Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I’m a big Prophecies fan. And my intention was to make a warrior in honor of Rurik and Prophecies. This means getting the legendary shield and playing a shield warrior.

The problem is I’m getting told from multiple angles that a shield warrior will not be viable in high level fractals and that I should roll a guardian.

I’m looking for help on a build. It doesn’t matter what it does since I don’t mind playing any kind of character.

I got this standard idea of a tanky build but then again there is no real getting aggro in this game.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNAseTncOk8YUQOPgDZAA9ArrAwU4n0DyQLNA;TEA7NA

Any advice on what I should do?

Many thanks.

Seems fine to me, I personally play a Sword/Shield warrior with offhand Sword/Sword because I wanted to use swords and shields.

If you max out Tactics and Defense, your damage will be pretty low, which probably is what turns off some people. Also, a warrior’s support capabilities are rather limited. I’d definitely recommend “of the Soldier” runes for the shout bonus and focus on hitting as many teammates as possible with For Great Justice and Shake it Off.

You could go for Knight’s or Soldier’s-stat armor to be even tougher but have even less damage, and basically go all-in as a harder-to-kill supporter who can tank a little bit and shield block missiles/big hits, or you could go Berserker’s or Rabid armor (Rabid only with a sword) to offset your lack of offensive traits.

I definitely think a power-primary armor set (Soldier’s, Berserker’s) would benefit you the most, as your power will be kind of low and power is the most useful stat overall for damage. Berserker’s will be a little bit wasted without traits for crits, but it still is a heavy damage stat distribution.

I don’t think a shield will turn a warrior into a support/tank able to stand toe to toe and heal through it, even with a full shout build. It basically gives you 150 toughness and 2 good utility cooldowns- a stun/leap and 3 sec blocking. From my experience, though, warriors are limited in their ‘tanking’ without regen/healing and protection from other players (which is something a guardian can provide themselves).

I feel that a one-handed sword almost requires investment in the arms tree to make it shine. If you aren’t opposed to changing your weapon, a mace would offer more group utility (weakness on up to 3 mobs and more stuns, as well as another block which synergizes very well with missile deflection as it doesn’t get “used up” when it bounces missiles). Mace/shield would be the lowest damage option but it’d have almost perpetual weakness even on unshakable enemies. It could also peel defiant stacks fairly quickly to set up interrupts for special attacks.

Axe would be a generic higher damage weapon, as it doesn’t require condition damage or crit as much as a sword does. The nice thing a sword has going for it is the lengthy 3-target immobilize in Flurry, but it won’t hit very hard without condition damage / Arms traits.

As far as aggro goes, from my experience, you won’t hold a mob from 100% to 0% and heal through it while it sits on you, but with high toughness/vit and a shield, mobs will be very interested in you. I’m not sure if it’s my damage or my toughness, but my sword/shield warrior can easily keep the attention of bosses and the majority of enemies on a trash pull, especially if i Savage Leap into the group and use Shield Stance.

I’m not really that much harder to kill than any other character, though, even with my high toughness, so after Shield Stance is used, I have to remember to Savage Leap away (with no target) or evade if there are still lots of mobs on me.

One of the best ways to keep my health up while playing a warrior is to use food that offers regeneration or healing on critical hits. My warrior has a very high crit chance with swords, so I opt for the latter.

Currently, my build is Arms 30/Defense 30/Tactics 10 right now. It’s not a masterpiece but I enjoy the crit/damage bumps from Arms with a sword, the defensive traits (at least to 20~25, going to 30 was an experiment), and I opt to use Tactics V for permanent banners. Banner of Defense may seem really lame due to its stat bumps (Discipline gives way more damage), but it fits my theme of high toughness and benefits squishier characters somewhat. The real reason, though, is that permanently having the banner out allows for 10 sec-recharge AOE knockbacks which double as whirl finishers.

After using Fear Me! and Stomp for some multi-mob fights, I started to appreciate short AoE CC. I rationalize that Banner of Defense offers a stat buff as well as extra combo finishers (burst, whirl) and a gap closer/swiftness buff for some cases. Also, anyone can use it, not just the warrior. I like it because it’s fun and useful many times.

If you’re doing high-level fractals (I’m not sure what constitutes “high” to everyone), you will probably be doing it with a semi-static group and thus can build around a support warrior. If you are PUGing and have other supports in your group, the redundancy may be detrimental but I’m sure smart people can play to their strengths. Having solid DPS certainly makes fights easier, but 5 guys in berserker’s gear constantly kiting a boss may well do less DPS than 3-4 guys with better damage uptime due to support or a character who can take a few hits (legitimately or with blocks).

Thank you this has comfirmed some of the thoughts I’ve had about the shield warrior and makes me confident I can make it work. Thank you, this has been most helpfull.
Cheers!