Guild Wars 2

First, I don’t take credit for this build as the idea for it came from a suggestion that Epborden mentioned to me in the other Condition thread on Warriors. Also, I apologize for my constant theory-crafting as I’m always trying to think of moves and counter-moves from other classes/builds. With that, I will start by a quote:

epborden.7492:

In WvW it is a little different because you want confusion as well as the other conditions. You can’t run with just bleeds, fire, and poison. Thieves will be a nightmare for you especially, but other classes will smoke you if they can counter those three. I don’t think there is a class in the game other than Necromancer that can remove confusion natively (without using a skill like a shout), so it is the ultimate condition in WvW.

This is something I never really considered before but after testing his point, I wanted to share with you all a build that I am now hooked on. It is essentially a combination of bunker, conditions and shout builds with the focus on being able to CC your target and then drop a massive amount of conditions on them while still giving you several ways to regen and ignore their conditions.

As a note, the build I’m testing is based upon the gear I have and doesn’t use any ascended items. With that, here are the basic stats:

Health: 26K
Toughness: 1644
Condition Damage: 1100
Healing Power: 1073
Armor: 2922

Confusion Shout Warrior

Take a look at the attached image at the bottom for more details…

Anyways, I’m still testing this out but so far, it’s been pretty darn impressive and gives you a great deal of versatility. The major aspect I don’t like is having to give up the movement bonus.

What do you all think of this so far?

Looks solid. While I don’t have enough gold to try out new builds in WvW, I have some suggestions:

You could use mace/sword with geomancy for sustained bleeds and interrupts but with added torment; sword #5 blocks projectiles like shield and is far more offensive overall. Mace #3 only has 15sec cd which means you can use your runeset on cooldown.

Any condition build not using the +40% condi duration is just no. Its essentially a 40% dmg increase and it makes your cripples and immobilizes nasty. And by using perplexity and a shield your not really gaining anything, since you lose the torment from offhand sword. Epborden is right you can’t just have bleeds burning and poison. Thats why you have bleeds, burning, poison, torment, vulnerability, cripple, and immobilize. With this same build but with dire gear instead, you get much more condition dmg, and this more pressure, which translates to more defense. 1k torment ticks, 900 burning, and 2k bleed ticks once you get Em stacked up. All covered with vuln, cripple and immobilize so its impossible to get away. Poison so its very hard for people to heal up from

@Crovax

Yeah, that’s a good point about the offhand sword. I had looked at the mace but the one problem I have is that by giving up the 25% movement speed bonus, I didn’t want to drop the leap that the sword offers. Plus, those bleeds are really nasty. I had also considered the mace as an offhand for that stun that it has but then I give up the only block I have.

@ Carpboy,

Not sure how I missed that +40% food bonus. Guess I’m low on caffeine again? I originally was using dire (and played around with rabid) sets but I really wanted to try out the shout concept and see if it was worth it. I know that Warriors have been using shouts for ages when it comes to bunker/commander builds and so I figured it would help with my regen too.

If I change back to the offhand sword, are perplexity runes worth anything at all?

FinalPatriot.8034:

@Crovax

Yeah, that’s a good point about the offhand sword. I had looked at the mace but the one problem I have is that by giving up the 25% movement speed bonus, I didn’t want to drop the leap that the sword offers. Plus, those bleeds are really nasty. I had also considered the mace as an offhand for that stun that it has but then I give up the only block I have.

@ Carpboy,

Not sure how I missed that +40% food bonus. Guess I’m low on caffeine again? I originally was using dire (and played around with rabid) sets but I really wanted to try out the shout concept and see if it was worth it. I know that Warriors have been using shouts for ages when it comes to bunker/commander builds and so I figured it would help with my regen too.

If I change back to the offhand sword, are perplexity runes worth anything at all?

The #4 on perplexity will proc 3 stacks of confusion on being hit, 15 sec CD. That said i much prefer just simple undead runes

Wait, so the only two interrupts are shield bash and bull’s charge? I really don’t see that being enough in WvW, being single target CC too.

At the very least, I would add in Fear Me to the utilities. You’ll benefit from the heal and AOE interrupt. Like people said the mace/sword would help quite a bit adding 2 stuns (burst and a low CD), 2 blocks (2 and 5) and torment.

Tough call though. I could see even hammer/longbow working well with the CC and AOE damage. Warriors have it so tough juggling around conditions, makes maining a guardian so much easier to chose what to do. >.>

Shanks.2907:

Wait, so the only two interrupts are shield bash and bull’s charge? I really don’t see that being enough in WvW, being single target CC too.

At the very least, I would add in Fear Me to the utilities. You’ll benefit from the heal and AOE interrupt. Like people said the mace/sword would help quite a bit adding 2 stuns (burst and a low CD), 2 blocks (2 and 5) and torment.

Tough call though. I could see even hammer/longbow working well with the CC and AOE damage. Warriors have it so tough juggling around conditions, makes maining a guardian so much easier to chose what to do. >.>

Perp @6 has 15 sec icd, all you need really is mace#3 which has exactly 15 sec cd as well.

Crovax.7854:

Shanks.2907:

Wait, so the only two interrupts are shield bash and bull’s charge? I really don’t see that being enough in WvW, being single target CC too.

At the very least, I would add in Fear Me to the utilities. You’ll benefit from the heal and AOE interrupt. Like people said the mace/sword would help quite a bit adding 2 stuns (burst and a low CD), 2 blocks (2 and 5) and torment.

Tough call though. I could see even hammer/longbow working well with the CC and AOE damage. Warriors have it so tough juggling around conditions, makes maining a guardian so much easier to chose what to do. >.>

Perp @6 has 15 sec icd, all you need really is mace#3 which has exactly 15 sec cd as well.

You can still get 4 stacks of confusion from distracting strikes with no CD. Or, what if they have stability and your first stun doesn’t interrupt?