Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone !

I am trying to enhance my build to play in WvW bus, and I cannont chose between two ways to play: with shouts, or with banners ?

Firstly, I wonder what is the more useful in defense: II (Gain +200 toughness when crippled, chilled, stunned, or immobilized) or VI ? (Increases damage to weakened foes by 5%)

Secondly, I hesitate between two ways to end my build:

30 défense
XII -> Gain 5 seconds of retaliation when struck by a critical hit. Cannot trigger more than once every 15 seconds

25 tactics
V -> Banners apply their bonuses to a larger area. Banners recharge 20% faster

Skills :
Banner of Defense, Banner of Strength, Battle Standard

25 défense
Same start as the first choice, but with just 25 points instead of 30.

30 tactics
VIII -> Shouts recharge 20% faster
XII -> Shouts heal

Skills :
“Shake It Off!”, “Fear Me!”, Signet of Rage

Banners give me

• buffs to bus, one of which is move speed
• blast finishers
• allow to rez people

Shouts are great because

• cooldown less long
• AoE dispell for one condition
• AoE fear
• move speed for solo (elite)
• fits well with 6 superior runes of soldier

What would you choose ?

I plan to use a hammer and a rifle or a GS, depending on the situation.
Here is a link that shows the base of my build. It is not completed, I just put the skills and traits that I am sure I want to use. I didn’t select the stuff.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|2.1g.h19|7.1g.h1.e.0.h1l|1g.7x.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r|1g.67.2s.0.3s.0.1j.67.1g.67.2s.0|0.0.p2a.p10.f3|15.7|5y.64.0.0.0|e

In advance, thank you !

II doesn’t exist any more, it is now dogged march which I definitely recommand you to take.

I personally love the retal in zerg fights and even in solo fights, they boosted my damage a lot. The retal nerf did hit by build a bit.

I would go warhorn converts condition into boon and shout heals, warhorn is by far my favourite weapon.

skills: I hope you take for great justice as 3th and you can swap signet of rage for warbanner. Is up to you, I swap between those 2.

And now the banner or shout part. It is up to you to be honest, every zerg needs atleast 1 banner warrior. All the other should go shout, because banners don’t stack. So if you see you are lacking a banner one, you can go banner. I find them lacking for solo fights, so if you solo roam you might have to swap them out and retrait. So that might be irritating. But if you don’t roam, yea than you don’t have a problem.

I have a love/hate relationship with banners.

See, they’re great support tools, but you spend so much time managing and babysitting them, you hardly have any free time for actual fighting. Or else they get left behind/stolen. Thank god they at least fixed the item-pick-up-autorun bug a while back. If only banners worked more like the engineer toolkits, or the engineer toolbelt, they might be way easier and more fun to manage…. sigh

Shouts on the other hand, always originate from where you are. And they’re insta-cast.

Unless you get your kicks spending all day picking up, dropping, resummoning, and carrying banners instead of actually attacking and fighting while insta-casting your support skills/aoe heals, a shout build is MUCH more fun than a banner build.

I’d only take one banner in WvW if I were you, unless you’re doing something very static like buffing defenders on a wall, or trying to hold a lord room. Then you can use the other two slots for shake it off or balanced stance, and maybe something like the signet of stamina (dodges and emergency condition purge are always nice to have). If you take more you risk leaving long c/d skills completely wasted someplace.

Ok, that’s interesting. I like the idea of swaping between the two builds depending on the need of the bus and I should have thought about it earlier O:
I realize that there is only a 5 points difference, so I might choose the second build which allows me to get “shouts heal” if I use them and doesn’t make the banners weaker if I plan to swap. It is that simple and I find myself stupid not to have thought of it (o:

Until now I played with shouts and I find it fun and useful. I’m going to try a bit the banner mode to get into the habit of using it.
Thank you all !

Standard shout support spec. If you comfortable with movement impairing effects, swap runes for soldiers. Banners totally uneffective atm, only good one is elite, and only because of res.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|2.1g.h19|7.1g.h1.e.0.h1l|1g.7x.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r|1g.67.2s.0.3s.0.1j.67.1g.67.2s.0|0.0.p2a.p10.f3|15.7|5y.64.0.0.0|e