Guild Wars 2

Greetings gentlemen / ladies!

Obligatory shout outs:
http://www.CoalitionGaming.org - Recruiting for sPvP / WvW
twitch.tv/defektive - Come watch me make a fool out of myself, Live!

Today I present to you:
Something I have been working on for a few days.
As a follow up to “Defektive’s – ‘Avalanche’ Build” comes Defektive [ONE], my first foray into GW2 PvP Video centered around the ‘Avalanche’ Build (DPS Variant).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BELgi0uZYOI

(Best watched in 1080p)

What you should expect:
-1v1
-1v2
-tPvP
-sPvP
-Guest appearance by a fellow COAL sPvPer

Fights against a wide swath of professions. (Disclaimer: I specifically excluded content with heavy bunker builds in an attempt to not make a 30 minute movie showcasing 5 fights).

What NOT to expect:
-Greatsword (not used once, and for good measure)
-Rap Music
-Heavy metal / screamo / death metal / anything that screams what soever
-Trance music
-WvW of any means

Hmmm why should I watch?
Because one of the points of the video was to show that Warriors can still go par to par with many other professions in s/tPvP. But you’re only able to achieve this with a weaponset you enjoy and are familiar with.

Thank you and enjoy!

Avalanche Build link:
http://forums.coalitiongaming.org/guildwars/defektives-build-thread/

Thanks for doing the vids man, but spvp matches are not the greatest things to watch. You get so many randoms in them and I can go from facing a thief who I can stomp into the ground in <3 seconds ,to fighting a condition thief who I can’t lay a finger on.

Or an elementalist with some awful spec who falls over, to a bunker build one who has a health bar I can hardly shift.

If you can show yourself beating bunker builds or defending a point effectively in a tpvp match i’ll gladly watch/subscribe.

Well the video does have a number of PvP clips effectively ressing teammates / last minute saves in tPvP and effective enemy Treb control in tournament matches.

The video is NOT about insta gibs, nor is it about long drawn out fights.
The video IS about showing what the Warrior class can do in a pinch which can help make or break a fight for the enemy.

The video wasn’t thrown together to show the easiest of kills, there’s a healthy medium such as:

2v1 against average players
to
1v1 against a tournament Mesmer

Gonna try this later. Looks great!

Can you upload a version without music?
Can’t watch it because youtube blocks it in germany :-/

When I get home (at work) I’ll upload it to Vimeo. But fare warning Vimeo (after testing) has been downgrading the quality to about 480p.

I’ll update this thread when it’s done.

I would just like to thank you Defektive for this build, i was losing interest in my warrior due to feeling pretty useless in PvP, most likely because i hadn’t found the right build that works for me, this is that build though, it’s kicked up the enjoyment in my warrior for me and stopped me from re-rolling, so thanks, great build and i’ll definitely be using it for quite a while!

I’ll be checking the video out when I find time, which may not be until tonight.

Really dude? I can see you don’t take kindly to constructive criticism.

The treb mesmer…i literally couldn’t watch him play. There were so many things wrong with him.

I take criticism fine, and I’m perfectly happy to accept others opinions. This just means that my next video I’ll spend more time combing through content to find the best clips.

All cards on the table:
I made this video is 2.5 days with just a couple hours of footage. This is more of a litmus test to see if people would be interested in Warrior footage in a traditional PvP video.

However, I take pride in my work regardless of subject area. So if you feel that some of the footage wasn’t up to your standards then I apologize and will work harder next time.

Regardless, many people seem to be enjoying it and that was the goal of the film.

I enjoyed it. The build is interesting, and I plan on giving it a shot. I’m sick of the hundred blades and rifle builds people keep posting. I’ve been running sword/sword and axe/shield lately, but I’m not as successful getting those conditions rolling as I’d like to be. This build looks very entertaining. Good job.

Again, good stuff. I took your advice last time and picked up spiked armor over whatever else I was using, now your 10/0/30/30/0 build is the same as the one I use.
I assume (due to the utilities) that most of the footage is of the 30/0/30/10/0 variant with zerker amulet? Are you preferring this route nowadays? The loss of FGJ is pretty harsh, I love that ~100pwr.

Any comments on build tweaks for WvW?

I see a lot of elitists here who aren’t posting any vids of their own successful games.

I tried this today and did better than I thought I would, but had a hell of a time doing it. Thanks for the vid and the build, keep the vids coming. I’m a fan.

Very, very nice!

I approve of this video. Even though my warrior build makes Defektive mad.

Ok I’m home now so I’ll answer some questions.

@Aeri - https://vimeo.com/51563910
It’s done uploading but Vimeo takes a little bit to roll it out to the viewers. But that’s the link so check back at it from time to time.

@JoshuaRAWR
I’m glad you enjoy the build! It’s a fun one!

@fadeaway
-I actually use Soldiers Amulet / Berserkers Rune. Giving the maximum amount of +Power, as well as toughness / Vitality. But also some small +Crit dmg (28% crit with sig of rage up is still significant, you don’t need to run 80% crit because it doesn’t scale as well as Power).
-The loss of FGJ isn’t noticeable with this build mainly because your stacking so much power that Additional gains of Might start diminishing returns on the stat. So you want to expand into +Dmg modifiers to keep the damage ceiling high.

I hope that’s somewhat helpful as to my utility choices!

Regarding the build:
A lot of people ask “why did you get X trait over Y?”. All I can say without going on and on is that I spent a lot of time min/maxing as well as doing real world tests to pick each trait. Most notably is the combination ‘Embrace the Pain’ (Defense I) and how it effects endurance. The more attacks you soak up (hence the high Toughness), the more burst skills you get to use. On burst use → Gain Endurance.
Essentially it gives you the opportunity to maintain a very high endurance regen and thus, dodges.

Another big question is the reason to take Empowered (Tactics VI). Each boon you have is +2% damage. If you use you Signet of Rage at the beginning of a battle, that’s +6% damage on top of your other damage modifiers / Might gains. This is also affected if allies give you buffs. Essentially when you’re in Axe/Mace and you use your Sig of Rage, you now deal +16% damage (5% from weap, 5% from traits, 6% from Empowered).

In regards to weapon choices:
Hammer is your defensive weapon. You open with it, you gap close with it. Lastly, you put people into a vulnerable position with it that opens them up to taking a lot of damage.

Axe/Mace – This is your offensive weapon set.
You continue your CC chain with Mace #5 which allows you to get the maximum amount of damage from your Axe auto attacks.

Amazingly fun build to use man, very nicely put together. I’m quite new to PvP (just rank 14) but this is really a pick-up-and-pwn kind of build.

There are quite a few ways to eploit the bloodlust sigil. Never gave on-kill stack bonuses much thought, but omg they are good!

@Cygnus
I’m glad you like the build!
Don’t hesitate to experiment with new builds, many weapon sets can be successful but the kicker is to find something you enjoy the most.

Man, I tried the build with frenzy… I don’t think I used it the whole time. I guess I couldn’t get past the taking 50% more damage idea. I mostly used the more defensive build with shouts, because I felt more effective. The only problem was finishing power. I could take on 2, sometimes 3 if one was bad, but getting one down before their next heal was tough.

That was only my second night as a warrior though. I usually play engineer/mesmer, and I never play melee in mmo’s. Something just draws me to the warrior. I’m probably just missing something right now, since I’m a melee noob. I’m glad I tried it though, the warrior is pretty kitten cool.

I actually did experiment a lot, pretty much any weapon combination was tested, barring Longbow (just don’t like that). Had some fun and average effectiveness, but nothing compared to this. It’s amazing how easy it is to get 3-5 stacks from the bloodlust, which gives you an edge in every fight after acquirement.

I have to say, this build, like any other, has it’s issues with 1v1. For instance, Mesmers with Null Field or the boons-for-conditions-swap-skill are tricky, as are players that use stability a lot. But it seems possible to circumvent this due to the great survivability. And the value of this build in any fight other then 1v1 is huge.

I was ready to accept my warrior was useful just for PvE and a little in WvW. I really like the aesthetics of the warrior, so I wouldn’t like to reroll (which, admittedly, is not really nessecary to play sPvP off course). Keep it up!

@Suds
Only use frenzy when the enemy has been stunned or knocked down, this eliminates the damage you’ll receive. If you cant do that, the only other time to use it is when they are playing so defensive that you most likely won’t be taking damage.

Edit:
Going to add to this explanation a little bit. You’ll notice in the video that I will only pop Frenzy if I can snag them in a stun. This usually is Mace #5 stun so I can immediately begin whaling on them with Axe #1.
If you pop frenzy without having the enemy in a vulnerable position then no matter what build you are – your going to be taking a boat load of damage.

Defektive.7283:

@Suds
Only use frenzy when the enemy has been stunned or knocked down, this eliminates the damage you’ll receive. If you cant do that, the only other time to use it is when they are playing so defensive that you most likely won’t be taking damage.

Edit:
Going to add to this explanation a little bit. You’ll notice in the video that I will only pop Frenzy if I can snag them in a stun. This usually is Mace #5 stun so I can immediately begin whaling on them with Axe #1.
If you pop frenzy without having the enemy in a vulnerable position then no matter what build you are – your going to be taking a boat load of damage.

I will try it again tonight. I think I can swap out FGJ with Frenzy and not be too bad off, since I’ll have the buff from the weapon sigils stacked up pretty high in a short time.

Speaking of FGJ, I liked using it as a damage buffer for the Empowered trait while SoR was on cd. It’s on such a short cd, so I always have boons feeding my damage plus buffing allies. In your opinion, how much more do you like trading that off for Frenzy?

I came upon your Avalanche build when you first posted it on here 2 weeks ago and tried it out that night. Having spent the majority of my time as a Hammer/Mace Shout Heal warrior it was easy to pick up obviously. I really liked the small changes that made the base build more offensive over the more supporty build I was using. While my shouts didn’t heal my teammates as much as before I actually felt I contributed more due to being able to DPS better. I also felt more durable myself with the higher Vitality instead of the higher Healing.

Do you prefer your DPS-variant over the base build?

@Suds
In regards to the trade off.
Frenzy right now, is so important towards the overall Warrior Meta. Unfortunately it’s one of the few skills that make us viable for tPvP because its on demand burst. If I didn’t need frenzy because I could do other things to make up for it, then I would definitly expand into other utilities like FGJ or Fear Me. But right now its such a big dps increase that I have to use it.

@Goblin
I think both builds have viability. Here’s my train of thought on this subject.
I base my builds off of their ability to increase my effectiveness in tPvP (sPvP effectiveness is just a side effect).
I found myself being asked/invited to many teams where they wanted a form of roamer/bunker that could kill quickly, but support when needed. Because of this I had to modify and build the DPS Variant in order to accommodate this niche.

However, In teams where we boast multiple DPS but only say 1 Bunker, then I switch to the base build (10/0/30/30/0) because I’m more bunker with decent DPS that won’t need to call for backup in 1v1 and sometimes 1v2 scenarios.

Choose the build based on the team composition you have. But personally I prefer the DPS build because I find 2v1’s easier with it.

I hope these answers are sufficient!

Streaming for those interested:
twitch.tv/defektive