basically limited to rifle butt, and perhaps 3 and 4 skills but other than range and the AOE knockback, it didn’t feel like it added anything ‘necessary’ to my build.

Anyway, thank you both for your posts, and for your points of view – I feel like paid tournaments are a (future) goal for me as a player, so its good to have some of that perspective on builds I run, among other things.

Every time I try something different than Greatsword + Axe/Shield I feel like I’m missing a lot.

I love Greatsword because the mobility prevents me from being rooted (I use movement skills break immobilize trait), helps evade attacks, allows me to run away when in trouble so I rarely die. When games are not too zergy I don’t usually die at all, as I escape to cap another point when my life is low and my heal on cooldown.

I love Axe/Shield because of great reactive mitigation, a stun, and is the most effective adrenaline dump. So I load my adrenaline bar with Greatsword and dump it with Axe burst.

Yeah I tried a few runs with a tpvp pug (barely known friends and no organization) and i was pretty impressed by putting in gs axe/shield. I had to change my build up a bit to incorporate the difference in gear – or I guess I could say I was ‘able’ to change my build up because of the difference in gear. Either way, I really see the light I suppose is a good phrase to use here. I was trying to avoid it because it was so common and using lesser known builds to win is very satisfying (to me at least); I do find winning in itself satisfying, however. ;p

Really glad I got several intelligent responses to this question. Thanks a lot!