Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying I’m mostly PVE, I’ve popped into a few games of WvW recently and noticed as a warrior it’s hard to swing at people given they just kite me around. I’ve found the most success by just switching to a rifle. Do i just suck or am I missing something?

Melee is to be used in the right situations. But given the volume of players in large groups ranged is your best bet in WvWvW. Nothing wrong there.

Avoiding damage by staying ranged is better.

I recommend Warriors suck it up in WvW and play primarily as siege controllers/defenders and garrison duty. Someone has to do it.

Leave the battle lines to the ranged classes.

Look at it this way…. when two armies collide, it’s not the archers in the back that die first. Melee is great, but it’s also a bit suicidal. Get LOTS of melee and things change. But you need enough melee to rival the number of ranged guys, which rarely happens because everyone in a zerg is a coward.

Good thing all classes can do range damage when they want, gun / bow is a great tool to use in zergs.
I dont understand why so many a re negative…what you wanne do with melee ? suck up 200k damage and mollest 20 people with charge / 1k blades walk back to your zerg turn your camera and see 20 people death ?

if you have a Thief / Mesmer on your side yo u pull that kitten off btw, but you need time it perfectly.

Zergs vs Zergs is outlasting, any damage you can pump out from range adds to the total damage on 1 unlucky soul that gets focus fired, yo guys use Call target in zergs right :P ?

Warrior can do some serious pain at range, unlike other mmo’s

You can definitely melee, even against a zerg, opportunistically killing targets on the outside or those who are maybe a little more protected but who are low. However, you really need a fine tuned sense of when you just got, or about to get, unwanted attention (e.g. when my norn is 15 feet in the air doing a stability stomp), and it’s time to get out. You’ll need several “outs” if you want to play this kind of style.

I use axe/warhorn as my primary weapon set. Axe does almost all the damage you need (not to mention the ranged snare), leaving your other weapon and swap available for support/utility. Warhorn by itself is amazing, but with Quick Breathing it is completely nuts. Use Charge! to save immobilized/snared allies (immobilize=death), and of course to provide run buffs (very necessary in WvW). Call to Arms for weakness and vigor; it’s less visible, but quite underrated. Keep in mind that Quick Breathing converts vulnerability into protection.

For your second weapon set you can pick anything, but if you’re just getting started, I’d suggest longbow. Make sure you get the range upgrade; several of your skills will be able to lob fire well over castle walls, killing defenders up there.

Currently I am running a double melee set, which is definitely not something to most people’s taste, as I think most people prefer to equip a ranged second weapon set. I am using axe/warhorn + sword/shield. There’s a lot of get in-get out going on, and savage leap and shield block are amazing for jumping in/out when you are picking off people in a zerg. Shield stun can set up a flurry (used for the immobilize rather than the damage), which can keep several people rooted while allies strike. If you just took an objective and are being chased by 10+ guys, having savage leap will enable you to stay far enough in front of your pursuers that you will be able to get out of combat and escape.

I highly recommend you staple Balanced Stance to your bar. You are unlikely to get a stomp or revive off unless you do, and other classes (e.g. engineer) will have their way with you if you do not. Nothing like 4 people stomping a downed guardian and being the only person not thrown 15 feet away. If you are planning on high risk strikes into the enemy zerg, grab Endure Pain as well.

I tend to run a Rifle / Sword & Board setup and the times i switch to sword and board are highly situational i.e. when i am gettting flanked and need to gtfo in a hurry, or need to catch a runner and hamstring him for a ranged to down him. Theres just only so many opportunities to effectively get to go in there swinging steel and feeling like a BAMF if the enemy is quick on the intercepts/cc

Been bussy nailing their coffin with kill shot glass cannon build. Don’t care whether we win the game or not, im just enjoying the kill, or killing someone who trying to ress the one i shot…….And im getting a lot of it.

Sigh i wish Anet will buff kill shot maximum range so it will get more viable to us glass cannon rifle war.

Zerg vs Zerg is sucky. But small gank group style play we are one of the best classes, if not the best class.

Emperor — here is what I am currently running in WvW: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fIAQRBHhx21IpTMcKkLETkAAfoKThi0HaL9oM2ED

It’s really about the axe/warhorn more than the sword/shield though. Sword/shield is there mainly for its amazing utility, while axe does the damage. I am using a power build, not a condition build.

You can change berserker stance to something else if needed, but I often want to flurry to immobilize and then eviscerate soon after, and berserker stance will get you a 3 bar adrenaline activation for both skills. Leg specialist is surprisingly good in WvW even though it’s only a first tier trait.

Thanks all, happy to know that i don’t completely suck. Will stick to my build and tactics

Range classes start fights in WvW and fight them.

Melee finish fights in WvW.

I use my rifle like 70% of the time. My other weapon is a GS which I use mainly for the mobility on rush and spin, the cripple, and the burst on spin (it does like 9k yknow). Most of the time though rifle is your best bet. It’s also a very good idea to to use bull rush and bolas as cc is invaluable.

WvW was not really made solo based, how ever i’ll always go with my greatsword and my rifle, always. Why is because if i camp a spot and see someone coming i jump him/her and if he run away i’ll pick rifle up and slow and debuffing and pumping him untill i get into melee range to finish him.

As said earlier, melee is finishing the fights in big fights. It is not likely that i put out my rifle when we are about to push the enemies outside of the gate, thats the time you want to go melee.

Rifle damage as warrior is lovley tbh, and it is very very deadly. But always keep in mind that you will hit harder and be more effective with melee attacks.

Once you gotten used to it, it is okay.

1.) bring a rifle (bow is alot harder to use in WvW since the range is shorter and the projectiles are SLOW, so people can roll out easy)

2.) you can go melee, but you need to pick and choose correctly when it is ok. Do NOT go glass cannon in WvW unless you are expecting to stay on rifle the entire time. I go full tough/vit with alot of condition removal and while my damage isn’t that great, when i see an opening, i can run into a kittentorm, finish someone off , and run out easily and live.

3.) lastly, not warrior specific, if you want to actually be useful, don’t just follow a zerg around that is bashing its head into a heavily reinforced tower/keep. Defend supply depots, run supplys if people need to build siege, scout objectives etc. If your zerg isn’t setting up rams at the very least, don’t bother sitting at the gate spamming auto attacks for 10-15 mins before the inevitable counter attack drives you away.

Typically I’ll bounce between either a high toughness Shout healing build(or banner) and a glass cannon rifle build for when I want to kill people w/ 2 buttons.

Power/Toughness/Vita armor
Hoelbrak runes
Power/Precision/Crit Dmg trinkets
Greatsword
20/20/30/0/0 Traits
Mending, “For Great Justice!”, Frenzy, Throw Bolas, Signet of Rage

I jump in the middle of fight, down 3 players with frienzied HB, and go out no problem. Sometimes if people don’t realize I’m there quickly enough, I stay for a little bit longer and finish them off or down 1-2 more.

I love how some low level cannon glasses are getting one shot (15k+ dmg) with single HB

EDIT: I also like going out the gates while being under siege. I go out, Frenzy->HB people bashing gate (most of the time they don’t even know what happened), or those being close to entrance. At this point I’m most likely immobilized, so I use my heal spell, and chain Dodge->Dodge->Whirlwind Attack (it has dodge mechanic) to portal.

All you need is Defy Pain (Grandmaster trait from defence) Activates Endure Pain at 25% health. It basically make you immortal for 4-5 seconds (depending on other traits), this gives you time to use Mending and get the hell out of any situation.

I actually do axe/warhorn and rifle, with shout healing. But honestly, best trait in WvW is the falling damage one. Jump off a tower wall, land on the guys doing rams, run back in, repeat. If they start trying to knock you down, equip balanced stance. if they immobilize you, blow that warhorn!

Anyways I’ve had some epic times with that, watching the entire team try to kill me when I jump down. In the end though they usually get me haha.

mrperea.9580:

I actually do axe/warhorn and rifle, with shout healing. But honestly, best trait in WvW is the falling damage one. Jump off a tower wall, land on the guys doing rams, run back in, repeat. If they start trying to knock you down, equip balanced stance. if they immobilize you, blow that warhorn!

Anyways I’ve had some epic times with that, watching the entire team try to kill me when I jump down. In the end though they usually get me haha.

lol. This is a pretty hilarious and effective tactic.

i use rifle or bow primarily in wvw and play a bit of a support role. However, if the time is right, i’ll use bull charge on stragglers and carve them up something fierce.
But you pretty much have to run and gun. It’s impossible to stand your ground in WvW due to the amount of zerging going on. You are pretty much restricted to run and gun type tactics. This is pretty much true of any class though.

in my experience the only melee that works in WvW would be control/tank/support. basically stunning/disrupting those stragglers that don’t back off in time for your team to nuke. usually with shield bash.

Melee is also needed when you’re getting zerged and you’re just trying to stay alive long enough for some help to arrive. But in that case, you’re usually just prolonging the inevitable as once you get zerged, it’s pretty much over regardless of your class.

I’ve tried all sorts of builds for WvW. At the end of the day I went with Longbow and Sword+Warhorn for most part. Sometimes I’ll run with sword+warhorn / Hammer if I’m running a small hit & run disruption team.

While it is true that you can kill people with Rifle, I don’t find it decisive. With the longbow I can make a much bigger difference in WvW than just putting pressure on one guy in the opposing zerg. Same with warhorn. IMO Only siege weapons can make you more effective, but that also locks you into place.

I run 10/0/30/30, varying traits depending on the tasks at hand. Healing shouts + quickbreath is awesome. I ause runes of the soldier, and run 3 shouts Shake it Off, For Great justice and fear me. I don’t put anything in healing but even so I have 3 shouts that can remove conditions + heal everyone around me, as well as warhorn that can further reduce harm and remove immobalize and haste myself and those around me, and apply weakness to a fairly large area.

Yes, you may have problems dueling. But that really isn’t what WvW is about. If you want to duel try sPvP or tPvP. But even 1v1 I’m not totally kitted I have a lot of tricks. I can drop a fire field with the longbow Burst then switch to sword 2 to complete a combo. With the warhorn 5 their direct damage is drastically reduced. My shouts and warhorn eats all conditions and I run with armor around 2900. When you’re loosing you can always run away and reset the battle. Not too many things can chase down warrior sword+warhorn with signet of rage.

i run sword/shield and hammer with bulls rush and bolas and i dont get kited….at all….

Had my best day token-wise today, picked up roughly 50, during ~7-8 hour stretch. SBIvsHoDvsET is a bloodbath. Half of those tokens i got when HoD sent wave after wave of men into the meatgrinder at DFB (fully upgraded keep with like 15 siege on defense lol)

sword + wh and greatsword is the best for wvw, for rolling with the zerg or for solo / ninja action, tho you can change the sword+wh if u roll w/ the zerg

Longbow with the traits and everything. Skills are mostly shouts in order to buff up and “shake off” the other people that are on top of the walls.

If I go in melee in big zergs I’ll just die,so might as well bombarm the gate area with some awesome AoE. The damage output on rams is really high as well.

I tried Longbow, I tried Rifle, and trading potshots isn’t my style. I settled on Greatsword/Hammer, using the Hammer to dive on top of groups in a zerg while saving Balanced Stance/Endure Pain to escape. Hammer is also great for snagging those other Warriors who like to try diving with a Frenzy combo, or anyone who gets too close. Greatsword’s mobility is delightful, and the ranged cripple is amazing.

You can go melee, but you won’t always be doing damage. You look for opportunities, then you strike and retreat. I died maybe twice in about 3 hours of constant back-and-forth ZvZ, mainly because sometimes I get over-eager and dive a bit too hard.

In short, melee in WvW is like double dutch.