Guild Wars 2

First, the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNAR8ejkO1utQGPMxBE0DNsKEwjixjJUKsD6A-jkzAYLM0FCGTQmigQggJCBiKglALiGbhtIasqaBZ9Cm6EV3i4NUWDCocA-w

Now, the words: What I have here is the result of months of back-breaking WvW labor (read: lots and lots of bodies, my own included) in an attempt to find a viable, stable, and most of all effective regeneration build. Some highlights:

3600 base toughness (says different on the skills page, but my base with GS and no buffs is 3603)

Base crit chance of 50% (with food)

Perma-swiftness (assuming you punch something every 15 seconds, which isn’t hard to do)

Constant regen: Signet + Adrenal Health + Dogged March + on-crit food (they’re actually slices of dragon roll but whatevs).

Fistful of Stun Breakers: dolyak, endure pain and stomp.

Burning Block: It’s unexpected, it’s hilarious, and it works on groups!

Two sources of might stacking: Get strong when you block, get strong when you swing.

Mobility: Sword leap and GS can get you out of most tough spots.

Survivability: Did I mention the regen and the toughness?

I’ve been running this build for about three weeks now, and I’m having a ball. Every battle is intense, but not out of my control, even against thieves. I’m sometimes inclined to switch out Mighty Defense for Mobile Strikes, or Dogged March for Shield Master, but the overall effect is the same: wade in and start punching.

Thoughts?

The build has no other condition removal besides cleansing ire. With the current meta being so full of conditions, I wouldn’t go to WvWvW with this. If you are blinded, you can miss the burst and thus cleansing ire won’t work that well. You would need some ranged weapon (actually longbow) to make it more viable.

I was this evening using dual swords + rifle in WvWvW. Please don’t die laughing, but I used healing signet as my heal. I didn’t die a single time, despite I was mostly roaming and I also survived those situations when the entire party or my zerg was wiped. Total armor around 2.5k, which I consider low for WvWvW, but I was using my pve build. But I really really love the dodge button and blocks. Oh and crack shot trait + kill shot combo against enemy blobs.

I am too tired to discuss the exact details of my build, but it has much more condition removal.

What the above poster said. With only cleansing ire I would definitely suggest switching out one of those utilities for something like signet of stamina or if you’re dead set on having 2 stun removals get shake it off.

The other issue with this build as I see it is lack of burst protection. Ideally you shouldn’t have to worry about it with so much armor so I’m curious if it’s a big concern of yours but I have about 3k armor with my setup and I am very thankful to have the adrenaline heal as a fall back to rely on a burst heal to offset it.

If I was running that build and was dead set on NOT changing my utilities then I would only do it if I had a longbow and burst mastery with cleansing ire to fire it off religiously to remove conditions. But that screws up your build

Well what matters most is if you have fun with the build I guess but uhhh .... assuming you run around with zergs ...

I think 3600 armor is a little much overboard, you get to a point where it really isn’t efficient to stack so much and where conditions in general wreck a lot more havoc. Anywhere around 3000-3200 is good enough. Your HP is Ok, having 22-23K might be better for your build.

IMO Furious Speed is a wasted and unreliable trait. In WvW it isn’t hard to gain swiftness, while you yourself can easily attain perma-swiftness. You can achieve better uptime on swiftness by getting a Warhorn, getting Lyssa Runes, using Balanced Stance, investing into tactics, etc. Furious Reaction for extra uptime on fury and vigor would be a better choice.

Healing Signet isn’t a terrible choice for certain situations, like if you are in a zerg and can withstand a lot of the burst. I myself prefer mending for condition removal but that is up to you.

If you like the idea of healing, I would suggest going a shout build. With 3 shouts you get 3,600 healing every 20-25 seconds. Or going runes that give you regeneration and longer uptime such as Lyssa Runes, Dwayna, etc. Also, Mango Pies are a more reliable source of healing than pies so consider using those.

Burning Block especially with your build is really meh, you have very little condition damage. If you are looking for something to that effect, except better, go the Missile Deflection trait. Or again go Lyssa runes for extra uptime on retaliation.

If you want to be extra survivable I would highly suggest using the lemongrass soup consumable. -40% condition duration and extra vitality is a life saver. Back it up with 1-2 sources of reliable condition removal and conditions aren’t that huge of a threat in zergs. As of right now you lack any condition management aside from cleansing ire which is unreliable from your weapon setup. Again, Lyssa runes gives you a full condition sweep every 50 seconds while giving you access to boons that enhance survivability.

You use a greatsword yet you do not have a lot of damage. Personally, your build would be better tailored to a hammer in which you can go upfront, CC the crap out of stuff, etc and probably deal more damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNAS8ejkOJvNPGPMxBE0DsoKEQVB7I9YMQj0A-jkzAYrghuUkJIQUEEyCABCmKglALiGbVsIasqFMVJqyNIq4I7NyqMAMbB-w

try something like this build, it is pretty flexible to changes based on what you prefer. Just as survivable as your build if not more with the shout heals, condition removal and -condition duration. Deals alot more damage, more CC, way better boon generation and uptime. Tried to tweak it a little bit without trying to take away the way you want to play your warrior.

If you want more regen and condition management take dogged march, if you want even more condition removal, swiftness and vigor take warhorn, you can also take the quick breathing trait to convert conditions into boons. You can take merciless hammer, Defy Pain instead of Spiked armor, etc. This build more or less can work with the longbow as well.

Great suggestions, folks. Let me dig through these while I have time:

Blinds:
The 1v1s I’ve had recently involved some manner of guardian, ele or thief making ample use of blinds. The condition itself, imo, isn’t as detrimental as long as you can stay on-target. Between autoattacks, the GS whirl, and the hydro sigil, I can clear the condition in a swing or two. Yes it’s an annoyance, but it forces me to watch what I’m doing and not spam those burst moves until I’m more certain of a hit.

Conditions as a whole don’t impact me too much with this build, as the regen makes it fairly forgiving. I’ve fought a fair share of necros who mostly utilize fear wells and poison. Thief d/p builds are harder, but not impossible. I don’t think they expect non-zerker warriors.

I think 3600 armor is a little much overboard, you get to a point where it really isn’t efficient to stack so much and where conditions in general wreck a lot more havoc. Anywhere around 3000-3200 is good enough. Your HP is Ok, having 22-23K might be better for your build.

IMO Furious Speed is a wasted and unreliable trait. In WvW it isn’t hard to gain swiftness, while you yourself can easily attain perma-swiftness. You can achieve better uptime on swiftness by getting a Warhorn, getting Lyssa Runes, using Balanced Stance, investing into tactics, etc. Furious Reaction for extra uptime on fury and vigor would be a better choice.

You’re probably right about the overabundance of toughness, I may switch balanced stance over dolyak so I don’t have to plunk down more internet golds. I’ll check the damage differences today.

I played with Furious Reaction for a while before trying Speed. I’m just not a fan of the cooldown. I don’t like traits where I’ll only benefit 1/3 of my combat time. Speed isn’t quite as bad since it works on ambient creatures, and in 1v1s nobody expects the non-warhorn warrior to chase them down.

Healing Signet isn’t a terrible choice for certain situations, like if you are in a zerg and can withstand a lot of the burst. I myself prefer mending for condition removal but that is up to you.

If you like the idea of healing, I would suggest going a shout build. With 3 shouts you get 3,600 healing every 20-25 seconds. Or going runes that give you regeneration and longer uptime such as Lyssa Runes, Dwayna, etc. Also, Mango Pies are a more reliable source of healing than pies so consider using those.

Healing signet doesn’t get any breaks around here. The passive heal is wonderful, especially if you have two chances to go invulnerable (endure pain and shield stance). Also take that time to use its active heal since the downtime is only 16sec with Signet Mastery. I’ll give mango pies a try, though.

When it comes to shouts, I’m not a fan of them. I’ve fought shout healing builds, 1v1 and in zergs, and they tend to be squishier even with the added recovery. Maybe its the way those were specced and they weren’t doing it right or something. I also tried Dwayna runes for a while with the added regen uptime, and some Water runes for the 15% boon duration. I may switch back to those, depending on this next part actually.

Burning Block especially with your build is really meh, you have very little condition damage. If you are looking for something to that effect, except better, go the Missile Deflection trait. Or again go Lyssa runes for extra uptime on retaliation.

I like the surprise aspect of torching someone for seven seconds because they wanted to 100b / whirling wrath my shield. If burning works the way bleeds work, the damage increase is based on your current condition dmg. Using a burning block with mighty defense, you can gain condition dmg very quickly. In zergs it’ll max my might stacks near instantly. So I guess whats hanging me on this part is if the burning damage increases as my condition dmg increases. If not, I’ll probably drop it.

You use a greatsword yet you do not have a lot of damage. Personally, your build would be better tailored to a hammer in which you can go upfront, CC the crap out of stuff, etc and probably deal more damage.

I tried hammer for a little while, and it’s uh… slow. Real slow. All the attacks are telegraphed from a mile away, and most people have at least one source of stability to counter CC warriors. In fact, I see stability more than swiftness these days. For my playstyle, I’m more comfortable with weapon sets that keep me maneuverable. And with forceful greatsword my damage isn’t zerker levels, but its still formidable.

Thanks for the build! I’ve got some money to burn after these achievement chests, I’ll try it out later. Actually, I do have a question about the Fire sigil and the Hydro sigil. They share a cooldown, right?

Here is a chart I made. It may be helpful since the discussion has touched on toughness mitigation levels. Horizontal = Armor Vertical = Damage received. 100 – the number shown will give you % mitigation at that Armor value.

Also, a question for you because I’m away from my PC and can’t test for a couple more weeks. Does the burning block add 1 second on every strike? Or does it refresh the current stack to 1 second? From what you said, it adds 1 second, but that isn’t how I remember it working.

Reminds me a lot of my build I posted in the WVW condition warrior thread. It’s overall very good but like others said you’ll find difficulty with clearing conditions. I’d recommend swapping the shield with a warhorn but it’s something of a tradeoff depending on your playstyle.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNBjYDbk0JGuFy3hJOggeohfxWcUAFLRShYwGA-jEzAIMAMGMeDi4ATfAICQZxioxWdjW5NI9iwqqJiq12YCBoYOA-w

Veritas.6071:

Here is a chart I made. It may be helpful since the discussion has touched on toughness mitigation levels. Horizontal = Armor Vertical = Damage received. 100 – the number shown will give you % mitigation at that Armor value.

Also, a question for you because I’m away from my PC and can’t test for a couple more weeks. Does the burning block add 1 second on every strike? Or does it refresh the current stack to 1 second? From what you said, it adds 1 second, but that isn’t how I remember it working.

Thanks for the graph. So going by this, if I pop my dolyak signet and lose my thick skin, I’ll still be around 3200 toughness, which seems to be the ideal level others have mentioned.

And from the tests I’ve done (pve and wvw), multihit attacks stack burning for every strike. So a zerker warrior frenzying with hundred blades should add about 8 or 9 seconds of burning. This is also true of any wells or fields you might be standing in. But again, I’m not sure if the burning damage is being increased as my might stacks increase, so I need to do more testing.

What is this burning block?

EDIT: Nevermind, noticed the runes now.

Daniel Warren.4968:

Veritas.6071:

Here is a chart I made. It may be helpful since the discussion has touched on toughness mitigation levels. Horizontal = Armor Vertical = Damage received. 100 – the number shown will give you % mitigation at that Armor value.

Also, a question for you because I’m away from my PC and can’t test for a couple more weeks. Does the burning block add 1 second on every strike? Or does it refresh the current stack to 1 second? From what you said, it adds 1 second, but that isn’t how I remember it working.

Thanks for the graph. So going by this, if I pop my dolyak signet and lose my thick skin, I’ll still be around 3200 toughness, which seems to be the ideal level others have mentioned.

And from the tests I’ve done (pve and wvw), multihit attacks stack burning for every strike. So a zerker warrior frenzying with hundred blades should add about 8 or 9 seconds of burning. This is also true of any wells or fields you might be standing in. But again, I’m not sure if the burning damage is being increased as my might stacks increase, so I need to do more testing.

Sure man. I should have been more specific. 100 – the number shown will give you the % mitigation above 2127 (base heavy armor), not overall mitigation.

I played a regeneration build similar to this one for months. When you play with your team and match is balanced (u r not fighting against a blob) is not necessary use the healing signet, toughness/armor help you with the direct damage and the rigeneration ticks equalize the DoT damage.
It worked pretty well, but to play it you really need to change your use of fight, at least it was like that for me.

Small update: After more testing in WvW (and having to put up with about eighteen blob fights), I decided to change a few things. Most notably are the utility swaps (Berserkers / Balanced stances) and a couple armor pieces.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNAR8ejkOtwxQqQMxBE0jroKEwjixjJUKsD6A-j0zAYLM0FCGTQmigQggJCBiKgl8CaCcRjF2ioxqqFk1LYqTUdLi3QZVIgyjBA-w

Feels better in those huge groups, and more rounded against condition spammers. I feel sort of pigeonholed into using berserker’s stance, though.

So, an update.

I tweaked and tweaked til I could tweak no more, and finally found zen.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAseRjkOtwxQGPMxBCkirUlzjkwEyrUQH7A-jk1AYLM0FCGTQkCAQRQIMYkHQiAUyHM/BlCDWOMpF2ioxqqFk1MYaTUdLi5GwiDZzh9GIujsKFAEbAA-w

I figured since I’m using sword and burning block, I might as well make them threatening. Some explanation first.

Every time you stack might, you stack condition damage. This reflects actively, so when you apply bleeding and burning, those damage values increase as condition dmg increases. This build offers 100% bleed uptime, constant bleeds, constant might stacks, constant healing, and a little tankiness. Burning block is the icing, and with 1000 condition dmg shouldnt be taken lightly. I’m enjoying the hell out of this, but your mileage may vary.