Guild Wars 2

As a sad owner of a former Ranger main, I am thinking about rolling a ranged warrior. But I’ve heard that warriors get boring. Is this true? Big damage numbers and lotsa hp is nice, but are they fun/exciting to play or just mindless-beat-on-stuff-machines?

I’ve taken my warrior to level 71, and I personally wish I had stuck with something else. The first 30 or so levels are pretty fun, but then at a certain point you realize that you have probably the most boring skills in the game. Also their downed skills and underwater skills are pretty awful.

We’re the Boxers of GW2. We don’t have any flashy moves, we can’t fly around the map, but we’re extremely effective at getting the job done, whatever the job may be. So yes, in a sense, they can be boring, but it really depends how you play it. The best part of Warrior is, unlike other professions, almost every build you create will be viable.

Donut.6914:

We’re the Boxers of GW2. We don’t have any flashy moves, we can’t fly around the map, but we’re extremely effective at getting the job done, whatever the job may be. So yes, in a sense, they can be boring, but it really depends how you play it. The best part of Warrior is, unlike other professions, almost every build you create will be viable.

Well, if the Warrior is a boxer, then he’s good at punching anything, but people.

Warrior sucks in PvP in all but two main builds – support Shout medic and glass cannon GS roamer. All other builds aren’t just worse, they’re garbage.

Whether the Warrior is boring or not is for you to decide. I think Ranger is almost as bland as the Warrior. It takes a special mindset to play the Warrior, the appreciation of being “just a guy with a sword”, cleaving and smashing stuff left and right. It’s been like that in every game, but it’s especially true in GW2, where many classes utilize action-paced elements, control terrain and create all sorts of interesting tactical stuff… all classes but the Warrior. All you have is your Sword/Axe/Whatever that produces numbers and effects. If that’s your thing – go ahead.

Oh and Elites are just the blandness of bland sprinkled with bland. Signet, Suckage and Banner. So… two passives, pretty much, and… well, some thing you’ll never use. Eh.

Another thing, if you want to be the king of melee you need the Guardian, not the Warrior. Warrior is actually pretty squishy, especially with the typical glass cannon build.

Signet of Rage is a passive? Have you read the passive? You must go back and read it, then understand it’s awful and the active is the greatest thing ever.

Also, Warrior is apparently lackluster in top-tier structured, competitive PvP. In all other PvP, it’s fine in various builds (casual sPvP, WvWvW).

Warrior SMASH! is the mind set when i play my hammer warrior alt. great fun after playing mesmers and eles.

I think the overall message here is that Warriors are fun in small chunks as an alt, but maining one can be mind-numbingly boring

yes we are boring.

so boring in fact that everyone thinks we are OP yet doesn’t want to BE us.

excelsior?

The warrior weapons I find awesome. There is a lot of variety here and you can build in a way that lets you change it up almost at will. This helps keep things interesting.

The problem with boredom I find is the Burst mechanic is meh at best in terms of holding interest and all of the utility skills are quiet dull.

But then, I find boon/condition type shouts to be the most boring thing in the world, and FGJ is the worst offender since it is best to just use on CD (might duration outlasts CD, or it can) without even the timing element something like Save Yourselves or Fear Me has.

I’m thinking of trying a banner heavy warrior, the added requirement of managing position may bring an interesting dynamic to it.

Messe.8759:

I think the overall message here is that Warriors are fun in small chunks as an alt, but maining one can be mind-numbingly boring

Depends on what you want out of the game. I’ve been maining one for weeks, and haven’t even come close to considering switching to anything else. It’s too much melee fun.

Seras.5702:

As a sad owner of a former Ranger main, I am thinking about rolling a ranged warrior. But I’ve heard that warriors get boring. Is this true? Big damage numbers and lotsa hp is nice, but are they fun/exciting to play or just mindless-beat-on-stuff-machines?

Warriors can provide tremendous support and crowd control capabilities and playing these roles in my opinion is more challenging than a straight-up damage role. Depending on what you like, it may be more fun for you, too.

What’s funny is my knee-jerk instant snarky mental reply to the question, “Are warriors boring?” was: “No, rangers are!” And then I saw you were already playing a ranger. To each their own… but I think warrior is more fun (or less boring) than ranger. For those of you who play ranger and love it: don’t take this personally. It’s just my opinion and you’re welcome to disregard it.

I don’t know how you guys are playing but I have found the warrior playstyle very entertaining. I leveld a mesmer to 80, full exotics and whatnot, wanted a warrior for tagging and pve mostly, but have been having a blast with it in WvW. I use pretty much all of the weapons, depending on the situation, but my favorite is Axe/Shield & Longbow. Utility I use shake it off, bull’s charge, and bolas. I wear power/tough/vitality gear and I do decent damage. It feels SO good to execute a good stun chain on a target and watch their health drop. Eviscerate is nice nuke and axe 1 does decent damage. Traited leg specialist immoblizes the target for 1 second which is nice. Idk if your bored then you should change it up, trait for a different weapon, work towards a different set of gear. This will completely change your playstyle. You could be a shout/heal warrior, Hammer KD’s, Sniper, sword condition bleeds, mace tank…

I think warriors can be incredibly fun if you use the right build. I am running a full defensive/shout healing build and I have tons of fun with it. In fact I haven’t been giving my alts very much playing time at all because I enjoy my warrior so much. I can absorb huge amounts of damage and provide wonderful support, healing, reviving, buffing, etc…. I also really enjoy hammer builds for a more offensive spec. It is incredibly satisfying to swing your hammer in an arc and watch people go flying. It just feels powerful. I used a Greatsword build for a while after I hit 80 and it just didn’t do anything for me (though there seem to be a lot of people who like it).

What I find awesome about warriors is the versatility we have. We can do everything from big numbers, to CC, to support, to soaking up damage. I thought I had made the wrong choice with warrior when I was using a GS build, but now that I’ve found the build I like I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

If you are thinking about making a warrior but are afraid they’re going to be boring it sounds like you’ve already made a predetermined opinion on how the class will be.

Anytime anyone wants to know how a profession plays I always suggest they go into structured PvP or WvW to kill players or monsters to get a good reference of what it will be like at higher levels.

I’ve never been anything but Greatsword, Rifle, and Hammer. Since you plan on being ranged what I can comment on is that Rifle is “decent”. I’m not a big fan of ranged, but its essential when things start getting bad and you need some space. The damage seems low compared to the other weapons and the cooldowns are long making it monotonous.

My personal opinion is if you want to be range, don’t be a warrior. Have you thought of trying out the engineer? A lot more fun if you like being range.

They’re not really all the boring. A crit build on a rifle is really powerful. A condition build charr around Axes and Sword is also pretty nice. Hammer is as flashy as it gets though.

I use to do Mace+Shield in WvW and I’d be an incredibly tanky guy just using the shield traits and then using rifle or Sword+Axe to get some condition damage and mobility.

I found them boring… because they walk really slow and utilities are really… just not good IMO. You could go DPS, support (Banners/Shouts/Both) , or just Tanky w/ low DPS. It was the trait tree that really got me, it had nothing extra about it, all it felt was it was just small boons and barely made a difference if you didn’t go 30+30 for a specific weapon.

Also, Signet Warriors… don’t do that. They are just dull and repetitive.

There is a reason why patch after patch the warriors are the least touched.

It is because they are a straight forward class. Yes they can be a bit boring, but they have good survivability and are not hit by constant tweaks to their specialized skills (because everything about them is straight forward).

I have a lot of fun playing a Banner support warrior. I ran Fractals for the first time the other day and our ragtag group consisted of a Ranger, a Guardian, and three Warriors- and we rocked it! The main thing is trying out all the weapon types and finding a style that’s fun for you. Also- don’t forget to switch weapons in-combat, because if you don’t things will get stale quick.

I’ve been playing my warrior since the launch of the game. I still haven’t found a reason to create an alt besides for doubling/tripling the amount of tokens I need/want. Although we’re too predictable in PvP which makes us a sitting ducks at times.

In other games i have always tended to play the stealthy class but i wanted a change in GW2. Created a Warrior on day one and i havnt looked back! Love the high stats and range of weapons. Through one dungeon i may use GS, Sword/Sheild, Rifle, Bow or whatever is suited to the occasion.

I Started with my ele (same name etc. as in GW1, where I palyed Ele for 6 years)
When I got to lvl 25 I remembered the smashing fun I had in one of the PBE’s with my warrior.
I started then playing Warrior … this is now 2.5 months ago …. I never even touched my ele again.
I think most of the people will find it boring after some time, but even after the 5-millionsth. Hundred Blades I still have to grin every frickin time, when something dies to it. If its an PvE-enemy or an enemy in WvW.
So overall, it depends on your playstyle.

NijAAlba

When leveling its very straight fwrd. But when in dungeons its very fun due to versatility. U can choose from so many options and do so many interesting things that influence the outcome apart from dps.

To make things interesting, use a longbow. Burst skill for fire field, area bomb it for might, swap to GS or Axe and spin spin spin to pew pew firebolts.

Change it up abit and sword/axe leap thru it for a nice fireshield and then spin for bolts.

Satisfaction!

No, warriors are not boring.

Although, it might be better to say: If you usually play melee warrior-type characters in other games, then you will not find the warrior of GW2 boring.

That being said, you won’t find it without flaw, either. Putting all forms of PvP to the side for now, I find it very frustrating that the most efficient approach to many difficult fights is simply to swap to a ranged weapon and let loose. It seems to run counter to the melee-centric focus of the class.

I hate to resort to obvious truisms, but try to identify which GW2 class best corresponds to what you usually like to play, then choose accordingly. Even in the absence of clearly defined roles that’s a good place to start.

I play both warrior, and ranger. I’m comfortable with ranged classes in other games but since range is an option with the warrior here, I tried it and enjoyed the profession enough to max it out. I wouldn’t want to play ranged warrior 100% of the time as I would get bored if I stuck to rifle and longbow, although longbow’s F1 offers the warrior a combo field which helps liven things up. Nor could I play GS all the time, however OP 100 blades feels. I’m trying hammer at the moment which I thought I’d hate, but it’s growing on me. As another poster said earlier in the thread, SMASH!

To me, the large range of weapons is one of the selling points of warrior, and changing them around every so often helps keep it interesting. I still keep one ranged weapon on swap always though.

I love the warrior, but there’s something you have to understand about ranged warrior. It doesn’t really do high DPS. Rifle is good with condition damage. Longbow is good at AoE.

Warrior does great damage in melee but not really at range. I use rifle focused on bleeding because Bleeding Shot’s base damage isn’t good. It’s great until I am in a group where 2 other people focus on bleeding. I’m looking to make some alts for dungeons due to that.

If you want big damage at range, you already have a ranger. Put full berserker’s gear on it, and go full offensive traits. You’ll be surprised.

Yes I personally think its a really boring class, its just to basic and simple. And imo too few skills, thats why i like engineer and elementalist but mesmer is fun too because its different

Oh also… as far as fun/boring goes, I think it really depends on what exactly you enjoy.

Here are the reasons I find it fun.

- It’s tanky so I can play lazily in open world pve, and it’s a little easier to survive in general. Also allows me to revive allies with less risk to myself.

- Good mobility. I love mobility.

- Best skills for running past enemies when I don’t feel like fighting them.

- Most weapons available. Each weapon shines in different situations. I actually carry weapons I’m not specced for and pull them out for very specific situations.

To me it’s about which things the class can do. I don’t care how simple or complex it is presented.

For all the talk of weapon choices and such, I must say, I went axe/mace and greatsword and never looked back. I keep aranged weapon on standby, but pretty much never use it, I find ranged play dull on the warrior.

Melee though? It’s a blast. I’m on my 2nd warrior, and I admit, the first time I deleted it ,I found it dull. Now though, I think I just didn’t find the right weapon and skill combo, the first time I tried to play it too much like my guardian. Now I’m running a crit build and loving it, I feel like some kind of destroyer.

Maullus.1273:

Although, it might be better to say: If you usually play melee warrior-type characters in other games, then you will not find the warrior of GW2 boring.

Unfortunately I disagree with you here. I ALWAYS play a melee character as my main out of preference. However I find the complexity that exists in the warrior/melee types of other games to be severely lacking in the warrior of GW2. In WoW on my prot war we had stance dancing and it seperated the common warrior from the greats. It added depth and a higher skill-ceiling to the class.

In WAR we had the chosen for instance with aura cycling, which was for all intents and purposes a variation of stance dancing. In AoC the guardian had stance dancing and the bear shaman had manifest molding (which was my main and was basically our hammer/shout warrior done far better). Even in LotRO the melee classes had more complex design, no real pvp to speak of, but even in PvE the warden, capt. etc had depth.

In GW2 warriors lack this depth and really the classes that exemplify what the class design is missing can be found in the ele and engi for example, both of which are designed superbly imo.

I find my warrior depressing, but I keep playing him because at my core I just really want to play a warrior archetype.

The most fun I have ever had in this game was doing the following with my warrior:

1- Equip a longbow
2- Gather 8+ mobs around me
3- Dodge, jump, kick, punch, roll for my life until my adrenaline meter is maxed
4- Drop the F1 AoE fire Combo Field skill
5- Look the now burning mobs in the eye and say “Yippie kay-yay ****** ******”
6- Trigger the combo field with the 3rd Longbow skill and watch everything go boom and die.

Warrior is the sixth class I tried out, all have been fun but none like the warrior I wish I had rolled him first! the warrior can be boring or fun to play it depends on how you chose to play it, it’s a very flexible class in that regard.

Well, that all depends on what you mean by “boring” and what’s “boring” to you. I can tell you right now that warrior skills aren’t that “interesting”. They’re not flashy nor do they have very interesting effects. They do things that you think a warrior would do. Hack, slash, knock things around, and generally screw things up. You can control the fight with a hammer, you can just go full on hacking away with an axe, and you leap about right in the middle of things.

Do I find that fun? Yes, absolutely. I have incredible amounts of fun on my warrior. I can’t do anything really flashy, make colored explosions, or make wacky noises, but I can fight. I can stop someone from using a big move with a bull’s rush or a shield smack and I can generally lay pain on them. In short, a warrior does basically what you’d think a warrior does. They get in and fight. A warrior can be very reactive and quick depending on what kind of warrior you play.

If you’re asking for fun, that’s very dependent on you. If you want to make flashy explosions of light or make cool noises, maybe a mesmer or a guardian would be better for you. But personally, I’ve had the most fun on a warrior. Try it out. Especially in PvP. You’ll have the most fun there with a warrior in my opinion, but it still all depends on your preference.

Braxxus.2904:

Maullus.1273:

Although, it might be better to say: If you usually play melee warrior-type characters in other games, then you will not find the warrior of GW2 boring.

Unfortunately I disagree with you here. I ALWAYS play a melee character as my main out of preference. However I find the complexity that exists in the warrior/melee types of other games to be severely lacking in the warrior of GW2. In WoW on my prot war we had stance dancing and it seperated the common warrior from the greats. It added depth and a higher skill-ceiling to the class.

In WAR we had the chosen for instance with aura cycling, which was for all intents and purposes a variation of stance dancing. In AoC the guardian had stance dancing and the bear shaman had manifest molding (which was my main and was basically our hammer/shout warrior done far better). Even in LotRO the melee classes had more complex design, no real pvp to speak of, but even in PvE the warden, capt. etc had depth.

In GW2 warriors lack this depth and really the classes that exemplify what the class design is missing can be found in the ele and engi for example, both of which are designed superbly imo.

I find my warrior depressing, but I keep playing him because at my core I just really want to play a warrior archetype.

QFMFT

Boredom is why I stopped playing my warrior after hitting 80.

By their very nature, warriors are a little boring. There’s really no way to get around this honestly, though I think the main culprit is the fact that their utility skills are so thematically underwhelming. They would benefit from some cooler utilities.

Still, even despite being a bit boring, I feel that warriors are exceptionally well designed in this game.

I feel very agile even if all I’m doing is 6 – r -1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – § 1 – 2 – 4 – 5 – 3 with dodges in between.

It looks awesome and feels fun!

Warriors are a little boring compared to the mechanics of some of the other classes, yes…

But do you know what I find not boring? Not dying.

That’s why I keep playing my Warrior rather than my “fun” Engineer, which was actually my first 80. I rather like the “boring” aspect of the defensive Warrior. It allow me to focus on tactics instead of employing fancy skills.

So indeed negating damage by blocking at the right time may not be as fun as using a flamethrower and laughing every time you hear the woooosh. But who cares, I’m still having too much fun to hear the sounds of an Engineer dying.

Dawdler.8521:

Warriors are a little boring compared to the mechanics of some of the other classes, yes…

But do you know what I find not boring? Not dying.

That’s why I keep playing my Warrior rather than my “fun” Engineer, which was actually my first 80. I rather like the “boring” aspect of the defensive Warrior. It allow me to focus on tactics instead of employing fancy skills.

So indeed negating damage by blocking at the right time may not be as fun as using a flamethrower and laughing every time you hear the woooosh. But who cares, I’m still having too much fun to hear the sounds of an Engineer dying.

Uhh… Bunker Engineer > Bunker Warrior by a mile.