Guild Wars 2

I’m tired of ice-skating uphill.

I’ve tried a sword/warhorn build (fun, but not effective in WvWvW since condition damage is so easily removed).

I’ve tried an axe/warhorn build (also fun, and reasonably effective) but it is very dependent on adrenaline and requires a fairly big investment in strength (to get to Axe Mastery). The axe/warhorn build is solid, and I do well, but I’d like to be less glass-y.

Also, both of these builds are very reliant on the warhorn boon removal/conversion and boon extension which requires a large investment into tactics.

So I’m looking at the greatsword — a weapon I’ve never actually tried before. I’m looking for some advice, though.

1) With the greatsword, how do you deal with condition removal? I primarily do WvWvW, so its a pretty big deal.

2) Is the swiftness from signet of rage enough or will I be horribly vulnerable?

1.) its wvw, condition removal is a much smaller problem here compared to spvp. mending is honestly enough.

2.) GS is the most mobile weapon in the game. SoR is enough swiftness. Spam gs 3 and 5 whenever its up to zoom across the map.

Any advice on traits?

For my first-pass build I went with this:

20 v ix
20 v x
0
10 iv
20 vi v

My secondary weapon is a longbow, so I wanted the stronger bowstrings trait.

I didn’t select mobile strikes, but with the greatsword having 2 movement skills I may want that instead of one of my other choices.

Losing 200 vitality certainly didn’t help my health pool. Not really sure I can do much about that, though. I suppose I could swap out my berserkers jewelry for something else that gives toughness/vitality.

Shout-build with Soldier Runes.

Here’s one example of a shout build: using GS/LB
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJARTjcOJvNPWPMxBgjCqYSpAu6SPODt0A;TIAAyEZB

I like your build also though. Add some Soldier Runes and you’ve got some nice condition removal. Like you said, go for X instead of V on Tactics. With the right gear you should already be at 50% crit rate (pre-Fury).

I very highly recommend getting Mobile Strikes. It regularly saves my life, though recently it has seemed anecdotally buggy. That may just be the most unfortunate timings ever though.

It’s really going to depend on your playstyle, though. What’s your alt weapon set? What are you gearing? I roll Knight’s and dive in with a hammer, so I sigil’d my GS with Superior Energy, providing my escape with 4 full evasion moves. Also, conditions are either an extremely huge problem, or not really a problem at all for me. As such, I run a Signet of Stamina of late and swapped Mending for Healing Surge (for both using Death from Above to start fights with full adren, and for the larger burst of healing). If you fight more skirmishes and worry about poison more often, I’d recommend taking Mending, as it seems to remove condis before applying the healing.

Alternatively, if you want a double full condi wipe, you could run Superior Lyssa AND signet of stam. If you’re aching that badly for condition clears though, odds are you’re in a very bad way, and I have a personal policy to not build my character based on huge blunders.

You could also go with a condi removal shout build, but that always sounded ultra boring to me. To each his/her own.

EDIT – I can read! Your alt weap’s going to be Longbow, so I’m not sure what your playstyle is. However, a shout build might actually serve you well if you’re staying at range and switching to the GS for the mobility/melee alternative if someone (like me) pushes up close.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Your alt weap’s going to be Longbow, so I’m not sure what your playstyle is.

I primarily use the Longbow for two things: keep/tower defense and either holding back a group when defending choke-points or pushing back a group when assaulting choke-points.

For everything else, I’ve been doing melee with the axe/warhorn (pick an outlier, bull’s rush him, eviscerate, and then that sort of useless whirl thing that may or may not be making a difference, then auto-attack until eviscerate is up again).

It works well for me, but the warhorn requires a TON of investment in Tactics to be effective and I’d like to try something different.

My concern with regard to conditions is that quite often I’ll suddenly get hit by 4 or 5 conditions at once, and then I’ll see 15 stacks of bleeding insta-appear and if I don’t remove those things fast-ish, I’m doomed.

I suppose I could use the utility that clears all conditions like you said, and mending instead of healing surge.

I do use soldier runes already, so that is somewhat lucky.

I gather from other posts that I’ve seen that the greatsword adrenaline ability isn’t very good, as well, so I should benefit from not having to use my adrenaline up.

Correct: you will basically never be using the GS burst ability. Mine only ever goes off in PvP when my weapon doesn’t switch for whatever reason, and when it happens, I pray it misses.

Healing Surge is too awesome to switch out. If anything, try to fit Signet of Stamina in there. The extra dodge juice is awesome and the active purges all your Conditions.