Guild Wars 2

This build has the primary focus to have a massive amount of health, great area-of-effect healing and consistent over-time damage through conditions. Using this build, you will have the ability to tank and heal through most punishment, both in dungeons and in player-versus-player combat. Dungeon parties can be formed around this build as the primary tank and healer, as monster aggression can be taken away from any glass cannon build.

Equipment
The primary weapon for this build is a longbow. In player-versus-player combat, you will be using your massive health pool to absorb damage and build adrenaline quickly (through a trait). Use Combustive Shot (F1) to create large-area burning damage and use Pin Down (5) to immobilize enemies to ensure they absorb more burning damage. Throw Arcing Arrow (3) to create a massive finisher explosion and run into the fire to ensure each Dual Shot (1) applies additional burning damage.

Your secondary weapon is either a greatsword or a sword/shield combination. The greatsword is used to escape in a horrible player-versus-player situation using Whirlwind Attack (3) and Rush (5). The sword/shield combination is used in dungeons and smaller scale player-versus-player and applies bleeding damage. Use the shield as a tactic to absorb the initial bursting damage of glass cannon enemies.

Your armour and trinkets should consist of Vitality/Healing Power/Condition Damage configuration. The Jalis’ armour is an armour set that can be bought from the trading post. For weapons and trinkets, search for Shaman’s equipment. The exception is the Accessory trinket, which does not exist as Shaman. Instead, attempt to get Ashes of the Effigy for the required statistics. I recommend the Rune of the Soldier runes to enable shouts to remove conditions. Your main-hand weapons should have Sigil of Water for additional healing and your off-hand weapon/greatsword should have Superior Sigil of Life.

Traits
The trait configuration is versatile; the build is configured around Defense and Tactics. Depending on your situation, you will need to change trait selection for the most optimal experience. Each selected trait will be explained further into the other sections. Please do note that it is not required to refund your traits, the things you will be changing are the selected bonuses.

Core Configuration: Put 10 points in Arms and select Deep Cuts (III). Put 30 points in Defense and select Embrace the Pain (I), Shield Master (IX) and Defy Pain (XI). Put 30 points in Tactics and select Inspiring Banners (V), Lung Capacity (VIII) and Vigorous Shouting (XII).

Wv3 Castle Assault Configuration: Change Shield Master (IX) to Turtle’s Defense (II). Since you are assaulting, you want the +200 toughness to shrug off most assaults thrown at you at a castle gate. This configuration ensures that weapons such as Arrow Carts are virtually useless against you, while you can throw Combustive Shot (F1) back at your enemies.

Wv3 Castle Defense Configuration: Change Inspiring Banners (V) to Stronger Bowstrings (II). Since you are defending, the additional range allows you to more easily throw your Combustive Shot (F1) into assaulting enemies. Use the regular tactics to deal additional damage (i.e. throw _Arcing Arrow (3) for the finisher damage).

Utilities
Healing Signet: Do not switch this out, it allows for a great passive regeneration and your durability ensures that there is enough time to benefit from its constant regeneration ticks. There is no real reason to ever switch this out on this build.

For Great Justice: This is one of the core abilities. The applied bonus is good for friendlies, but the main point is that this is a low cool-down shout which, through our equipment and traits, heals for a good amount of health. Do not over-heal, you have two shouts both on a 20-second cool-down so try to use one every 10 seconds when necessary.

Shake It Off: Besides breaking stun, this is also a low cool-down shout and is used to heal and remove conditions from your yourself and your allies. Just like For Great Justice, attempt to rotate between these two shouts to remove conditions and have persistent and regular healing.

Banner of Tactics: This is where it gets interesting, and a bit more complex. You can keep this banner up at all times due to the trait Inspiring Banners (V) and is used every 10 seconds to apply a Regeneration boon for 7 seconds. The complexity is hidden in the fact that you cannot see the cool-down of the ability since you drop the banner immediately after applying the boon, so keep track of the boon and add 3 seconds before grabbing the banner again. Also note that you need to track the banner position, do not leave it behind, even in player-versus-player. Once you get used to it, tracking your banner is almost second-nature. Besides, wielding the banner also allows you to cast swiftness so if you are running slow, you know you forgot something.

Fear Me: Fear me is great for interrupting resurrections, doing resurrections and generally being a pain in the kitten You can equip this utility when you are not using the banner (i.e. when defending a castle) and this might be a better choice when fighting glass cannons while roaming in Wv3. Ensure you switch out your trait, Inspiring Banners (V) to Stronger Bowstrings (II) for the additional range you might need.

Battle Standard: Battle standard, like other elite skills, is pretty much useless in terms of offence or boons. However, this ability can resurrect up to 3 friendlies that are in a downed state and this makes it a wonderful ability to completely turn a fight around. This applies to dungeons and grouped Wv3, so there is no reason not to use it unless you are sure you are completely alone.

Signet of Rage: Most warriors I encounter are running around with this, it gives 3 boons that are pretty nice for glass cannon configurations, but not for us. Swiftness is the only thing that we might be interesting in, and, seeing as the banner can provide 14 seconds of swiftness we keep slowing down for 1 second plus the duration of the cast. Using this signet corrects that and ensures permanent swiftness. Again, when there are friendlies around, there is no good reason to use this.

Consumables
This is a very important part; use Rare Veggie Pizza and keeping using it. It adds 40% duration to our condition damage; that is basically just +40% damage at all times. That’s way too much to ignore or swap out for the minor benefits we can get from other consumables. Make sure you also take Master Tuning Crystal, which converts 6% of our Toughness and 4% of our Vitality to Condition Damage. You might want to consider swapping the Rare Veggie Pizza for Mango Pie in a dungeon for that additional health regeneration. It’s not often necessary, but there are times when it can relieve some pressure.

Tactics
Dungeons: You are the tank! Remember people saying there is no real trinity in this game? Well, that’s wrong. Healing abilities build aggression, just like damage abilities do. The difference is that healing builds a lot more, ensuring that a tanking healing warrior such as you will naturally gain the attention of each monster and boss. I usually PUG, so it is easy to find glass cannons to add to the party. Usually, it is nice to bring one utility/control build player to relieve some pressure, or you know, another one of this warrior build.

Player-Versus-Player: It is important to use your banner, even in player-versus-player. Your massive health pool allows you to absorb most damage, but it is smart to absorb the initial burst of a cannon with Shield Stance. Exclusively use your longbow to throw Combustive Shot (F1) and Pin Down (5). Your health percentage should go down slower than your enemies in most cases, just keep the pressure on and keep healing.

Conclusion
If you find this useful, please leave a message. I’m open to suggestions, I too want to improve this build when possible. Please don’t leave messages saying that other classes do condition damage better than a warrior; we all know that, but none has the utilities (healing, durability, escapes, buffing) similar to the warrior. If you want me to expand or correct certain parts, do let me know.

Why don’t you just post a Link to your Build on one of the websites? gw2builds.net is a good one or Intothemists.com

Kyouhei.2341:

Why don’t you just post a Link to your Build on one of the websites? gw2builds.net is a good one or Intothemists.com

Because the build changes on your preferences and situation. Hence, I explained all the choices, the reasoning behind them and when you should choose for one configuration or another. It’s not a drop-in-and-win solution, no good build can be.

Hi, thanks for posting your build! I am currently running a tanking/healing build that is almost exactly the same, with the exception of a few trait choices, and I’ve found that my survivability and support is amazing, but my ability to contribute damage wise, especially in keep defense, is lacking, as I am using mace/shield and sword/warhorn. I think yours provides more damage than mine, and I would like to try out the GS with it, but I am hesitant to give up my warhorn’s ability to remove movement impairment. Have you run into any trouble with getting stunlocked? Also do you use the longbow much outside of keep defense?

Deathspike.1870:

Wv3 Castle Defense Configuration: Change Inspiring Banners (V) to Stronger Bowstrings (II). Since you are defending, the additional range allows you to more easily throw your Combustive Shot (F1) into assaulting enemies. Use the regular tactics to deal additional damage (i.e. throw _Arcing Arrow (3) for the finisher damage).

Stronger Bowstrings doesn’t give Combustive Shot additional range.

Not a huge fan of condition builds but I might try this out, looks fun. BTW do you try to stay at range in dungeons or fight face to face?

XtalDelphium.5679:

I think yours provides more damage than mine, and I would like to try out the GS with it, but I am hesitant to give up my warhorn’s ability to remove movement impairment. Have you run into any trouble with getting stunlocked? Also do you use the longbow much outside of keep defense?

It does happen, sometimes, but that usually implies that I did not pay attention to my surroundings. When the need arises to get out, you can use a shout pretty quickly to remove movement restrictions and switch to the greatsword to quickly make ~1600 range distance. It requires more situational awareness but a horn can only remove the restriction once when attempting to run, and many classes can restrict you in more way than one (especially against multiple enemies). I also use the longbow almost exclusively for the burning damage, with the greatsword on the switch for a quick get-away. When roaming, bleeding with your sword is awesome.

Major Kaldash.3542:

Stronger Bowstrings doesn’t give Combustive Shot additional range.

Yep, but Arcing Arrow will match the range and allows for a great finisher.

Palinois.1064:

Not a huge fan of condition builds but I might try this out, looks fun. BTW do you try to stay at range in dungeons or fight face to face?

Depending on the boss or situation, but when possible I favour the sword and shield combination. In your face is the most fun style in my opinion, and is stronger than a longbow. When not possible, then yeah, the bow is the only real option. I’d consider a Rifle, because bleeding is still great, but when considering the two options I’d favour the longbow because of the burning and finishers. It felt much stronger, but you sacrifice your adrenaline for it, and thus one regeneration.

Well, I tried it out and I have to say I love using the GS/longbow and sword/shield with this build instead of the weapon set I was initially using. The only difference is I like to use Turtle’s Defense/Last Stand/Defy Pain in the Defense Trait line, instead of Shield Master or Embrace the Pain. Thanks for helping me improve my build, though. I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

I have a question…would the plus healing with the shouts be worth it to lose the toughness from say…power/vit/toughness set…could you still hold aggro in dungeons WITHOUT the + healing?

That’s exactly the kind of build I want for my warrior. Thank you. =)

I have to ask though… wouldn’t Toughness be better than Vitality for a build that focuses on self-healing? Looking for a build that specializes in defense, support and healing, I went for Cleric gear on my exotics since it has healing and toughness. As a defense-oriented warrior, am I kittening myself? I realize it lacks condition damage which isn’t ideal for the bow…

Last Stand is fun, but I really do favor more skill usage with the shield. Interrupts and blocking is invaluable to my playing style. Toughness, in my opinion, is not worth it. It does reduce the direct damage you receive and that alone is both great and horrible. In dungeons and player-versus-player combat, condition damage cuts right through whatever armor you have making the stacked toughness pointless. Besides that, in Wv3 you encounter a lot of thieves and they have no issue with bursting your toughness. You’ll receive less damage at most bosses, needing to heal less, and thus generating less aggression. I too have a toughness set, but I can’t keep aggression on me with it (unless I do major healing on friendlies).

As a side note, if you go power/toughness you can get a Rifle instead of a Longbow and do consistent damage that way. I don’t really like it since you have less survivability, but it might work better for your style.

Good read and well explained i run something similar except i go hammer instead of sword n shield , im not convinced about your gear tho ? what kinda heals you pumping out with that set up of gear ?

Unfortunately it is very hard to give exact numbers, because I have so many regeneration going on all the time. To illustrate tough, I am pumping about 30-40% of a glass cannon warrior health in a single shout. That’s just shouting, regeneration ticks are also influenced, but I can say with confidence that it is very notable when I heal with this gear compared to gear without the boosting. I wouldn’t recommend a hammer with this gear, you would be lacking power to give the hammer an ‘oomph’ and the hammer doesn’t build condition damage. A hammer would be better if you replace condition damage with power to smack people around with hammer/rifle (i.e. cleric) but you sacrifice health to do that (assuming this build).

Hang on. I am either misunderstanding something or maybe you’ve worded something wrong? A Warrior with nothing invested in vitality has, what, 18000 HP and change? 30% of 18000 is 5400. 5400 hp healed in a “single shout”? How can this be? I am in full exotic Clerics armor and jewelry, missing 100 healing from traits and am just shy of 2200 per shout. Are you sure you didn’t mean the healing skill on 10 second cool down from Banner of Tactics cures for ~30-40% of a glass Warrior? I do not mean to say you are wrong. I would love some clarification and if i can improve my shout healing by 150% that would be great. My total healing power is a bit over 1300.

What you’re describing is Mouser P v P’s Shout-healer warrior
http://en.gw2codex.com/build/20460-mouse-s-wvw-build

I’ve actually run this with full exotic clerics weapons/armor/jewels for a while. It’s good fun and while you do actually get alot of aggro for the healing in instances, I intended it to be used as a WvW build and ever since the big AoE nerf (you can only heal 5 targets including pets/minions/npcs. If you’re unlucky you heal 5 necro minions and no real players) it’s just not viable as a WvW healer.

Sure you can do some healing, but as soon as you’re running with 20+ players you’re more useful to the zerg as a proper DD than a minor healer.

Sad but true: With AoE limited to 5 targets the Longbow/Shout Healer isn’t viable for WvW.

Beefcake.9032:

Sad but true: With AoE limited to 5 targets the Longbow/Shout Healer isn’t viable for WvW.

I think you overstate the problem. Certainly, the AoE Heal/ Buff limit makes a shouter less valuable in a zerg. We’re still solid in small group play, and there’s a fair bit of that in WvW, particularly if you stay away from minion necros I don’t see too many of them in WvW anyway. As for the Longbow’s fire field, that is still valuable as a frequent, long-lasting fire field for people to work combos, even in zergy keep defense situations.

It’s certainly a nerf, but I don’t think it takes the shouter down to “not viable.”

Oghier.7419:

It’s certainly a nerf, but I don’t think it takes the shouter down to “not viable.”

I guess it’s very subjective, but I feel like I’m contributing more towards my team’s efforts with heavy dmg as opose to minor dmg + mediocre healing.

For the records, I ran with something like this:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/warrior#8|0|10|65|919|223|1890|0|0|0|0|20|1975|1846|0|0|0|0|0|30|1513|1510|1056|20|1104|1553|0|7|15|2|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|
(switching “Inspiring Banners” to “Stronger Bowstrings” for Siege/Defence situations)

Hm, I’m a little confused as to why there is no toughness modifiers in the equipment suggested. Might anyone enlighten me with some of the details? Thanks a bunch!