Guild Wars 2

Hey all.

Transitioned from PvE to WvW a lot more these days, and it’s clear that my Warrior is just terrible at WvW 1v1. I run a Hammer CC build 10/0/20/10/30 and I just can’t do anything meaningful unless I have an ally.

After reading a post here about how worthless hammer is against decent players because of how slow and telegraphed it is, I’m losing a lot of faith and interest in the game since I’m sick of PvE and I don’t really care to go back to that.

I’m also learning the meaning of “no sustain”. Rocking a tanky setup doesn’t work either as I have no DPS and they just run away or eventually more opponents show up.

Any helpful tips? Please spare the trendy troll messages—I’m too old for that sort juvenile realm of CoD-ness. Appreciate any frank and straightforward help.

I’m close to finishing The Juggernaut and I don’t really want to waste it. :/

hammer and off hand mace is great for group play the CC can help your party. Hammer and mace is all about disabling and CC. Its not a offensive weapon like and axe for example. Axe is just for doing damage its not a CC weapon. In 1v1 its not about CCing as much as it is downing your enemy and finishing them. How exatly do you plan on downing somone with a weapon with slow attack that is used for CC. I don’t understand what you dont understand the mechanics are very simple.

if u want to 1v1 use an Spvp type build GS/Axe/shield. If you want to run with the group and zerg or whatever hammer and off hand mace is your friend.

like how you mentioned, a tanky setup wont give you dps,thats why im a full zerker hammer warrior. There’s always going to be people who will say the damage isnt good or your too predictable because of animations, but with my earthshaker ready every 8 seconds, they cant keep breaking my stuns forever, and once i catch em, everything is gonna hit like a truck.

That video appears, for the first 5 minutes at least, to be some guy killing people trying to run away and then running away himself…

Anyways, I think the answer lies in a balanced build gear wise. Your trait assignment looks fine. What are you running as your alternate set? A lot of people will tell you to go greatsword, personally I think mainhand sword and either shield or warhorn is the way to go.

Tips?

1) 1vs1 shield makes an excellent offhand, the damage mitigation from shield block will win most of your fights vs the average thief and warrior. the additional stun from shield bash is nice as well to start up chains.

2) Chain your CC for as long as your opponent will let you, stability means either go to your immobilizes or kite if they’re melee.

3) Pick advantageous terrain, I’ll pick a 1v3 if I’m near a friendly camp, tower or something of the sort. If I see them out in the open I’m running though. This basically comes down to know your outs, I’ve beaten a lot of people by feigning retreat and then coming back when they’re on CD.

4) Know your enemy, a P/D thief will beat you if he’s half decent. A bunker guard or ele will stalemate you. A good mesmer or necro are the two most difficult fights you can probably win. Everything else however is fair game.

5) The fakeout hammer 5 is a great way to bait out dodges/blocks, especially when you’ve already applied weakness.

Hmmm… and if you want a noobstomper combo:
bulls charge→1→5→2 [you may want to wait for your opponent to dodge after this, or you can head straight into] F1→1→1→1→swap→finish them

Won’t work against half decent opponents, but it’s pretty effective against the typical enemy in WvW.

I personally run about 2.7-2.8k armor with ~20k health, ~80% crit damage and ~35% crit chance. I’m not really an optimizer stat wise, but it works for me and if it ain’t broke…

Hope this helps.

Thank you all sincerely for the tips! I will keep your pointers in mind and practice some more.

I use a longbow as the second set by manually swap to sword and warhorn for squad roaming.

Jonwar.9205:

That video appears, for the first 5 minutes at least, to be some guy killing people trying to run away and then running away himself…

Since that is my video i will defend myself a bit :P
First of all watch it till the end before judging.
And that is pretty much footage that was all taken within 1hour(you can look at the time on the minimap throughout the movie yourself) so it shows good moments and bad moments, the only editing is pretty much faster speed in video.

I have had much better fights than what is shown in the video and ofc lost a few of them too.

Apologies then, most WvW videos I see are cherry picked fights and I kind of operated off the assumption that yours was too.

I run a mix of Zerker and PVT gear and zerker/cavalier trinkets. Traits are similar to yours but instead of 10 in strength I put it in arms to get unsuspecting foe to get 100% crit chance on ES which works great with the new burst mastery trait. Sword/Shield or sword/mace as secondary set adds some mobility and extra CC.

You can get decent burst out of a more tanky build. I run full PVT gear, with zerk/cavalier trinkets, healing shout build when commanding to add more group support and still get 100% crit. chance on ES with food and SoR.

Think like a hammer. You are a Hammer. Smash things. Enemies are just nails. Nail nails, you have a hammer.

Some advices:

• use hammer as secondary weapon, dont engage fight with it, build adrenaline and then switch to hammer and drop Earthshaker
• see someone about to get stomped- drop a Earthshaker , see someone being healed- drop Earthshaker, theif want to kill you?- drop Earthshaker where you stand becasue he is going to backstab you
• watchout for blind- if you got blinded and want to drop Earthshaker – 10 points in Strenght and you will clear blind with dodge
• someone run behind you? – you can drop Earthshaker while looking behind- i bet they wont dodge
• you can land “5” while moving so try to be feet ahead of your enemy – Backbreaker have 1 sec “cast”
• “3” is great for aoe immobilize, aoe immobilize is great for Earthshaker
• try to aim Earthshaker where your enemy will be not where they are right now
• if you are using longbow and have Earthshaker ready to land- use longbow 5>Arcing Arrow (make sure projectile is on its way) > drop Earthshaker where Arcing arrow will explode= nice burst

Ran this since day 1, I use it for small man solo roam etc.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|2.1g.h2|c.1c.h1j.e.1c.h1l|1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r|3v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2s.0|k35.a4.u3ab.a0.0|15.1|5y.6j.6i.6d.0|e

Also buildcraft isn’t up to date, I run dogged March over Defy Pain

Furajir.3815:

Ran this since day 1, I use it for small man solo roam etc.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|2.1g.h2|c.1c.h1j.e.1c.h1l|1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r|3v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2s.0|k35.a4.u3ab.a0.0|15.1|5y.6j.6i.6d.0|e

I don’t think hydromancy and energy sigils stack

I usually use energy and go with bloodlust or something else.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/warrior#1|0|10|45|317|1004|1890|10|1995|0|0|0|0|0|0|20|2428|1529|0|10|1518|0|0|30|1109|1059|1120|1|11|0|0|0|49979|49979|49979|49979|49979|0|0|0|0|0|0|

This is the build I’ve been running since the latest major patch.

Swap out Axe for Warhorn when roaming/running to objective/stacking Blast Finishers. I use axe 5 a lot when I go in to fight zergs for the extra dmg and bag tagging.

It’s great for CC in large and small groups and overall annoyance. The Melandru runes + Dogged March + Lemongrass food gets cripple/chill/immobilize duration down to -98%. You can cheat if you’re cheap and get the next rank down in food buffs.

I put Sigil of Hydromancy on my sword.
I put Sigil of Impact on my Hammer.
I put Sigil of Restoration on my Axe(still testing this out)

Stats, as of right now I’m zerker stats with the Melandru runes and have pretty good survivability. Plus the added stats from all my Ascended jewelry doesn’t hurt. I plan on going to Knights soon.

It’s a fun build that is great for 1v1 roaming and larg zerg fights. I’m sure some things could be changed around but I’m not gonna fix what isn’t broke atm.

Good luck.

molepunch.5673:

Hey all.

Transitioned from PvE to WvW a lot more these days, and it’s clear that my Warrior is just terrible at WvW 1v1. I run a Hammer CC build 10/0/20/10/30 and I just can’t do anything meaningful unless I have an ally.

After reading a post here about how worthless hammer is against decent players because of how slow and telegraphed it is, I’m losing a lot of faith and interest in the game since I’m sick of PvE and I don’t really care to go back to that.

I’m also learning the meaning of “no sustain”. Rocking a tanky setup doesn’t work either as I have no DPS and they just run away or eventually more opponents show up.

Any helpful tips? Please spare the trendy troll messages—I’m too old for that sort juvenile realm of CoD-ness. Appreciate any frank and straightforward help.

I’m close to finishing The Juggernaut and I don’t really want to waste it. :/

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/80239-warrior-www-balance-build/

there is a bow/hammer build there somewhere. It also shows you the valid builds in 1v1 in wvw. You will never win against a player who exploits OP classes like mesmers or thieves but its better than nothing.

Hammer is useless not only because its slow, but because some classes -such as the above- have many stun breakers, teleports, get out of jail cards, long stability on ranger etc etc. Its not bad though if you have a very short burst and you know how to flip weapons quickly.

Where bow/hammer inherently fails in WvW is a lack of ability to disengage. That is how you win as a solo roamer in WvW. If I reset the fight 5 times because I was losing 4 of them, then come back and win on the fifth I still win. Some may disagree with me here, to them I say: have fun with your repair bill.

That being said keeping a longbow in your inventory is a good idea. It’s fairly handy against pet classes (not really talking about rangers here with their immortal pets). In particular phantasm mesmers, and generally better than a hammer against p/d thieves. That being said I’d drop the hammer for these situations, not my sword/x set.

Thanks again to all the new and insightful posts. Learned a lot there, and I’m starting to understand that I often don’t know when and how to engage or disengage.

Very appreciative of the straight up no-nonsense coaching from fellow Warriors.

Furajir.3815:

Ran this since day 1, I use it for small man solo roam etc.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|2.1g.h2|c.1c.h1j.e.1c.h1l|1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r|3v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2v.0.2s.0|k35.a4.u3ab.a0.0|15.1|5y.6j.6i.6d.0|e

Also buildcraft isn’t up to date, I run dogged March over Defy Pain

SIX-THOUSAND?? You serious, how hard dose this build hit?? Love to see a vid of you playing it in WvW!

Knowing when and when not to attack is key for a hammer warrior in anything it does. Doesn’t matter how tanky you are, or how hard you can hit, if you charge in at the wrong time you can end up getting rolled over.

The hammer is a wonderful tool to use in WvW, most dont like it because it doesnt pull off the big numbers like GS, but if you keep practicing with it you will become adept and will know when and when not to attack.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBiYDbkzp6N5x5BHOAgeUFXbZK0T6hYolGA-jEyAoLBZ6DMBCiQAk9KiGbltIasKbM1JRUtQAk3CA-w

We run that on my server, its a very nice build, you get nice hits from it and Death from above is just hilarious to use. With its nice push back you can do lots of funny things (if the enemy didnt trash your rams at your gate you can jump down..push away…hit fear on the ram and run away laughing) get back in..and repeat. Gives you time, and lots of enemy tagging.

Terrain knowledge is also key, there are some points where it can actually limit the range of your burst stun (so once you know when and how to properly use it you will be feared).

And if you are with others, and you see nice little fields around you, blast them as much as you can. Those fields can be the difference between life and death for you and your allies. And with those fields, you can build up a nice amount of might (through fire fields) and even though you are tanky, thats more damage you have to destroy your enemy.

So good luck, and happy gaming. Warrior hammer is fun to use

Since everyone is posting their builds…

Full berserker with rubies
Hammer – impact
Sword/horn – accuracy,hydromancy
0
10 unsuspecting foe
20 dogged march, merciless hammer
20 leg specialist, quick breathing
20 sig mastery, mobile strikes
Healing surge, endure pain, shake it off, bulls charge
Food – lemongrass and sharpening stone

Before you go pffft berserker, consider this first. All the time you spend ccing your target with your hammer is time your not receiving damage while dishing out damage yourself. The warhorn is a very defensive weapon when traited, it removes conditions, gives you boons, weakens the target so you receive less damage gives you swiftness to stick to or run from your target. Sword is mostly for the leap to engage disengage , and with full zerker the damage isn’t bad.

The way I’m usually playing I’m either sticking to the enemy nonstop with leap earthshaker and cripples or I’m bouncing back and forth with leap to make my enemy try to catch me instead so I can land an earthshaker

And I think someone mentioned it, when your being chAsed, use earthshaker behind yourself to stun