Guild Wars 2

Sup everyone.
I was not playing at the time perplexity runes were OP and I dont even know what the nerfs to that were. (Gonna look that up in a second) In some old videos that I’ve stumbled across in the past some builds could, by the looks of it, reach up to 3-4k confusion damage. Lol.

Well, since I was playing with the idea of making a condi build for my warrior next to my GS/Hammer build, the topic ‘confusion damage’ had to be looked at at some point.

So before I am going to spill out any more dreams and ideas of what it could look like and getting that lovely hateful critique of yours I was wanting to ask if anyone actually still uses confusion as a source of damage? And what would your experience be?

Of course I did my homework. A warrior can stack around 12 confusion stacks in a very short time. With an average of 1200 condition damage (which is not a lot) 1860 confusion damage is possible. I think this is still a lot, considering the enemy is most likely also going to bleed for 1000-1500 damage and addtional burning condition pressure. Maybe even add some poison to counter passive/active healing.

WvW confusion math: (source: wiki)
65 + (0.075 * Condition Damage) per stack.

1200 * 0.075 + 65 = 155
155 * 12 = 1860

there is a problem with confusion warri… the condi weapons dont have interrupts and the interrupting weapons dont apply conditions. saw some of those buld using sword / shield & hammer – but it only works in 1v1 and there are better 1v1 builds on warrior – for example the traditional shout bunker without confusion

If you are dead set on confusion, something like this would work;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAT8ejMdUGaVIuewJigjgCZI0BGDgb+UBoML6CA-TVyCABAcEAs4CAgj6PpobY59HSUJIFHEgsU+JxDAgUAQMNC-w

Almost 2k condition damage with WvW stacks.

Thing is, a condi warrior that does not stack confusion can be just as, if not more dangerous. We already have the most damaging condition through longbow, and you can easily get +100% condi duration on bleeds, allowing you to stack insane amounts.

I’d say this is the strongest warrior dueling build. Not a lot of fun to play though, as any condition spec.

I am not dead set on anything yet
I just reached a point where I think I’ve seen and played all the great power builds on a warrior and I want to explore other things a bit more.
Of course I am aware something like this would be a roaming spec or for a small group at best.

Now, I’ve been looking at confusion rather as an addition to the other conditions instead of the being the only source of damage.

I am also aiming for a very tanky spec:
~30k HP, 3.3k armor, 1k HP regen/s
- 2k condition damage.
- Bleed, confusion, poison, burning and retaliation damage.

Not quite sure how I am going to achieve this yet, we’ll see.

And yea, sword/shield longbow would be my preferred setup anyway.
Back to the editor!

sword / horn & longbow with shout healing would be the traditional condi bunker, strongest 1v1 spec, viable in roaming – not good in zerging / pve.

When i have real fancies about playing something new i go – Bruce Lee!

Phyisical utilities (traited) bullsrush, kick and stomp – death from above – full zerker – axe/mace and mace/shield. The chain-CC straight to death pleases me immensely xD You can do sick combos like mace 5 → mace 4 → axe 2 → kick → bullsrush → mace burst → stomp → shield 4 → eviscerate → GG. Thats how i have fun as warrior

Steelo.4597:

Phyisical utilities (traited) bullsrush, kick and stomp – death from above – full zerker – axe/mace and mace/shield. The chain-CC straight to death pleases me immensely xD You can do sick combos like mace 5 -> mace 4 -> axe 2 -> kick -> bullsrush -> mace burst -> stomp -> shield 4 -> eviscerate -> GG. Thats how i have fun as warrior

Lol, I gotta try this one someday – for science!

I highly question shout healing gets me as much HP/s as something built for regen.
And the warhorn for cleansing conditions is probably an overkill aswell, we have a longbow for that.

Edit:
Going shouthealing requires me to take atleast 2 shouts to make it effecitve.
Therein lies the problem. As I somehow still wish to go for confusion I need physical interrupt skills and I’d like to run a stance aswell. Then there is only one slot left for a shout.

Alright here we go:
If I were to go for full apothecary gear and shout healing with traited shouts they can heal for around 2700 on a 20 second cooldown.

Given I use 2 shouts on cooldown its going to be 270HP/s + 85 from pie + 432 Signet = 787HP/s.

Now I go full dire with Banner healing. A simple banner heals us for 543HP/s in 3-3/4 seconds. Thats ~145HP/s

145 + 85 pie + 382 signet = 611HP/s

Banner healing is not that effecitve as shout healing true.
But there is more to consider.
- A banner only takes up one slot, freeing one up for endure pain.
- A banner can give us almost off combat perma swiftness aswell. (Only a few seconds downtime ever so often)
- Full Apothecary has around 6-8kHP less than Dire gear. Thats a kitten ton of HP.
- Dire gear provides us with a lot more Condi-damage aswell.
- You probably wont use all shouts on cooldown anyway, makeing the shouts less effective as they are currently stated above.

The only negaitve aspect is that banners narrow it down to stationary fights. Even though we are talking WvW I can say for myself that most of the fighty of my GS/Hammer warrior are usually within range of a traited banner anyway. Even if not, the enemy has to eat through 35k HP and 3700 Armor.. WTF

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAseTjMdU2ZjHGgwJagkgC9onBz9pAIdMU3FBA-T1SAABeqSAIHCAFeAAKqHIHNBAcCAsUJY17Pgq6OccEAGT5HZAMXDA-w
First base of a build, now we got a filled canvas to work with.
- The armor is probably overkill.
- 2k condi damage with SoR
- Poison to counter enemy healing.
- Stability is a must have at some point and we can also get away with rush and leap quite easily.

- 1800 confusion damage on average. ~300 retaliation damage. Punishing the enemy for just over 2000 for hitting me.

Edit2:
Not having fast Hands is something I’ll be suffering from I guess… Its the main reason I cant really play other classes anymore atm

I think shout healing with warhorn nets the highest regeneration possible on Warrior because you get some regeneration boon uptime aswell from dogged march and converted poison. But yeah either at least 2 shouts or nevermind about it. In my opinion you can never have enough condition cleanse… Necros and Engineers (and condi thieves to some extrent) will push your removal to the limits and beyond in 1v1, even with cleansing ire & warhorn & trooper shouts which is about 10-12 removals every 20 seconds.

Hope you enjoy the bruce lee – would love to hear your experience! I find it hilarious could probably couple the bruce lee build with the confusion trait but its total interrupt overkill compared to the cooldown of the trait. So i think you will want to find a skill that has some similar cooldown to the trait and build around that with high +condi duration and +condi damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAseTjMdU2ZhHGgwJagkgC9onBhwpAIdMU3FBA-TlSAABeqSgCPAgoPCAKqPAgTAglKBre/BUV3hjDBwYK/IDg5aA-w
I am either missing Good adrenaline gain, or stability or condi removal. I cannot find a way to get all three of them …

I realize going for shouts/warhorn would solve this issue, dont even bring this up again.

Edit: 2 less in defense and 2 more in disciline. Warriors sprint is too good and I need Adren on weapon swap. Engange with banner and dropping it midfight is already 5 adren.

I guess conditions are not that popular anymore, huh ?

Don’t take last stand. A decent player will use a simple CC to test for it, wait 10 seconds, and you are done for. Remember, when Bull’s is on cooldown, you don’t have a lot of mobility because you don’t have any -condi except for DM. You will get kited to all hell, and longbow auto attack does 0 damage.

Honestly, this build has 1 trait point too little. I could never go back to using warrior without Fast Hands, it is what defines the class to me. More so then Burst skills or adrenaline.

Thus, I would say this might suit you;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAseTjMd05ZrHmdwJagqgC5iHAK7hgI9J01pAA-TVyCABA8AAAUfAynAACVCylyvl3fwT1fk4QAQxRAgUAQsGA-w

Things I changed;

Apothecary trinkets and back to healing shouts: fighting with banners in wvw won’t work. Unless you are fighting an idiot, seriously. I will just stand out of your range until you fight me, or not, in which case I move on.
So you take Shake it Off, of course, and trait for reduced shouts. I put in Fear Me as the second shout. I find Fear Me to work excellent as pseudo stability, as long as your stomptarget can not CC you (because downed people don’t get feared, strange enough). Fear Me also adds an instant interrupt that is unblockable. Try Fearing somebody in close range when you just stacked 14 stacks of bleed, GG.

Stability is less nessecary on this build, as you can take a lot of hits with insane base armor and health.

I took out mango Pie to make room for dropping deep cuts in Arms. Deep Cuts is awesome, but you just don’t have the spare points. The minor trait also does nothing for you as you have really low crit chance. Also, condition duration adds no damage until the non-boosted condition would run out. So if your opponent has a plethora of cleanses (like warriors, elementalists, etc.) your condi duration does exactly squat.

After losing Last Stand you can go 20 in Discipline, taking that fast hands. The Adept minor is good for building adrenaline too. You will use both bursts on this build very often, so more gain is a good thing.

Finally, Mobile Strikes stops you from getting ganked by a single long lasting immobilise if your SiO and Longbow Burst is on cooldown.
Replace it with +40% condi duration, so along with sigil of malice you get a 6 sec immobilise on sword. The bleeds also get 50% like this, 40% on longbow.

Also, Sigil of Energy bro. Always.

Good job Cygnus. Now you should have arrived at my build See sig Though i do not use sigil of energy, using more cleanse instead (transfer sigil and cleanse sigil).

lol wait.. this is still a perplexity build :O nvm .. but the changes were towards it

Steelo.4597:

Good job Cygnus. Now you should have arrived at my build See sig Though i do not use sigil of energy, using more cleanse instead (transfer sigil and cleanse sigil).

lol wait.. this is still a perplexity build :O nvm .. but the changes were towards it

Yeah, I never really explored the condition side of the spectrum all that much, as I kind of detest the playstyle (too easy).

Just wanna help Flitzie out.

Also, your build still seems completely different. No fast hands=no HULK SMASH.

lol that was more then a year ago… newer version of course has fast hands check the later posts! About too easy… it is easy farming scrubs without condi removal and bad builds.. however it can get hard against a good opponent when your debuffs have to be timed well, your conversions have to hit the right conditions, your condi spikes have to match your might stacks and all that jazz.. the hard thing is beating every last class and build with this one, which i think is pretty much the only warrior build (in the celestial version also) that can deal with everything.

You might want to adjust the first post of the topic if you want to link it, I am not going to search through an entire topic to find one post.

I still find playing conditions too easy, although it is harder on warrior then on other classes (thief, engie), simply because you have pretty much no kiting ability and have to soak up everything after Endure Pain runs out.

Along with Celestial Axebow, this is the best dueling build warrior has though.

This is what was working.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAseSjMdU2ZVImhQKigfgC5t3CGDgj+UFoMNaDA-TFSHABXoPwIlf5u/ALq/IwpAAgjAQUKBD+BAQKAIWDA-w

Well I tried a couple of condi setups now.
Its pretty kittening amazing. Both with or without confusion. 1v1 is hillarious.
Most enemies are not even able to get me below 90% health. Dat regen.
Soloing camps is crazy 3-4 guards on me – no HP loss at all.

Burning ticks really hard, bleeding is kinda meh though.
All in all its a really strong setup.
Plottwist
I am not going to run in, infact I already sold all of the gear again after I tried every option available.
Killing someone is doable but not very fast. 1vX is even more troublesome.
A major issue is people escaping and you being a sitting duck. You got plenty of immob. and a few gap closers but its not nearly enough to catch up to a good warrior, thief or ele.
Well, this makes escpaing not really easier either.
And everything in a group is sub-optimal.

Given the fact that you rarely catch someone alone in WvW these days and most people are in 5+ groups a condition warrior is really nothing for me.
Hell, I cant even pressure someone with heavy cc, damage spikes or anything which results in no control over the fight. And locking someone down is crucial in group fights.

Usually warrior are second best in controlling a fight after thiefs but certainly not with condiweapons. I cant make it work.

I am going to work towards a zerker armor now. Lets see if the axe/shield+GS meta works better for me than my GS/hammer build.

GS/Hammer full zerk

variants 0/0/6/2/6 —4/0/6/0/6 —2/0/6/0/6

Is working Fine

Also Working

GS—Sword/Shield 0/0/6/2/6

I haven’t played much Destroyer build aka GS —axe/shield in a few months. I think its not as viable anymore but still works. Skull Crack is another build still working just not as well.

Doesn’t the meta suggest 04604 axe-shield/GS?
I thought I’d try this variant. Maybe mix in a knights piece. I dont plan on melting against physical damage.

Well, suggest me something…

Edit: edited thread title to justify offtopic.

Its usually 2/0/6/0/6 But I have found 0/0/6/2/6 to be sometimes better with leg specialist to help set up eviscerate. Edit meta battle is wrong….I looked at it. The 2/0/6/0/6 is more offensive and tanky then both of the destroyer builds posted.

6 in dis for burst mastery or heightened focus. Since you start every fight with no adrenaline your mileage with heightened focus may vary.

Intel in the axe for 100% chance to crit eviscerate on swap and hydromancy in the shield to clear blind so you dont mis eviscerate.

GS is usually 1 energy sigil and whatever else.

This is correct Destroyer Meta AFAIK
Add cavaliers were you feel u need more armor.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAneRjMdU2ZVImhwJagfgC9t3CzgpAQdak7dBA-TViFABKcCAM4BAMo6PVpEEgDBgRK/OTfwK7PkwRAIAACwOrz6cnBG6QH6QH6Qbn3co3co3sUAMpMC-w

edit 4/0/6/0/4 also works as well. But heightened focus benefits both gs and axe as it add 15% chance to crit. Where as either of the 4 point str traits only effect 1 weapon set with the 150 ferocity being the weaker over GS 10% DPS.

Were you are basically just adding 100 power for the axe and losing 15% chance to crit.
With the GS you are adding 100 Power and 10% DPS. However your burst isn’t coming from the GS its coming from axe cleaves which do more DPS with 15% chance… and Eviscerate.

Interesting
I’ve seen many people go 4 into arms though. Forceful greatsword is pretty nice to build up might for eviscerate. Hanging around 90% crit chance so no need for intel sigil etc.
I’ll definelty hold up to your ideas but lets see if we can get some more opinions.

200 precision is equal to 9 crit chance. So going 4 into arms for precision is less than 15% you get from heighten focus. Know your maths 21 precision is 1%

As far as building up might stacks before busting eviscerate. Nobody good is going to let you hundred blade them. Most might stacks you may get is like 5 maybe if you are lucky. But whatever try it out and see what you think is better.

Your also missing reckless dodge which can crit for like 4k that is 1 point in str and is free damage.

The build I posted is full zerk it has 40% crit chance from armor. adding 9% gives you 49 which is less than hieghtened focus would give you. How u are getting 90% even with fury is mathematically impossible.

Thats why meta battle is wrong.

Please dont consider this final. I am just throwing numbers in the generator right now.
Here is one with 90% crit chance with fury of course.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAR3ejMdU2ZXImhwJaAmgCdnPBfwx0OAU+EFBA-TlSEABYfQAg4CAUz+DOp0AgHAAiq/olSwlUmxmuBHOCABAQAu5NzmtZwQH6QH6QHa7cnDdo38mlBgZBA-w

Edit: you might not land 100b everytime but even with whirlwind and just general attacks getting 1 might with every hit on a 80-90% chance. Why not.

You are right, reckless dodge is something I’ll miss in a build like this.

I think the hardest thing for me to decide on is where crit chance and power should meet. You can only have on of those two maxed (Max being ~3000power or 90% crit chance) or find a middle ground. 50-70% crit chance with 2500 power something.
Ultimatley this is going to give your build either a really high burst if setup right or continous steady mid-high damage.

Edit2: OH btw, I dont really understand why you say its mathematically impossible to reach 90% crit chance with fury if I can easily get 100% without fury.
No that this would by any means be a serious build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAR3ejMdU2ZXI+dwJaAmgCZnPBHT7AQ9TUEDBA-TlSEABYfQAg4CAUz+DOp0AgHAAiq/olSwlUmxmuBHOCABAQAu5NzmtZwQH6QH6QHa7cnDdo7cnFCY0CA-w

Just for fun and out of curiostiy. The maximum crit chance a warrior can build up on his own would be 155%. I had no idea, lol

Meh…. just play tripple stance Full dire S/S + LB with energy sigil, vigor on stance and Last stance (0/2/6/0/6) . See how you easily reach 2800 condi damage with guard stacks, corrup stacks and proper might stacking and watch how you melt everything on your path. DON’T fail your CI procs, though.

You don’t need all that overkill regen.

But you had no stab in your build and it doesn’t matter if you could get it, the case is always what do you have to give up to achieve something.

If you are giving up stability, lemongrass "defeating the purpose of have melandru, and using a maint oil to prove a point I think it goes without saying that you are going to hit like a wet noodle cuz u have sub 2k power and your utility is bad, and your food is bad. 2nd build..

Thats why its not possible to get that much crit chance. Not because I you cant but because I you cant without some sort of detrimental sacrifices.

The meta is power > precision

Your build have so much precisions, but you have no power… you are giving up a lot of power which is what is more important. You build will crit but your crits will be weak and hit like wet noodle…

OP makes the case that she wants might on crit from GS becasue she thinks that is going to make evicerate hit harder. But then chooses Axe mastery over DOE which is 3% Dammage per boon…Usually with DOE most targets have atleast 3 boons and thats 9% Dammage more than a couple measly might stacks…..

OP is using melandru with build which is a huge hit to DPS, but also the people that are trying to make the justification for using forceful GS are not using melandru they are using Hoelbrak because those runes have might duration.

Lastly it doesn’t matter how often you crit if your power is too low too hurt anyone. This build should have a minimum 2500 Power out of the box. And most sucseeful destroyer builds will hover around 2700 2800 with might. And if you were to go with bloodlust as a stacking sigil which I don’t use you are looking at 3000 Power which is where u want to be.

Yeah I completely disagree with Warlord.

0/4/6/0/4 is in fact still meta for Axe Shield GS, and it has originated from the forum here. After Raiden got popular with his vids using 4/0/6/0/4 he came to the forum here, a discussion resulted and he actually modified his build because of the advice given to him, popularising 4 in arms instead.

4 in Arms grants incredible advantages to the AxeshieldGS build that any other trait allocation can not accomplish.

Furious Reaction grants you very high uptime on Fury. Most fights will be over before you have to use GS burst to get more Fury. This ensures an added 20% crit chance at all times. The vigor does not hurt, either.

Then, the minor Master trait in Arms gives your Eviscerate another 10% crit chance. Thus, with the build Flitzie posted, you get 90% on Eviscerate, without Intelligence sigil. This is, in fact, far superior to using intelligence sigil, as a smart opponent will notice it and can easily play around it. Nothing spells ‘I am going to Evis you’ more like swapping to Axe and showing a little icon that says ‘I will crit you very soon, sucka’. Whereas the 4 in Arms build allows you to be as unpredictable as you wish with Eviscerate. And that’s without the fact that almost all of your attacks will crit (which is a pretty big deal coming off of 212 crit damage.

Finally, Forceful GS is actually a great trait. Not as much because of the might stacking, although it does synergize very well with Bull’s Charge>HB>Evis, but more because of the -20% cooldown reduction. As this build relies on mobility for survival, this trait makes you 20% more mobile. Another important thing to note is that Whirlwind is essentially your highest damage dealing ability on GS, and it is a free dodge that you get -20% cd on with this trait.
Also, don’t forget that you will often be cleaving a downed enemy with HB, which will result in double the chance to proc might on crit. The amount of might stacks you can gain from this is actually way higher then just 5, especially when using hoelbrak. It all synergizes extremely well with the higher crit chance from 4 in Arms. The fact that the might lasts a very short time is less relevant, as you mostly power up to use Evis anyway.

Personally, I run Hoelbrak runes and full zerk if I use this build. This gets me up to 2650+ power and it boosts the duration of my might stacks.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAR3ejMdU2ZXImhwJaAmgCdnPBfwx0OAU+EfOA-TlCEABQcEAi4CAonOgEV/ZLlgMp8rNNDA8AAe4gAEz+DBAQAGuwxmtZgduzhLchLcSBwkwI-w

In short, I think the slight loss of power compared to other versions of the build is not only well worth it, but makes the other builds significantly inferior to the meta build.

Edit: Do pick DotE over Sharpened Axes. Just manage your adrenaline and you won’t need SA. DotE is a must have on this build.

Ya whatever you want to do is fine I have to disagree with Cygnus.6903 that the build originated here and with Raiden he may of popularized it.

But the concept is as old as 2012 and 1st appeared in spvp streams. And I personally was using it as early as 2 month after the game came out as were many others here.

I also kinda have to disagree with the whole reasoning that so and so such opponent sees Intel icon and knows when to dodge. People know when to dodge because of your animations. And you should be baiting out dodges and stun breaks anyways before u evicerate.

I also pretty much never agree that warriors should be using maintenance oils. Always sharpening stones. Maint oil is more of a guardian thing.

I don’t think whirl wind is the highest damage skill on GS. Rush is. ANd bulls charge to knock somone down followed by rush can 1 shot people I have done it before.

Warlord.9074:

Ya whatever you want to do is fine I have to disagree with Cygnus.6903 that the build originated here and with Raiden he may of popularized it.

But the concept is as old as 2012 and 1st appeared in spvp streams. And I personally was using it as early as 2 month after the game came out as were many others here.

I also kinda have to disagree with the whole reasoning that so and so such opponent sees Intel icon and knows when to dodge. People know when to dodge because of your animations. And you should be baiting out dodges and stun breaks anyways before u evicerate.

I also pretty much never agree that warriors should be using maintenance oils. Always sharpening stones. Maint oil is more of a guardian thing.

I don’t think whirl wind is the highest damage skill on GS. Rush is. ANd bulls charge to knock somone down followed by rush can 1 shot people I have done it before.

I’m not gonna argue on wether or not the build originated here. All I know is Raiden popularised AxeGS, then he transformed it on the forums here to 4 in Arms. Off course, pretty much any build has been used before. How can it not be in a game with this many users.

About the dodging of Evis, for most people, just swapping to Axe is gonna tell them you want to Evis them. If you have the intel icon, they know it is going to be one of your first three moves. This is a key piece of information for a decent player. If your opponent is not decent, who cares about the build.

Baiting out dodges, sure. But who can count all the random blinds, aegis, blocks, and sigil of energy procs?

About the maintenance oil, power might be a better stat, but it is all about critting with Evis. Thus maintenance oil is very justifiable on this particular build. Although I myself do tend to roll with the stones and 50+20+10 crit chance on Evis.

Seriously though man, rush is the most damaging skill? I mean come on, we are not just theorycrafting here. If rush does not hit, you don’t do damage. And rush doesn’t hit. Besides, 4-5 HB hits after bull’s rush does more damage I believe. Especially if you follow it up with whirlwind after your opponent gets up (and dodges).
Whirlwind does most of your sustained damage on GS, as it is easy to hit because of the instant cast. Most people will be moving away from you, ensuring that whirlwind hits more then once. And if you happen to catch them against a wall, gg right there.

How did we get from discussing bunkers for condition builds to what is better for axe builds. I guess since this conversation has took an unexpected turn ...

Putting points into Arms or Strength have its own specific advantages.

With arms I assume you go a 0/4/6/0/4 build.

Advantages of this one include
- GS cooldowns (by far the best advantage this build offers)
- Higher Fury uptime (not too bad)
- Might stacking (honestly if you are cleaving opponents this can go up ridiculously high)

With strength, I personally prefer 2/0/6/0/6 over 4/0/6/0/4 because of might stacking on swap and the 15% extra crit chance on eviscerate. Or sometimes I switch to brawler’s recovery.

Advantage of this build
- Tend to have higher spike damage
- Reckless dodge
- Might stacking (you can trait for short temper and mighty defenses for some amazing might stacks, probably better than the GS trait)

Both builds are very good, neither are necessarily better than the other, although the GS Mobility does come in handy for either trying to disengage or stick on targets. I flip-flop between both set ups and I can really say there isn’t a huge difference between the two builds TBH.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJEQNAneRjMd0FaZImdwJagjgC9p3BpgpAQdWk6bBA-TFCHwAAeAAy130X9HgK/iqE0wpAo0+DDOCABAQA2ZdWn7MwQH6QH6QHa7cnDdo385kCgJhRA-w

I’ve been using this recently, the might stacks you get from this is hilarious

killahmayne.9518:

How did we get from discussing bunkers for condition builds to what is better for axe builds. I guess since this conversation has took an unexpected turn …

Flitzie.6082:

Doesn’t the meta suggest 04604 axe-shield/GS?
I thought I’d try this variant. Maybe mix in a knights piece. I dont plan on melting against physical damage.

Well, suggest me something…

Edit: edited thread title to justify offtopic.

Its fine I am not a fan of opening one thread after another and since its my own why not swap topic.

I am still actively monitoring this thread btw.
Thanks for all the input.
I am silently tuning my numbers and shuffling gear in the build editor and I have a question.
Are you guys really comfortable with 2600-2700 armor? (+100 less in combat because of that minor trait.) My current GS/Hammer build is running 2700 incombat armor and I am often melting so I was looking at getting atleast 2900-3000 this time around.

By my own research the difference between 2600 to 3000 armor is around 11% damage mitigation. Is this really worth it in the end? Or in other words, worth the loss of 100 power and 10% crit damage for example.

Flitzie.6082:

Its fine I am not a fan of opening one thread after another and since its my own why not swap topic.

I am still actively monitoring this thread btw.
Thanks for all the input.
I am silently tuning my numbers and shuffling gear in the build editor and I have a question.
Are you guys really comfortable with 2600-2700 armor? (+100 less in combat because of that minor trait.) My current GS/Hammer build is running 2700 incombat armor and I am often melting so I was looking at getting atleast 2900-3000 this time around.

By my own research the difference between 2600 to 3000 armor is around 11% damage mitigation. Is this really worth it in the end? Or in other words, worth the loss of 100 power and 10% crit damage for example.

Depends how much you die…I usually go as glassy as possible. If I am dieing a lot more than i think I should. I try to time my dodging, WWA, Shield blocks, endure pain better etc. If I have done all of that and I still keep dieing more than I think I should. I slot some Cav trinkets and try to min max my DPS and Toughness a little. Somtimes just sloting Dolyack sig is enough.

It all can be the players you are figthing builds counter yours and have nothing to do with surviability but have to do with weapon and trait choice. To be honest with you. Destroyer build is not the solution to everything. Sometimes you just need to equip that hammer/GS to deal with some players. Other players you may have to use like a Rifle like if its a plexy engineer who wont come off his point to fight you and releys on you trying to melee him to win so he can drop mines on you and interrupt you… or something. Just depends.

Flitzie.6082:

killahmayne.9518:

How did we get from discussing bunkers for condition builds to what is better for axe builds. I guess since this conversation has took an unexpected turn ...

Flitzie.6082:

Doesn’t the meta suggest 04604 axe-shield/GS?
I thought I’d try this variant. Maybe mix in a knights piece. I dont plan on melting against physical damage.

Well, suggest me something...

Edit: edited thread title to justify offtopic.

Its fine I am not a fan of opening one thread after another and since its my own why not swap topic.

I am still actively monitoring this thread btw.
Thanks for all the input.
I am silently tuning my numbers and shuffling gear in the build editor and I have a question.
Are you guys really comfortable with 2600-2700 armor? (+100 less in combat because of that minor trait.) My current GS/Hammer build is running 2700 incombat armor and I am often melting so I was looking at getting atleast 2900-3000 this time around.

By my own research the difference between 2600 to 3000 armor is around 11% damage mitigation. Is this really worth it in the end? Or in other words, worth the loss of 100 power and 10% crit damage for example.

I like having high armor and by high armor I mean 2,800+. I find that on average it allows me to deal with more outnumbered situations. I honestly don’t lose a whole lot of damage going from 2,400 to 2,800 armor and the tradeoff seems worth it. Although, there is the argument that if you blast somebody for a 12K eviscerate, that a 2v1 becomes a 1v1 because you put so much pressure on the guy that he is running and trying to recovery. I’ve also ran with 2,400-2,500 armor probably being my lowest on the warrior and honestly I didn’t notice a huge damage dip when I went up to 2,800 armor. You sacrifice maybe around 6% crit chance and 100-150 power (but going from 56% to 50% crit chance and 2,500 to 2,400, doesnt make a huge difference for me at least)

My hammer build with Dolyak Signet + the 100 armor gets as high as 3,180, with WvW buffs as well too. Normal armor would be around 2,900. It still deals a respectable amount of damage (mainly because I still retain 220% crit dmg and 2,100-2,200 power and have very high might stacking capabilities). I go this tanky mostly in a group setting, but it definitely still holds its own in solo and I find it handles outnumbered situations beautifully. However ending fights quicker in WvW and providing a huge burst at the beginning of a fight can’t be overlooked with more zerker like builds.

Different strategies are involved as well too in handling outnumbered situations. A zerker build is more inclined to kite using the greatsword, maybe even going out of combat and when the time is right pop the person with an eviscerate, and use stances if the person isn’t already stomped. And play more defensive when the stances and eviscerate are on cooldown. Zerker builds basically want to kill people quickly and avoid as much damage as possible, more like a hit and run type build. When somebody slips up, you punish them dearly for it. You kind of have to be more selective with your fights because sometimes you take too much damage before you can burst somebody down.

More heavily armoured builds are more likely to keep constant pressure on the opponent and kill them through sustained damage since they can take the hits better. Sometimes however, you lack the quick killing power to the point where you can’t handle the constant damage you are taking. However the flipside of it is that you can endure enough of the damage being thrown at you in order to eventually kill that person

if you really going for perplexity.
i would recommand use it on classes with more reliable fast CCs
like off hand pistol thief

Well, well. Will you look at that. Axe+Shield is amazing and beyond.
I am currently running this, which just happens to be what I had lying around:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAR3ejMdU2ZXImhwJaAmgCdnPBfwx0OAU+EfOA-T1CEABRcBAWUlCGOCAPp0YLlgScQAaSZmiqr0muBAeAAxs/QAAEgbezAwQH6QH6QHa38mDdo7cnlBgZBA-w

Its far from optimal but I am 10 times better than I was on my Hammer build.
I’ve been roaming with this setup for 5 days now. I rarely loose a duel, maybe 1 in 10 and then mostly because of heavy condis I fail to deal with. Even outnumbered fights are easier to manage than on my hammer (?) Thats weird but I like it.

Fighting double thief/mesmer or 1 of both at a time is really hard for me at the moment, but I guess that okay. Stealth-rezzing without AOE stun on your end is OP

Now I am still looking on going a lot more glassy (less health) once I’ve got my zerker gear running but I’ll probably stick to the high armor. Its incredibly important to me I figured.
Killahmayne described it pretty well (Thanks!), I dont really wanna play the hit and run warrior, I am a warrior after all. And I feel I quite often get flanked by rangers which is troublesome once your active defense is gone and you sit there with 2400 armor :s

For now I am planing on getting myself something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAR3ejMdU2ZXImhwJaAmgCdnPBfwx0OAU+EFBA-T1SEABYfQAg4CA4kSDAeAAIquzSKz4SJIb6GYUlAHOCAws/QAAEgbezsZbGM0hO0hO0h2O35QH6NvZZAYWAA-w

Still on the highly desired amor and of course heavy on precision.
I understand my Evis is not going to hit that hard BUT I’ve run test in PvE and with 90% cirt chance and 2300 attack I deal a lot more consistant damage than with 2700 attack and 50% crit chance for example.
I much rather have heavy consitant damage than having to rely on a single burst that might miss.
Also dat might gain on GS… holy flying llama. Love it. Easily boosts you to 3k attack again.

Edit:
OH btw, I’ve been trying to swap out axe for sword and pick frenzy instead of bulls rush. Its not bad but I often fail final thrust or fail to cancel flurry and then I get nervous and spaghetti all over the place and I loose. lol
Gotta practice with this a bit more…