Guild Wars 2

It seems to have always been the case that a berserker/greatsword focused warrior was pretty much optimal, but in the past you had variety in switching to axes or axe/mace. Apparently now that’s not the case and just sitting on your greatsword is the way to go? Is warrior play really that boring and the other weapons really that pointless in which using nothing but a greatsword is your best option? I guess it comes with the type of game GW2 is, no holy trinity ends up pushing everyone into the damage dealer role. I just wish carrying around something like a mace/shield or sword/shield was actually viable.

So my question is, are there really no other viable more interesting builds out there for a warrior? Or in 8 levels when I get to 80 am I going to be buying berserker gear and living on hundred blades?

yes

15 characters

YES! and no…

Weapons in GW2 follow different roles. In warriors:

2H
GreatSword: Damage / mobility
Hammer: Control

1H
Sword: Condition / Mobility
Axe: Damage
Mace: Control (tank, weakness + block + stun)

So its not that warriors are GS robots, its that the current meta for the game is go full damage and that for warriors means GS since it is the current most efficient overall build.

If you want to play other builds, you can use other weapons.

It can be a rather boring build, but when I think about it, there’s some things that make it less boring.

Before fights you can swap to a Longbow (use signet of fury to give adrenaline) to place fire [F1] field and blast, then use Warhorn to blast for might + drop a banner in there for another blast, then put your GS back on.

Your other set could be Sword/Warhorn for quick and easy skips, or it could be axe/mace for the CC from mace knock when required which can be useful in some areas and for removing defiant on bosses. You can also use mainhand axe + offhand sword as your other set for more engaging content such as lupicus in arah where the sword offhand will give you a channeled block. Although of coarse you don’t want to be sitting on axe for any longer than you have to when running the pure GS build.

-Grandmaster Mind Brain

Greatsword is the most optimal setup ya, but not the only good build. Pure Axe build is less than 1% less DPS, which is nothing and the old GS + Axe/Mace is about 6-7% lost in dps only compare to a pure GS build, but it is still more DPS than a EA Warrior or a Phalanx Warrior.

At this points, this doesn’t really change anything since a lot of stuff like the food, sigil, nourishment or the right rotation will change more you DPS than the difference between any of those good build.

Thaddeus.4891:

Greatsword is the most optimal setup ya, but not the only good build. Pure Axe build is less than 1% less DPS, which is nothing and the old GS + Axe/Mace is about 6-7% lost in dps only compare to a pure GS build,

Just a heads up the Pure GS build is only like 2% better than 6/5/0/0/3 because the 6/5 build can camp GS too

GS DPS is best in a pug/solo situation since Forceful Greatsword gets you a ton of extra might stacks which in turn significantly improves overall DPS.

Axe DPS is better in practice when you are in a group that can get you to 25 might without FGS since it has slightly better vuln stacking and more consistent damage that doesn’t rely on roots, walling, or mob size.

If you want to use the latter, find groups that meet the latter conditions. Not super hard.

The only time I use GS is when I’m camping it for Phalanx Strength. Otherwise I prefer Axe/Axe.

Yeah haters gonna hate…but whatever

I only use greatsword when I have to weapon swap to it because my rifle jammed.

Yes.

even in pvp warior are called hambot, axebot, greatswordbot ( ok nikebot but i get it ) most of pve is still drainbread so… yes

Tree.3916:

Thaddeus.4891:

Greatsword is the most optimal setup ya, but not the only good build. Pure Axe build is less than 1% less DPS, which is nothing and the old GS + Axe/Mace is about 6-7% lost in dps only compare to a pure GS build,

Just a heads up the Pure GS build is only like 2% better than 6/5/0/0/3 because the 6/5 build can camp GS too

This.

In wvw i used only once GS for the fun.

In pve yes bc everything just stands there and takes it. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.

Yes, Warriors are GS robots because most PvE content is about maximizing DPS, and it so happens that currently our best DPS rotation involves staying in GS. It’s not like it was any more involved when our optimal rotation involved a swap to Axe, it just meant you pressed the Tilde key (~) once in a while.

What SHOULD be the case is that encounters require us to swap weapons when needed for their utility (eg swap to bow for snare/blind/ect, mace for stun, shield for block). Otherwise it doesn’t matter if our optimal rotation requires a weapon swap or not, it’s still just a rotation.

PvP’s better about this, but it’d be nice if the longbow wasn’t a staple in every single build. Nerf CI, give us other tools to handle condition to compensate for nerf, please ANET.

Except encounters already require us to swap weapons. For example you’ll go greatsword/longbow for the arah p1 tar, you’ll go axe/sword + gs for lupicus, you can go gs + axe/axe for belka, axe/mace is more of a group weapon set, and so forth.

If you’re not swapping weapons around you’re not playing warrior efficiently.

They nerfed axe so now its barely any difference from a full 100b unless you already have 25 stacks of might.