Guild Wars 2

Ok, so I decided I might as well go post all my builds around to see what’s what. If you frequent other classes’ boards you’ll probably see another one of my topics there asking for advice.

Anyway, to preface I pretty much just play PvE and I’m open to just about all suggestions but I’d like to keep my weapon sets. Also before anyone yells at me for not having ranged option I do carry a Longbow for those certain encounters that require range, otherwise I find most PvE content, sans a few dungeon bosses, can be melee’d.

Here’s the build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVRM0kMzMoRNamoRNam0x0xacaRoRbo8khT707kie70z7070z7kNc70V7owX70m

I think the synergies should be fairly obvious as well as the rationale. Basically I can have Might, Fury and Swiftness on almost all the time and on crits I can lay down Might, Bleed and Vulnerability. For gear I think Soldier runes for sure but then maybe Knight’s or Berserkers? I would like something with Precisionat the very least, even with the essentially perma Fury a little more crit chance would be nice.

I think you’re off to a good start.

I question the Blademaster trait though, it looks like your sword/mace set is more of a mobility/control set, so is it justified to invest 10 points in 5% more crit for it (I don’t think they include greatsword in that trait..)? For 20 points in strength you could pick up Berserker’s Power + Slashing Power. Yeah, that would cost you the awesome Signet Mastery, but I think 12% + 10% damage for your greatsword is better.

this looks like the Sonic Boon build on GuildWars2Guru

Personally I’m not a fan of shout healing and think shout heal build try and do too much and excel at nothing. I don’t think it’s worth losing 200+ power and 10% more GS damage from traits alone to go 30 tactics (instead of 20 Strength) and lock your bar to three shouts that do paltry healing, one of them being your stun break and condition removal. Soldier Runes help but most of these builds go for boon duration so your only condition removal is also one of your gimmick heals.

GS is a direct damage weapon so I prefer using it as a direct damage weapon, speccing for direct damage, e.g. 30/30/0/0/10, and gearing for direct damage (at least 50%+ crit damage from gear/traits to get at least 1:1 return on damage for every point of precision you have.

With less than 50%

If I want to tank/support I’ll use a hammer and ignore crit and crit damage for faster recharging burst skills (30 discipline) and knights trinkets and weapon after getting the extra 20% extra crit damage I need to get to 50% from Traits (30% from Discipline), Berserker amulet (8%) and four jewels in the trinket slots (3% x 4 = 12%).

you can go to the mists and test the damage. Even with full berserker gear and boon duration runes the last hit of 100b on Sonic Boon variations hits for ~11k while the last hit of a 30/30/0/0/10 DPS variation does ~15k. Add Eagle/Scholar runes to the DPS orientated build and the difference in stats from adding in all the healing and toughness and removing the crit damage and power (a lot of people seem to like sacrificing their crit damage) is quite large and it’s noticeable. My GS warrior kills stuff a lot faster than shout spam warriors and a group with multiple shout spammers takes a lot longer to take down bosses.

Taking things into consideration I think I would try something like this: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVRM0kMzMoRNamoRNamGG0GaVscaoRo8khT707kie70z7070z7kNc70V7owX70m

Having looked up the healing on Vigorous Shouts I have to say I’m not too impressed, and I don’t find survivabilty to be too hard for me as is. This new build has a potential 22% increase to damage if I’m sitting on a full adrenaline bar (which I think I can safely, I don’t think my burst skills are really game changers) and using a GS. Not to mention whatever extra damage I’m getting from the Power increase. I do lament losing some of that boon duration but I think the buffs still last a plenty long time. So does this look better?

asimo.6354:

So does this look better?

I disagree with pretty much all of the above, personally. Its true that the heals are relatively small, but all party-wide healing in this game is intentionally scarce and weak, only meant to supplement the players’ self-heal skills. If you expect it to be able to keep anyone topped off, of course you’ll be disappointed. The idea is to extend the effective health of the party, allowed them to take a couple more hits before they have to use their own heal.

Besides, some of our best non-situational utility skills are shouts anyway. I wouldn’t want to be without “Shake it Off!” traited or not, and just about all warriors seem to have FGJ! glued to their bars. If you really need to trade out “On my Mark!” for Balanced Stance or something for a particular area, you’ll be fine.

I’m not trying to sell a support build to you if that’s not what you want to do. But I think if what you want is a decent support build that still does good damage, 20/20/0/30/0 is where you want to be, and you weren’t in terrible shape to begin with.

Honestly I’m not particularly drawn to either support or pure damage, I just kinda saw some synergies here and there and out popped the builds I posted. I do admit I guess I was being selfish, so-to-speak, in evaluating those healing shouts, the fact that it is party wide is something to consider.

But then of course with the new build I can get 22%+ extra damage (and might be even more if I go Berserker) so I wonder if the best defense is a good offense. If I can help my party lay down the DPS do I need to help with some heals when the enemy could just be killed faster? Tbh I’m not sure what the answer is, but I guess that’s why we have this topic

Also I am pretty set on keeping Shouts just maybe not going so deep into Tactics, unless of course it turns out that’s the way to go.

Thanks for the input btw!

shout builds for warriors are amazing, just get the trait “vigorous shouts,” equip 6 superior runes of the soldier, and youre now the party savior lol

but yeah id definitely keep vigorous shouts. people claim its not much but those people are either too focused on damage output and not personal or party survival as much or havent seen the heals from a warrior with decent healing power.

my shouts each have a little over a 2k heal, so sure for someone with 30k+ health thats not much, but not everyone in your party will likely have that much health (and dont forget the shouts heal EVERYONE in a dungeon group). plus the condition removal and its an incredibly useful build.

this is the build im running (roughly, the stats are obviously off a bit without the weapon, armor, and accessory stats):

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVRM0m0zMoRNamoRNamG9MxGVamRbok8kiH707khg7kie7070z7kNc70V7ofF70m

and yes i do switch it around alot (like to axe/axe with “axe mastery” when i jump into WvW instead of GS, or take out of strength and add to defense to get “merciless hammer” and use a hammer instead for more survivability)

i dont claim its perfect but my groups in any dungeon LOVE me and my shouts lol

I’m running with the Sonic Boon build already linked, I’m liking it a lot. I didn’t lost the dps i thought i would and now I can keep fury up 100% of the fight time.

My gear is still a lot different from the spec, still working on Knight’s set. But the only different thing i will do compared to the build is the runes.

I’ll keep my soldier runes. With the Signet of Rage I already lost a good “team” skill, since banner gives almost the same buffs that the sigil (with less time, but party wide) and has a AoE ress. So I wont give up on every shout cleaning a condition.

What I do is spam FGJ! and On My Mark! e save Shake it Off! for when I actually need a condition removal, like when I get 2 or 3 conditions at once or me and my party are knocked back/down (if in melee heavy group).

Each shout in my current state is healing for about 1k, 1.2k, wich, since sonic boon is a dps oriented spec, not enterily support, is a good number to keep my health up enough to resist the bigger damage from bosses high damage skills.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmRM0m0zMmNaRMmNaRMxa0x0MVsVoRb This is my Warrior shoutbuild for PVE.

6x runes of water on armor + sigil of frailty on weapon (Armor – Power, healing, Toughness; jewels – Power, Precision, toughness; weapon – Power, precision, toughness)

This is not the ultimate tanker, neither support, neither DPS. BUT its solid allrounder that is super efficient in every group. You are doing dmg mainly thru vulnearibility stacks (a lot of em). you can cleanse 1 condition from party and all conditions from yourself. You are healing with all shouts and with your healing skill too. you have an oh kitten button in your banner. you are stacking high amount of might. you are still very strong and your dmg output is supreme.

If you’re using GS, it’s probably mandatory to grab forceful GS, which is THE trait for the greatsword.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIIQJAcTjgONvVPKP4wBAjiiA6ogKmSPODt0A;TgAqsMZJyymlLLZWLMGYA

This is the build I run and love. Lots of condition removal, heals, cc with fear me, buffs to yourself, cc breaker, high melee damage with the option to go ranged when needed.

I run in Power, Precision, Toughness gear / Superior Rune of the Soldier, have 45% crit chance (but it feels like 90 almost always at 15+ stacks of might and get a lot of procs on the vulnerability and heals on crit)

Helping my team with the condition removal and small heals, am tanky as heck, and put out nice numbers to boot.

I am very happy with this build

@Shifu

it’s definitly not mandatory for this build. since your main source of dmg is AA with vulnearibility stacks > this benefit is for your team

From Forceful GS benefits only you and very slightly since this is not Zerker full DPS. and 20 perc reduction CD wont increase your dmg better than ‘Stick and move’ and ‘slashing power’ traits also you will loose 10% condition duration which is great for vulnearibility. Extra precision is nice but since this build has no % crit dmg its lesser dmg increase than extra power.

Healing, condition removing shouts is a high investment. 6 runes and 30 points in a DPS-less traitline, and 2 shouts always on your bar.

An alternative is 20 points in Tactics, and warhorn traits. You get 2x condition→boon on short cooldowns and you have more options with runes. Poison is very common, and converting that gets you 6s of regen to replace the healing shout.

I doubt I’d ever go lower than 20 Tactics when I’m pugging so much

I’m at the point where I think I’ll stick with Rune of the Soldier and Knight’s gear. Right now I’m at 10/20/0/20/10 and just need to decide if I want those last 10 points in Tactics for Vigorous Shouts or the last 10 in Strength for Slashing Power. I did take points out of Arms since my crit chance with Knight’s gear and tons of Fury is high enough for my purposes, and I really didnt need the Blademaster Trait.