Guild Wars 2

Before any of the conversation starts let me just pre-empt this conversation with the fact that I drive a kill-focused nightly 5man in open world wvw. That being said I originally played Ranger because of the healing spring, aoe root elite, and crazy solid elusiveness. Because we only run 5-6 we come across teams of 5-20….based on that alone rangers (unless full bunker which I refuse to do) would melt after a minute of straight kiting.

So I thought I would make a tanky as all mother classes and chose pvt warrior. As many of you and I have experienced the warrior’s tank ability is pretty dismal. YES I understand for a good minute you can be a truck….but past that like the ranger survivability plummets. Long story short I switched to a group spec developed by my guild mate which has been rock solid. Run shout build with hammer and sword/board. (sword used besides axe for escapability #2). Every 20 seconds I can clear 6 conditions on myself, and 3 on the group. Also every 20 seconds I can heal the group for at least 3k a pop. The hammer cc is incredible and allows me to lock down multiple targets for 5-6 seconds straight.

Just wanted to see if anyone has similar builds and what they have experienced…

If you want to bunker/support, consider guardian.

Your heals are subpar, you have no protection, and your retaliation has to be specced into and is meh. Probably better throwing down banners or FHJ/boons/cleansing (warhorn?)

Just my opinion though.

It can work in small scale against average players but fighting good guilds? Hammer warriors are so easy to shut down. I’ve played a hammer warrior since launch.

Yeah CC doesn’t work well with good guilds with stability buffs / etc.

I mean we run the same 5-6 guys every night. Im here purely for more meat/cc/shouts. We run a full support guard, and a guardian on condy removal/dps who stays on my hip for my targets.

We have just built my war (and all of our classes in the 5 man) to be purely grp spec to build of each others abilities and cool downs. I know war isnt as effective as a THIRD guard would be but we arent a group of guys that would run cheese (i.e. 4 mesmers and a theif) kinda kitten.

It can work in small scale where conditions are more manageable and you aren’t fighting necros who chill you everytime they blind you 24/7.

I make combustion shots everywhere and spit out my wee squishy healy flower in WvW. Do those count?