Guild Wars 2

I thought I post this since I have had quite a few nice matches with it and I have not seen anything quite like it posted before.

Its not min/max fancy burst nuke feck em all up build, but rather a build along the lines I like to see my warrior…… Durable front-line grunt that gets things done.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApZTjkOJvBPGPMxBE0DNEMqCjihQ8UKmjNE-T0AA1CtIQShkDJDSSksINwY1xpjZJvOA

IMO maces are the best option for interrupts (hammer is just too slow to have reliable interrupts) and confusion is just hilarious on thieves and rangers.

the basic game-play is based on interrupts and evasion (and condi cleansing). I use longbow to get rid of all minions/illusions/spirits and other sh:t….. also I have noticed that if the target likes to stay ranged LB is more than adequate to take him down.

I don’t know how it plays as a part of a premade team, since I don’t have one but I don’t see why it couldn’t be an asset with quite a bit of utility on it.

oh… and you can always switch to mace + shield setup if you prefere that.

Have fun with it and let me know if you come up with some nifty way to make it better.

You know you put a link that directs you to the reset password page?

The build is in fact so strong that it can reset your account password under certain circumstances.

I know another one that deletes your character, but I can’t share it unfortunately.

“Its not min/max fancy burst nuke feck em all up build, but rather a build along the lines I like to see my warrior…… Durable front-line grunt that gets things done.”

That’s just the problem.. you aren’t min/maxed to do anything, really. There are better ways to create ‘durable’ builds out there with shouts/battle standards, and there are better ways to create condition builds so your confusion actually does something rather than nothing. Unfortunately, you’re just kind of all over the place here.

Drek Thalon.5490:

“Its not min/max fancy burst nuke feck em all up build, but rather a build along the lines I like to see my warrior…… Durable front-line grunt that gets things done.”

That’s just the problem.. you aren’t min/maxed to do anything, really. There are better ways to create ‘durable’ builds out there with shouts/battle standards, and there are better ways to create condition builds so your confusion actually does something rather than nothing. Unfortunately, you’re just kind of all over the place here.

I haven’t been playing because of FFXIV, but I was in top 200 with a very similar build. I use mace/sword and longbow, 20/0/20/0/30 – the most important traits being Ire, Sundered Mace, Burst Mastery, and Vigorous Focus.

Then utilities it’s important to have at least Berserker’s Stance, and a stun breaker so it’s a no-brainer to go for the Balanced Stance. Both will be granting vigor which is your main defense. Signet of Precision also, so that you can enter fights with full adrenaline and it’s on a low cooldown. Finally Warbanner instead of Rage, because Rage is easily stripped or absorbed or corrupted, and this isn’t a burst build.

Main reason I use sword offhand instead of mace is because of the awesome block on #5. It’s on half the cooldown of shield, and as long as you’re not in melee range, it will block everything for the duration (unlike mace #2 which just blocks one ability).

Abusing endurance is a very fun way to play warrior IMO and this guy is on the right track. It can be extremely strong 1v1, even survive 2 minutes+ in 1v2, but then becomes less useful in team fights where a bursty warrior would be preferred. So it’s a viable bunker / bunker assault role. It actually destroys spirit rangers, they don’t like constant stuns and AoE (remember longbow F1 is doing ticks of power/crit-modified damage!), but some of the old style rangers (beastmaster? I dunno the vocab of that class) will beat you unless you’re better than me, but almost no one plays those anymore.

Drek Thalon.5490:

That’s just the problem.. you aren’t min/maxed to do anything, really.

well that’s kind of the point…… its not rock… its not paper and its not scissors……. its kinda papery rock scissors!

That plays very well on teens that use min/max builds…. they just don’t know how to handle it. oh and confusion….. maybe it doesn’t do a lot damage, but who hits anything when they have a ton of confusion on them anyways!

Longbow + dual mace – No mobility whatsoever? Partial check – At least you have range. Could be worse.

20 points in power for Distracting strikes / Waste of 20 points in a useless trait? Check.

No Unsuspecting Foe or Burst Mastery, 2 of the 3 most important traits on a mace build? Double check.

Signet warrior without Signet Mastery, instead taking the useless waste of a trait Destruction of the Empowered? Check.

For Great Justice outside of PvE? Check.

You get an E, for effort. But it needs work. You’re carrying a lot of deadweight that’s costing you important things.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Longbow + dual mace – No mobility whatsoever? Partial check – At least you have range. Could be worse.

20 points in power for Distracting strikes / Waste of 20 points in a useless trait? Check.

No Unsuspecting Foe or Burst Mastery, 2 of the 3 most important traits on a mace build? Double check.

Signet warrior without Signet Mastery, instead taking the useless waste of a trait Destruction of the Empowered? Check.

For Great Justice outside of PvE? Check.

You get an E, for effort. But it needs work. You’re carrying a lot of deadweight that’s costing you important things.

Instead of tearing the guy down, can you explain for those of us that aren’t as well-versed as you are with the mechanics why each of the things on your checklist is bad, what could be done to improve them, and finally a build that does not result in sarcastic checklist replies?

I’m serious, btw. It’s so hard trying to find information anywhere. If you have some, please provide it. Trying to learn all I can.

Corian.4068:

Instead of tearing the guy down, can you explain for those of us that aren’t as well-versed as you are with the mechanics why each of the things on your checklist is bad, what could be done to improve them, and finally a build that does not result in sarcastic checklist replies?

I’m serious, btw. It’s so hard trying to find information anywhere. If you have some, please provide it. Trying to learn all I can.

Ok, let’s try this another way:

Longbow + dual mace – No mobility whatsoever? Partial check – At least you have range. Could be worse.

In GW2 mobility is gold. Mobility means being able to walk out of a sticky situation, or prevent someone else from doing the same. It’s the difference between being kited to death and killing that guy at 5% HP before they get away.

Since this is sPvP, mobility is a little less important than, say, WvW, since the focus is on holding points. That said, being kited to death or being able to make a getaway are still issues, as is getting to points as soon as you can.

In GW2, mobility starts with 25% movement modifiers and swiftness, but the “make or break” points are movement skills.

Greatsword is an amazing weapon for mobility, with both Rush and WW giving you two quick movement skills.

Sword is a good weapon for mobility, with a low cooldown leap and ability to wield an offhand weapon.

Mace is not. Mace (main or offhand) is a weapon set that seriously lacks mobility. When I run mace on my warrior I run it with a shield off hand for that priceless 3 second block to absorb as much damage as I can, and extra stun (with a little range) from shield bash… And that’s far from enough. I almost invariably run Greatsword for the added mobility, at the sacrifice of range.

Now, he is running longbow, which does come with a juicy 3 second ranged immobilize, and offhand mace does have the nice 1.2k range 2 second knockdown, which significantly minimizes the issue. That said, and since this is sPvP and not WvW, it’s a “personally I wouldn’t do it, but it’s not too bad” issue. He does have range from longbow if he needs it, so, all in all, not terrible, just a weakness he needs to keep in mind.

20 points in power for Distracting strikes / Waste of 20 points in a useless trait? Check.

I’ve written lengthy posts on this before. Distracting Strikes is a kittening waste of a trait, end of. Confusion without condition damage does kitten all, the trait relies entirely on the very unreliable interruption mechanic, and not just landing your CC, and the warrior weapons that can cause interruption are power weapons that have no condition damage scaling, while the condition damage weapons can’t do interruptions. all in all, it’s a complete waste of a trait and, with it, at least 5 trait points, potentially more (as none of the other traits in that line are particularly relevant or impressive), that could have gone to far better use… Which leads us to:

No Unsuspecting Foe or Burst Mastery, 2 of the 3 most important traits on a mace build? Double check.

The holy grail of the mace, the one thing that really makes the weapon shine, comes in the form of its burst skill: A brutal 3 second stun that is almost the same animation as an auto-attack, on a 10 second cooldown (by default).

Burst Mastery and Unsuspecting Foe, coupled with Cleansing Ire (which he does have, which is why I didn’t mention it) are a Mace’s best friends forever and ever.

First, Burst Mastery reduces the adrenaline needed to use your Burst to it’s full potential (the full 3 seconds) by a ludicrous 33%! Additionally, by spending 30 points in the Discipline Mastery you also get it’s cooldown to under 8 seconds! Together this gives you a much higher “uptime” on that savage stun.

Second, Unsuspecting Foe gives you 50% free critical chance on stunned targets. Given that the main purpose of the mace is stunning people for 3+ seconds at the time, this means that every time you stun someone, for the whole duration of their stun, you have 50% free critical hit chance! 50%!! Fury only gives you 20%! With just that and fury from Signet of Rage you’re hitting for 70% critical chance on a stunned target without any critical chance of your own. On a Soldier’s Mace build this trait is more than mandatory.

(1/2 – it’s a big one….posting the second part bellow)

(2/2)

Together, we’re talking about allowing you to stun your target more often, and getting 50% more crits whenever they’re stunned. And all of this for 20 more trait points….. 20 points he dumped in the Strength tree for relatively no benefit. Waste. Complete waste.

Signet warrior without Signet Mastery, instead taking the useless waste of a trait Destruction of the Empowered? Check.

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. Destruction of the Empowered is a crap trait, since it gives a measly 3% damage per boon. It’s a really insignificant bonus given that most builds don’t walk around with a ton of boons. The ones that do generally carry protection, which further dwarves the use of this trait. It’s just not worth it.

Comparatively, his build is running 4 signets! All of them with good passives that you might want to use… Why wouldn’t you cut down cooldowns by 20%? That trait means that the downtime on Fury, Swiftness and 5 might stacks from Signet of Rage is only 18 seconds, instead of 30 (60s cooldown > 48s)! It means your Signet of the Dolyak stunbreaker and 8 seconds of stability runs on a 48 second cooldown instead of 60! The full condition removal from Signet of Stamina on a 36 second cooldown instead of 48! That’s 4 less seconds of cooldown on your Healing Signet if you have to use the active.

…Why wouldn’t you…? Why give that up for a wooping 3 to 6% damage on most characters?

For Great Justice outside of PvE? Check.

FGJ is one of the best skills in PvE due to extra might and the high upkeep of Fury – for your entire party. PvE is mostly about damage output, so FGJ is a godsend….

In PvP, you simply have more important tools. Almost all stances are a better option. You can have an extra stunbreaker that gives you temporary immunity to damage with Endure Pain, you can have extra stability with swiftness with Balanced Stance, you can get temporary immunity to conditions with berserker stance… Or you can get Bull’s Charge, which can be so important extra movement and CC on a build that lacks mobility. Or Stomp as an extra “get off me” AoE knockback that also doubles as a stun breaker…. etc, etc, etc. FGJ is simply not worth what you lose.

Another thing I just realized: He’s running 2 “on critical” sigils on the same weapon set (both maces), which is a major no-no. On critical sigils share cooldown, meaning that if one triggers they both go on cooldown, which causes a very undesirable scenario of both sigils competing with each other and nullifying each other. 1 on critical sigil per weapon set. Fill the other sigil with something else, depending on build.

I hope that made it clearer, but feel free to ask if there’s anything you don’t understand (or disagree with).

Cheers.

Thank you muchly for explaining. +1’d.

Like most of it was stuff I know, but not really put together in a way that makes sense in game, so your explanation really did that well. Again, thanks.