Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I’m currently level 70 but am leveling at an absurd rate and will be 80 soon. I’m also using fine stones and can transfer any runes/etc up with my armor appearance, so I’ll just proceed with the assumption that I’m level 80.

My current build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAseUjcOBvtPuQ4QBE0Ds4KEw0jwgMWDA

Typically when I play MMOs, I like to create my own builds based on what sounds fun and useful and am pretty turned off by the concept of using cookie cutter builds/particular weapons “just because they’re the best.” In GW2, I was surprised to find that warriors were capable of the amount of support that they are, and so I’m experimenting with a sort of “Iron General” build. The idea is that I’m set up pretty defensively so that I can’t really be killed very easily, but can buff and support the team all the while so that if enemies DON’T kill me, things are much worse for them.

It’s easy enough to just stack the crap out of PTV and call it a day, but the problem is that I don’t want to hit like a girl scout either. I talked to someone in game and decided that I’d use my current knight’s armor and just use coral gems in all the pieces for power, precision and condition damage, but have lately considered using PVT armor and gemming differently. I don’t mind whether I do condition or regular damage, but the two camps seem very torn and I’m not sure what to think about it anymore. Some say that bleeds are too easily removed, but by the same token (and I haven’t exactly parsed it or anything) bleeds seem to inflict a LOT more of the damage I see with sword and shield.

I’m traditionally more about balance, so I figured I’d go for all three, but I’m not sure where my efforts should be focused to get the most out of my sword while still keeping in line with the defensive support build that I’m working on. I’ve also considered using runes of the pack, but I wasn’t sure if the five or so seconds of F/M/S would be worth it or not. The power/precision over what I use now is markedly better, but I’d lose out on condition damage.

Put shortly, what balance of these three stats makes for optimal damage in general? I’ve heard to go all power and neglect the other two, but I’m hesitant to do that for fear of putting all my eggs in one basket. All the same, it seems I’ll have to really choose one or two out of the three to capitalize on. How solid would using runes of the pack be, in addition? Also, I am not sure where to put those last ten trait points. I have considered power for berserker’s 12% increase, discipline for warrior’s sprint or the crit increase, and arms for bleed duration, but I’m really not sure. Suggestions?

Just looking to make sword work for me! Please be gentle and realize that no, I don’t want to use hammer because “it’s better for defense and support.” No, I don’t want to use X build because mine is crap/etc. I’d really appreciate any advice for my build that can be offered beyond “scrap it you suck.”

Thank you for your time and assistance!

Purely for “straight Sword MH”, it depends on how much you use F1.

Sword autoattack alone benefits more from power than condition damage, ironically (unless the target lasts a longass time and you pack a veggie pizza). F1 will skew the balance to condition damage.

The other question is “wth is your second weapon set?”. If it’s a power based weapon set, then Soldier stats seem like your go-to. If it’s something else (longbow), condition damage may be a possibility.

Note that there is no CDMG/tough/vit stat spread (sigh). At best, you’re looking at Rabid with the crit→bleed trait. The bright side is that “no-Vit” is only vulnerable to condition damage, and an “Iron General” build has good condition removal options (cough Shout trolling, cough).

Thank you for the advice!

It sounds like it would be entirely feasible to use PVT armor and gem for more PVT and precision, completely ignoring cond if I don’t burst often. I actually TRY to burst quite a bit, but it feels like there’s a second or so delay on the skill’s activation which makes it a complete kitten to land in WvW and sPvP. I wholly admit that it’s likely because I just haven’t yet figured it out (and yes, I can land it if I shield 4 or something first, but the point of an immobilize is typically to stop them, not to require another immobilize just to hit :P Yeah, I get that it’s also there to keep them there during the attack.) At either rate, it sounds like focusing on power and precision would be more reliable for me and scale better with my rifle or GS when I use it.

When you say “Note that there is no CDMG/tough/vit stat spread (sigh).”, are you commenting on armor stats? I’m a bit confused asto what you mean there xD

Also, any tips on sigils for this build?

Thanks so much!

You can mix a bit of stats around to still get lots of condition dmg and vit/toughness.
I had full galrath armor (cond/pre/tough) and full carrion trinkets (cond/pow/vit). Gave me a good 25k+ health and over 2.8k armor and i could get over 1300+ condition dmg easy. With the boon build i made, i had up to 1700+ condition dmg and 3k+ attack to make it good mix of both damages. With precision/fury i had over 50% crit chance so i did decent flat dmg and crit often enough for sigil of earth to proc alot/trait passive (5 into arms).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Boon-Guide-Universal-Build/first#post1061084
My boon guide build/and personal build included.
Its a great way to get condition dmg/utility/flat dmg.

I actually TRY to burst quite a bit, but it feels like there’s a second or so delay on the skill’s activation which makes it a complete kitten to land in WvW and sPvP

Personally, in a large-scale fight, the fact that you Immobilize is more important than any number of hits or bleeds. Immob is a death sentence in WvW battles. As a result, in many situations I will F1 with Sword and simply break the channel and go do something else, so the condition damage contribution is pretty low overall.

When you say “Note that there is no CDMG/tough/vit stat spread (sigh).”, are you commenting on armor stats? I’m a bit confused asto what you mean there xD

There is no stat spread that provides those 3 stats on an item.

Carrion is CDMG / vit / pow. Rabid is CDMG / prec / tough.

There is no CDMG / vit / tough. It may be overpowered if it existed. There’s also no CDMG / heal / tough, would may be just as bad, or worse. Ohwell.

In any case, the boon build referenced may also be good to borrow from because an “Iron General” type playstyle will likely be engaged for sustained periods of time, so heavy boons may be effective.

Gotcha! I’ll look at it and see what I can get from it. Thanks so much for your advice!

Sounds like condition damage won’t hurt, but that I shouldn’t focus on it and should largely pay attention to the other stats. What about power vs precision?

Well if your wanting a debate on power/precision its a debate on what you want to focus on. Generally if your more condition inclined than precision is definitely your winner, but i do think power is still a necessity for warrior condition because of how often we inflict flat dmg when trying to add bleeds. A good number to look for is about 500-10 ratio on attack/crit chance. So 3000 attack goes well with 60% crit chance. If you get crit dmg too, than the math changes to favor more precision. Over all, precision is better in most cases (especially with sigil of earth/on crit sigils). The perfect math isnt in my head, but you can search and find stuff more specialized in those areas.

Condition for warrior is a bonus more or less, in my opinion, to our attacks. Regardless to how you build, full on condition dmg is not too good on warriors currently.

CoaxialMazer.9140:

Condition for warrior is a bonus more or less, in my opinion, to our attacks. Regardless to how you build, full on condition dmg is not too good on warriors currently.

Those were along the lines of what I was thinking; it’s good to hear that you feel that way about it, too. Also, thanks for the ratio, numbers like that make it much easier to quantify things than just saying “Well, have a balance.” I think I have a much better idea of what to do stat wise, then.

That just leaves those other questions; how would runes of the pack fare with this build? Where should I put those last ten trait points? Any sigil ideas or general build advice beyond that?

Thank you all for all of the support so far!

I haven’t read the whole thread so forgive me if I restate something.

Bleeds only benefit from 5% of your cond dmg stat. So, 100 cond dmg = 5 dmg/sec on your bleeds. That is by far the poorest scaling damaging condition.

Having said that, I recommend gearing for direct damage.

Flurry isn’t a total waste for a direct damage focused build. People seem to ignore the 4s immobilize on full adrenaline. Sure, we have better hard CC in the form of knockdowns and stuns, but I’ve sealed the fate of plenty of invaders with a well timed shield bash followed by a 4 second stay in immobilized-ville.

Good points, Veritas. I think I’m pretty sold on full power over condition now, thanks to everyone’s advice; that does sound like pretty awful scaling. Dx

Hmm pack is a more get hit often build, but if ur using rifle as ur build, i suggest try different runes. Perhaps a rune that gives you more dmg since your traits are specced more into defense. If you do a boon duration set (2 superior monk/water and the other 2 runes can be w/e u want) you can give perma regen to everyone on your team with a banner for a defensive approach. Personally i would get runes of the lyssa with 10 points into discipline and get signet recharge and use signet of rage in connection with it. But if you wish to buy cheaper runes (lyssa mad expensive T.T), rune of a the centaur isnt too bad of a choice either. Runes are really preference, to how you want to round out your build.

10 points into power = berserkers power = 12% dmg if you dont use adrenaline skills often
10 points into arms = deep cuts = 50% long bleed dmg (probably ur best choice if u want more condition dmg)
10 points into discipline = signet mastery = signet of stamina/rage (36s/48s) cd is great.
(warriors sprint is lacking right now = 10% movement) while warriors can gain swiftness easily and often through signet of rage and warhorn = 33% movement.

Its up to you honestly, but i think you can pull 10 from defense and plot 20 points into two trees to give you a bit more dmg/utility. I personally dont believe going the last 10 points into defense to be as helpful defensive wise unless i run very heavy power for retaliation dmg/ or endure pain at 25% health (90 sec cooldown). The 5% toughness to power is minimal, as if ur not full on toughness it only gives around [45(base)-125(2.5k toughness)] power, which is not as great as getting a trait the helps you get more utlity. Traits are easily the most versatile thing to work around (trait reset is like 3s) but gear is more important since buying a new set of exotics, can be annoying.

Test and try out what u like. For sigils = earth is your best bet for condition dmg on rifle/sword, while if u like to use killshot on rifle, get intelligence for guaranteed critical on it. If u dodge, often, sigil of energy is great on sheild for the extra dodge roll you get from switching to sword/sheild. Many choices are avaliable.
Glad to be able to help =D

I can link you the build i currently use on my main warrior (got 2 =P)

CoaxialMazer.9140:

Hmm pack is a more get hit often build, but if ur using rifle as ur build, i suggest try different runes. Perhaps a rune that gives you more dmg since your traits are specced more into defense.

Actually, what I liked about pack was that it was mainly power and precision, which would boost my damage, but the random fury/might/swiftness for my team thrown in seemed to fit the spirit of the build I was going for and seemed like it would be very powerful, particularly if there were a lot of people around, though I wondered just how much a five second buff would help. Another benefit is that given my newly informed stance on condition damage, I’m not really “missing out” on cond damage for it.

You say that I may be better off for something different given that I have a rifle, but I only use my rifle so that I have a ranged option when I need it to kite/etc, as I firmly believe that you need to have -some- kind of ranged option on you at all times. I don’t use it unless I can’t use SnS/it’s a better idea to use it, so my build is more focused on doing sword and shield.

I guess my main question with pack is if five seconds of fury/might/swiftness is actually going to matter for the team. The cooldown is 10s, which really isn’t bad, but it’s only a 5% chance to activate. One stack of might seems insignificant, anyways, but the fury and swiftness aren’t bad.

I was actually planning on doing sigil of intelligence for kill shot, but I wasn’t sure if I should do sigil of earth and 10 arms for longer bleeds if I planned on ignoring condition damage. What are your thoughts on that?

hmm, if you plan on ignoring condition dmg in general, then you can definitely spec more appropriately to increase dmg and survivability more easier. Hmm, you can give fury/might to your team much easier using “For great justice” and its up time is rather significant with 30% boon duration. Sigil of earth would only benefit you if you went condition, and if u were specced 25 into arms for the extra 10% dmg. Otherwise lots of other sigils offer more dps/utility. Depending on your armor, i can suggest where your last 10 points could go, and depending on what utilities/heal/ulti, you will use constantly, can also depend. I feel if you wanted the power/precision, you probably could get more bang for your buck just buying orbs that give you power/prec/(crit dmg/cond/toughness). Its a bit less than the power/precision from the full 6 pieces, but its cheaper and u get a third stat the benefits what u might want to use rather than the 5% chance to activate the boons. I think emerald orb might be best with the toughness. 6 pieces = 120 precision/84 power/84 toughness. Its cheaper and probably better for your build.

Tell me what you have your mind focused on right now? no more condition dmg? what utilities, what skills u will be using often, and what role u want to fill. I can better help give advice/suggestions. =D

Also all banners can give swiftness, and with 30%+ boon duration, you can give perma swiftness to your team.

It sounds like boon duration boosts the duration of boons I GIVE to the team too; is this correct? I didn’t know that.

Yeah, I wanna abandon condition damage and I wanna grab power/vit/tough armor, but I’m not sure where to get that at 80 or if it can be crafted. I don’t like for great justice all that much because it sounds obnoxious when the entire team is using it – yeah, I know that’s a lame reason – but I also prefer using sig of stamina/any given banner/balanced stance because it gives me a very well rounded skill setup that covers pretty much everything, and I can substitute as needed.

I think that answers all of the things you asked about; lemme know if you need more!

Thanks again!

Yes i know what u mean about “FOJ”, wish it had an autocast and could be muted, but i guess anet wants me to suffer Q.Q, anyways all jokes aside. P/V/T gear is easy to get at 80, just run Ascalonian Catacombs exploration mode and do all 3 paths everyday. In about 4-5 days, u can get a full set of P/V/T armor and get around 8-10 gold easy to buy 3-4 trinkets. Just farm and buy stuff, and in about 1 week with about 2 hours of play everday, u can easily get fully decked out.

Yes boon duration% increases the boon u give to others as well, which is another reason i like the boon build. At 70% boon duration (30 traits/40% with 2 sup water/2 sup monk/ 2 great water) and another 20% from food (omnom berry cream), you can make lots of boons you give last for a long time. Those are good choices in terms utilities.

Your choices then should be either 10 into power for the power gain/ or 10 into discipline for the signet mastery to get the reduction in stamina/rage (if u use it).
With very high power (2.3K+) and fury boon, you still inflict substantial dmg, and can be super tanky

Sounds great!

So, to recap, I should pick up PVT armor and maybe precision power toughness accessories, then rune the armor and gem the accessories for PPT as well?

I think I’ll put ten into power, as well. I know it sounds silly, but I didn’t realize I even had adrenal health, and it works very well with the healing skill that I use and would complement zerker very nicely.

Thank you, feeling much better about my setup now ^^

EDIT: What about sigils of generosity? From what I hear, relative to other classes, we lack a lot of condition removal, and if I skip out on vitality everywhere but the armor, the ability to push conditions to others would help me to avoid some of the bleed/etc that would ignore armor, especially if I’m so precision focused. Then again, stacking two would bring the chances from 60% > ~85%, but with a 10sec cooldown, I think that’d be a waste. What would I use for a second sigil?

Hmm Sigil of generosity can be helpful, as your second sigil could be up to you. Make sure its not a Sigil with a CD, like rage or earth/fire etc. Those internal cooldowns overlap. So if you have one on cooldown, the other wont activate. So force/accuracy/or something thats passive would help. My suggestion would be sigil of bloodlust to get the 250 power (expensive sigil) or something that increases duration or gain something after a kill or something passive like force/accuracy.

Heres a good link
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

Wouldn’t sigils that have building bonuses, like bloodlust, be lackluster in PvP unless I’m absolutely amazing? Seems like always being at 50-80 and then dying wouldn’t be worth it.

In PvP 1 kill = 5 stacks

Ohhhhhh, I didn’t know that. Makes it much better. Besides power, which ones are solid?

Power probably ur best bet, perhaps precision but that will only give an extra 12% crit chance at most, so its up to you, though most argue the power one helps you snowball better

Ahhh, I see what you’re saying. Alright, I’ll work towards that. Thank you!

Since going power, sword seems to pack a LOT more punch and I’m feeling much more confident. Really liking where I’m going now. If anyone else has anything to add, please don’t hesitate.

glad i could help =D

You can also try this build out if you’re interested.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIIQNAscUjgO5uJPyQMxBE0jqILEwzjkYKaiUhyA

I running with this build right now and it’s performance is pretty decent.

The Pvp runes I use is Undead,
Carrion Amulet mix with Rabid jewel.
Sigil of fire on main hand and minor corruption on offhand.

I’m not sure that that build is really anything like what I want to play o.o;;; The tactics tree isn’t even nearly maxed out, and I love banner regen and like the idea of support without being PURE support. I don’t really want to go full arms or dual wield, etc, either Dx I’ll look at it and see if there’s anything that I can learn from it all the same. Thank you for posting it ^^

Seox.5876:

I’m not sure that that build is really anything like what I want to play o.o;;; The tactics tree isn’t even nearly maxed out, and I love banner regen and like the idea of support without being PURE support. I don’t really want to go full arms or dual wield, etc, either Dx I’ll look at it and see if there’s anything that I can learn from it all the same. Thank you for posting it ^^

No problem my build isn’t a support type at all if anything it’s more of a solo build. I am full condition warrior and dual wield sword is the way to go to keep your bleeds up along with rifle. It is quite a challenge but nevertheless condition warriors need more love.

I was gonna say, dual sword has some mad condition ability. I think the most telling thing is that you’re the only one who uses it that I know of Dx It does indeed seem like they could use some more attention.