Guild Wars 2

So, finally getting around to making a charr and I am considering making her a warrior. However, the only real weapons that caught my eye were dual axe (maybe mace also) and rifle. So, my question is rather simple, how do these weapons fair compared to other choices in all areas of PVE and WvW?

Unfortunately, if you want to be effective Axe/Axe isn’t the best option. It’s a shame because who doesn’t want to Spin2Win but the damage on it is less than the Axe 1 skill.

Rifle is another weapon that is generally crap, and believe me I have tried and tried to make it viable. The only place that it’s slightly worth using is WvW as a sniper, but even then there’s better builds out there and if you get in a 1v1 you’ll probably be screwed.

Axe/Mace is good in PvE when paired with a Greatsword on a berserker 30/25/0/0/15 build.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Rifle is another weapon that is generally crap, and believe me I have tried and tried to make it viable.

Please be more specific. I’m somehow tired that ppl tend to say things like that without adding any evidence. Rifle is not a crap, far from it – it’s a nice backup weapon for gs users.
Now, if you want (and can) to go pure melee it’s fine. I agree that the axe/mace does more damage than the rifle. But I tried both rifle and bow and rifle has several advantages:
bleed on auto (Attack of Opportunity is nice when using gs2)
8 stacks of vulnerability for 12s with 15 (12 traited) s colldown
interrupt with 15(12) s cd

The bow#1 root is indeed over rifle#2 slow, but OTOH it has slower cd and bow traits are not available if you go melee.

I use gs as the main damage source, and rifle nicely supports that. You put on slow, bleeding vulnerability, then charge, and gs2, gs3 eventualy to evade if needed and repeat.

Bow might be better damage wise with aoe, and is a good choice if you want to go pure ranged, but I use the rifle as a supporting weapon.

Any other opinions? ;o Not that I don’t appreciate or respect the two above, but more thoughts are always welcome.

Celestina.2894:

Any other opinions? ;o Not that I don’t appreciate or respect the two above, but more thoughts are always welcome.

Offhand axe and rifle are the absolute worst weapons a warrior can use

Just my humble opinion. I prefer to only have 1 burst skill I always use …combine that with some kind of stun or immobilize. A/A + Rifle break both those rules.

Fext.3614:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Rifle is another weapon that is generally crap, and believe me I have tried and tried to make it viable.

Please be more specific. I’m somehow tired that ppl tend to say things like that without adding any evidence. Rifle is not a crap, far from it – it’s a nice backup weapon for gs users.
Now, if you want (and can) to go pure melee it’s fine. I agree that the axe/mace does more damage than the rifle. But I tried both rifle and bow and rifle has several advantages:
bleed on auto (Attack of Opportunity is nice when using gs2)
8 stacks of vulnerability for 12s with 15 (12 traited) s colldown
interrupt with 15(12) s cd

The bow#1 root is indeed over rifle#2 slow, but OTOH it has slower cd and bow traits are not available if you go melee.

I use gs as the main damage source, and rifle nicely supports that. You put on slow, bleeding vulnerability, then charge, and gs2, gs3 eventualy to evade if needed and repeat.

Bow might be better damage wise with aoe, and is a good choice if you want to go pure ranged, but I use the rifle as a supporting weapon.

Bow is a superior weapon not only for the points you mentioned but because of its synergy with Cleansing Ire. Outside of picking off people in WvW Kill Shot is just not a reliable burst. Not only is it easy to avoid it also required heavy investment to make it work. The weapon forces you to invest so much just to make it halfway worthwhile when bow is not only reliable but also has better synergy.

Even with the upcoming nerf Pin Down is great with both GS and Hammer and makes landing those heavy hitting attacks much easier. Arching Arrow also hits like a truck and if used in the fire field it gives you might as well. Most of the skills are also much simpler to use.

Rifle as it currently is just feels way too clunky and Kill Shot is only good against bad opponents. I do use it in WvW but to counter it all you need to do is save your dodges for Volley and Kill Shot and most of its damage is gone. I’ve tried pretty much every feasible build I could think of and it was always lacking compared to other builds.

i wouldnt call Rifle bad, but in better shape in recent patch.

GS-Rifle is boss if played right and im seeing more warriors using it, Volley is like ranged 100b minus the cleaving also mesmers and thieves go down so easy using it.

Fext.3614:

I use gs as the main damage source, and rifle nicely supports that. You put on slow, bleeding vulnerability, then charge, and gs2, gs3 eventualy to evade if needed and repeat.

Serious question, how do you use GS as the main damage source? Are you playing PvE?

In PvP/WvW, GS can not be used as a ‘main damage source’ without another weapon set that backs it up. Sure, you can use Bull’s, but thats on a 40 second cooldown and somewhat easily avoided.

In theory, using rifle to soften up your opponent then moving in for heavy damage with GS sounds good, but I agree with Burr. It just doesn’t work out that way. GS get’s kited, and Rifle does not do enough damage from a distance.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Bow is a superior weapon not only for the points you mentioned but because of its synergy with Cleansing Ire. Outside of picking off people in WvW Kill Shot is just not a reliable burst. Not only is it easy to avoid it also required heavy investment to make it work. The weapon forces you to invest so much just to make it halfway worthwhile when bow is not only reliable but also has better synergy.

Even with the upcoming nerf Pin Down is great with both GS and Hammer and makes landing those heavy hitting attacks much easier. Arching Arrow also hits like a truck and if used in the fire field it gives you might as well. Most of the skills are also much simpler to use.

Rifle as it currently is just feels way too clunky and Kill Shot is only good against bad opponents. I do use it in WvW but to counter it all you need to do is save your dodges for Volley and Kill Shot and most of its damage is gone. I’ve tried pretty much every feasible build I could think of and it was always lacking compared to other builds.

Well since I use 30/25/0/0/15 I dont really have cleansing ire. I’m talking PVE. Also, I don’t use Kill Shot because I want to keep Berserkers might up.

BTW, Celestina, look at this thread
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/old-30-10-0-0-30-still-best-dps-build/first#post3572634
Hayashi posts an axe/axe – rifle oriented build here. I tried it and switched back to 30/25/0/0/15, but feel free to try yourself.

Is this a troll thread? Rifle is a good weapon if you party with other ranged classes and do call targeting on single target damage. Its good for PVE when you fight a boss you want to range. Its a good weapon for ganking from range. Its a bad weapon becasue if volly or kill shot dont kill your enemy it doesn’t have sustained DPS. Its a bad weapon for 1v1 becasue 1200 range is easly closable and once that 1200 range is closed rifle becomes uselss. So its good if you can get one or 2 shots off from range or chase somone otherwise its a bad weapon for anything but volly and killshot and you need to land those and they need to crit or they both are bad.

Axe mainhand is good. Axe off hand is just not good. A. You will die from retal. and B. the damage in PVE and WvW is low since it only got buffed in spvp but still while you are spinning you cant do anything else so it puts a big target on your head come DPS me down becasue I will just stand there and take it all while I am doing less damage than my auto attack and you are beating me down.