Guild Wars 2

Before i go on to specific warrior stuff, i want to cover basics i think every gamer should know and already be familiar with.

Basics

1. Enable strafing. Check your options menu, and rebind your “A” and “D” keys to strafing. Without strafing you won’t be able to kite properly while attacking and using utility skills. You will either be dead or not effective, which is the same as dead.

2. Re-configure default binds. Again, you will not be effective if you have to lift your hand from either movement keys or even worse, your mouse, to click from 6 to 0 for your utility skills. If you’re not lifting your hand to activate your utility skills, it means you’re clicking on them with your mouse pointer which again means that you’re not being effective.

Seconds are crucial in this game. In WoW you could get away with clicking in PvE, here you simply cannot. 1 sec to click on a healing or defensive utility skill can be one second to late. Bind everything so it’s easily accessible to you and so that you will be able to react instantly when it’s needed.

You can also use modifiers (ctrl/shift/alt) to bind stuff if you’re lacking buttons to do so. So for instance ctrl + F for a healing ability. If you have a gaming mouse with extra moues buttons, you can bind stuff there as well.

3. Enable fast-cast ground targeting. It saves you one second or a bit more when doing whirlwind attack with greatsword, which can be crucial for avoiding damage. You will whirlwind in the direction where your mouse cursor is pointed at, it’s that simple. Also you can’t play effectively with a longbow without this enabled.

4. Disable Auto-targeting. You cannot afford to have this enabled as a warrior because of Rush ability from a greatsword. This mechanic works that the game will automatically target the nearest enemy for you each time you start attacking. Rush is mostly used as a mobility skill and this mechanic prevents it form doing just that. Lose it.

5. Assign or look up a button for selecting targets, since you disabled Auto-targeting. You can find this in options as well.

Now that i’ve covered the basics, let’s move on to the warrior gameplay.
Here i will cover the glass canon build, which means the highest damage output you can possible get. This of course means, that your stat priority should go like this : Power / Precision / Critical damage.

Before i go on with the spec you will be using, i want to cover the weapons part of the guide.

Weapons

Greatsword. Your main weapon and your main damage source. Incredible amount of burst damage is what makes this weapon one of the obvious choices for a PvE focused warrior. You will be switching this weapon out when you;re done with your rotation, but you’ll be using it most of the time.

Disclaimer: I fully realize that dungeons are melee unfriendly. But if you want to stand at range and shoot things, roll a ranger. You’ll only go in range when you are low, kiting or in between greatsword rotations.

Now your swap weapon will never be the same. If you’re constantly using the same 2 weapons for each encounter – you’re again not effective enough.

There are 5 different options for swap weapons and i’ll list them here and explain when they’re used. But before i go on, I just want to say Rifle is not one of them. If you’re playing with a rifle, i suggest you take the nearest salvage kit, salvage it and at least get something useful out out of it. I’ll explain later why it’s utterly useless in PvE combat.

I will also explain detailed chain rotations later on.

1. Double Axes

Dungeon wise, extremely useful for getting the highest possible damage out of your character. Burst adrenaline skill crits up to 10k instant! Nothing comes even close to it. Greatsword ( GS ) and dual axes provide one of the highest burst chain rotations in the game. Extremely efficient if you’re allowed to stay in melee range.

2. Longbow

The only weapon that has a combo field and damage wise – almost on par with dual axes. The blast finisher you have ( 3rd ability) crits up to 7k and is to be used in conjunction with your adrenaline skill which grants everyone 3 stacks of might. Furthermore you can use that blast finisher to blast water combo fields and grant your nearby party members instant 1.3-6k healing. Also quite useful in more than one situations where you have to kite things is the 5th skill which immobilizes for 5 seconds. If you are forced to stay in range, this is a weapon to choose. Rifle doesn’t even compare to it in dungeons or AoE situations.

3. 1h Axe + Shield

Excellent combination of both offensive and defensive abilities. If you’re feeling fragile being the glass canon you are, this will give you some breathing room. Burst skill from axes still crits for insane amount of burst damage, and shield provides you with interrupt ability + 3 seconds of invulnerability ( 8 seconds in total if used in conjunction with Endure pain ). Extremely useful in defensive events that require you to survive.

4. 1h Mace + Shield

You’ll lose burst damage you had with axe adrenaline skill, but you will gain some more CC’s and survivability.

5. Hammer

Combination of useful CC’s and raw damage. if you feel like you’re not the shield kind of person, this is a great compromise between defense and offense.

Trait Build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAR3XjgO1wNPuQMxBELjiAIuMAQmQpoNuDA

First let me go over utility skills.

Mending is the best possible healing ability you can get for dungeons and overall gameplay. The healing is a bit less than healing surge but it clears 2 conditions from you. In most of occasions conditions will deal so much damage that you will die from it if you’re not able to cleanse yourself. 10+ stacks of bleeding will deal over 3k damage per second and there are mobs that can give you that amount of bleeding instantly. Healing signet is only usable for lower level zones and i won’t discuss it. Low amount of healing and regen is useless in dungeons with constant damage taken while being in melee range.

Frenzy is a must, because of the limited time you can spend in melee range. it will allow you to complete almost an entire chain rotation with both weapons in 4 seconds, which is equivalent to over 30/40k damage. Mostly you’ll want to use it with Endure Pain, because you take 50% more damage when frenzy is activated. If you’re using it without endure pain, make sure there’s no incoming damage to you.

Shake it off. Do i need to say anything? Party wise condition removal, a must. Start looking at your party screen and save your fellow members. I have to mention one thing which most people tend to neglect here. It goes for frenzy and endure pain as well. All of these abilities break stun. Stun includes knockdown/knockback/daze, anything that makes you lose control over your character. Although be careful when you’re knocked back – your character will bounce couple of times on the ground before stopping. Only when it stops you’ll be able to break stun.

Signet of rage is used for soloing content and for clearing trash in dungeons. For most of the boss fights you’ll want to use battle standard so your party members can benefit from it as well.

Juggernaut. it is to be used for defensive events where you need to CC stuff. You cannot use other utility skills with this enabled so careful.

Stomp / Throw bolas Some of your useful CC’s. Extremely useful for certain events in dungeons.

Traits chosen are pretty self-explanatory and focused and dishing out as most damage as you can. Few things i’ll explain though.

Why not 30 points in strength/arms?

Simple, because both end trait lines are not good enough for 5 points invested. Berserker’s stance will only grant you all 3 adrenaline bars, but you should never lack adrenaline if you’re doing things properly. Last chance from Arms sounds really nice – 4 seconds of quickness. But it will only be available once per boss which is really lame for having to invest 5 more point in it. It has a 90 seconds cooldown and you gain quickness when foe has less than 25% hp. Boss will be down before you have the time to use it again. So 20 points in discipline for some more critical damage, and burst skill ( adrenaline skills) damage. Not to mention that sweet revenge will save your kitten so many times.

Weapon Chain Rotations

1. Greatsword / Longbow

Before any rotation, waste both dodge rolls at the beginning. You get extra damage from not having your endurance full and there’s never AoE incoming in the first 5-10 seconds of the fight.

You’ll start off with Signet of Rage or battle standard, depending on the fight. Cast Bladetrail, then rush in to the enemy, pop both frenzy and endure pain ( if you’re not waiting on time warp already ), follow up with Hundred blades and whirlwind through them. Take note that both frenzy and endure pain are not on global cooldown so they can be used freely and at the same time. Turn around and if you’re quick enough you’ll still have time for Combustive shot followed by an arcing arrow. Now you’re just waiting for weapon swap cooldown, and that time should be filled with casting fan of fire ( try to use it in point-blank rage for maximum damage) and pin down / smoldering arrow depending on the situation.

2. Greatsword / Dual Axes

The first part of the rotation is the same. Signet of Rage, Bladetrail, Rush, Endure pain / Frenzy, Hundred blades, Whirlwind. Now you should make sure you don’t whirlwind too far from the target, ‘cause you’ll follow up now with quick Eviscerate. After that use Dual strike for couple of more seconds of fury, and follow up with cyclone axe for applying vulnerability to the boss. Then just Use your Auto attack till your weapon swapping is off cooldown.

When you’re using a shield, it should be only in defensive situations so there’s no specific rotations for that. Also do not forget to use both whirlwind and rush as mobility skills. They’ll get you out of AoE when your endurance is empty.

If you have any questions or would like to contribute to this, feel free to comment. Have fun hacking n’ slashing.

Cheers. ^^

good guide for getting people started on the warrior (im actually gonna experiment with fast ground targeting now lol) but i would be quick to remind everyone reading that glass cannon builds arent the only thing a warrior can do..

Why longbow over rifle for fights like lupicus?

Because one of the very few occasions where rifle is indeed better than longbow, in the entire PvE content is maybe Lup and nightmare tree ( spider and turret path ). So i didn’t really feel like mentioning it, ’cause i was trying to cover majority of the content and not exceptions to the case.

And as i said, i focused this guide on the glass canon but i never said it’s the only way to play warrior, of course. Mostly it will depend on your group composition to get the most out of your character. But in all honest opinion, there are professions that are can be way more supportive if specced and played right than a warrior could ever dream of being, and playing a defensive version in dungeons, or outside, would be rather silly to me. You’re granted of the the highest HP pools in the game and utility skills for mitigating damage, so why not take advantage of the fact that you’re given helluva lot of survivability and go for raw damage – thus becoming one of the most bursty classes in the game.

GS, Mending, Cookiecutter build…meh

Turning on fast casting isn’t necessary. If you want a skill to happen right away where you’re pointing, double-tap the key. Then if you lose your cursor in a million flashy effects during a fight, but you need to whirl your way to some sort of escape/attack, you can leave that .25 of a second you need between taps for it to show you precisely where you’re going.

Also, I’m kinda sceptical how efficient this is vs dungeon mobs/bosses that don’t die outright. How much do you rely on frenzy/endure pain? What can you do when they’re on c/d? 40k damage sounds nice in theory, but only if it’s not something you do once per frenzy recharge.

Also, why do you care about the recharge of last chance when you’re using frenzy (60s) and endure pain (90s)? Coupled with the sigil of rage (I think that’s the quickness one) it seems like it would potentially increase the time you spend being useful.

Given that you seem to be going for attack of opportunity with a weapon that causes no bleeding (thus relying on the minor trait) it also might help to use the longer bleed duration over gaining fury on being hit for more than 1/5 of your health. You’ll presumably have fury a lot anyway from the signet, plus your GS can grant it easily enough if gaining adrenaline isn’t a problem for you. 30pts in arms can also give you more adrenaline on critical hits, for that matter, if you don’t want the 90s cooldown quickness.

What is the actual damage gain from lower endurance, btw? Or is this undocumented?

Can someone please say the build? (30/0/20/0/20 for example) Because the website wont load for me
This sounds like a really amazing build though O_O

He’s using 25/25/0/0/20. If you were looking for a 20 in the middle, this… may not have ideal results…

@LameFox
25 Pts Strenght trait → damage buff when endurance is not full

I know it’s from a trait, it just doesn’t mention what the bonus is.

Some of the best information from the OP is about movement/targeting options. Hes not just giving you a build, he’s showing you how to play in an effective manner. That much is worth the read even if you don’t enjoy the build or playstyle.

Firstly -> http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stick_and_Move . As you can see, if the information is correct, it is well worth keeping it up throughout the fight.

And i realize people may prefer to play without fast-cast ground targeting, but in my experience that creates the delay which will get you killed eventually. I can’t stress the number of occasions where i was late for just a fraction of a second with whirling out of AoE when my endurance was empty. Some bosses cast extremely fast AoE attacks, such as Spider boss in TA, or Subject Alpha in CoE – when the AoE starts overlapping. You’ll have 1 second or less to react, and even the slightest increase in reducing that delay is vital.

Furthermore, there are couple of reasons why i prefer endure pain over anything else. First and before everything else, it’s there for ressing purposes. Unlike guardians, you do not have access to aegis, meaning that as soon as you start ressing someone, you’re becoming extremely vulnerable, especially if the boss is focusing on the downed person and has a large frontal cone splash attack. Secondly, as i mentioned already – the time spent in melee range is very limited. So obviously this gives you the option of getting full hundred blades duration every now and then and allows you to even tank the boss for short period of time if your other party members need some breathing room.

Also you do continue normal rotations without frenzy, with the exception of hundred blades though. Channeling time of 3 and a half seconds is really long, and in 80% of the cases you won’t be able to get full duration of the ability on the target. But counting in the bouncing in between the targets, dodging/ressing time and time warp – if you have a mesmer in the party, frenzy is more than essential for this play style.

Also given that this build is based upon quick bursts of damage, furious reaction seemed like the best choice to me. Firstly almost every hit you take, takes more than 20% of your hp, so the ability will be constantly on the cooldown, unless you’re god of mitigating damage. Anyhow, the other reason i prefer it is that i don’t have to waste 3 adrenaline bars on arcing slice which is utterly useless damage wise. Damage doesn’t increase past 1st adrenaline bar, so 10 seconds of extra fury allows me to keep using my swap weapon burst ability instead of being forced to waste my bars on keeping fury with greatsword.

I appreciate all comments and questions, because the main reason i posted this here is to bounce of ideas with the community, and to maybe help someone in the process. I repeat again, this is not by far the only way to effectively play a warrior, but it is how i’m required to play it to be most effective party wise. Considering my usual dungeon composition that is.

After testing, I honestly cannot tell any difference speed wise between double-tap and fast casting. Even sitting there looking for it.

Not that it matters if you never miss the target marker anyway, but if anyone else sometimes finds their cursor is lost in a myriad of special effects, it might be easier for them to just double tap the rest of the time.

yea i experimented with fast casting and i changed it back to normal. the problem for me is that occasionally my cursor gets lost in the scuffle and the bright green circle helps me reorient myself

To each their own i assume. It helps me be a tiny bit quicker, but everyone has a different play style that suits them, i guess.

Axe/Mace is better then GS and Axe/Axe in dungeons. It brings better utility, better single target burst, and similar auto attack damage but with faster attacks which is better for a crit healing build. It also doesn’t root you in place and because GS has a terrible burst skill you are losing out on constant 50% endurance for dodges to keep you alive which you get by using Eviscerate. Things like Forceful GS are also a waste and more for solo play because I already have 20+ stacks of might in dungeons because there are 4 other players giving you boons as well.

Axe/Axe has a useless skill and a skill that does less damage then your auto attack. The only time it’s good is for taking down structures or if you really need it for an on-proc build and don’t care about giving up damage.

Also frenzy is bad, For Great Justice gives 100% uptime on 3 stacks of might for your group and 100% fury uptime for yourself with signet of rage and doesn’t require you to waste another skill slot to use it. Then you can take a banner to further increase the damage and/or survivability of your entire group. The amount of damage you contribute to your group through something like For Great Justice and Banner of Discipline is way more then the extra damage you do yourself for 4 seconds. If you are running with people who are not terrible, there is literally 0 reason to ever take frenzy.

Axe/Mace gives you 8 stacks of vuln up almost 100% of the time and can be built within 1.5 seconds before big damage moves like eviscerate, where a GS build with arms line requires constant hitting and build up time to get similar vuln stacks. It also gives you the ability to remove defiant stacks and interrupt multiple enemies after a guardian GS pull which is necessary if you are ever running dedicated groups.

Also pro-tip to pretty much any dps class, omnomberry pies/ghosts are OP. I run an almost full berserker warrior as seen in my videos, you hardly ever need to move out of melee with food. They heal 338 health with 0 cooldown on 2/3rds of your crits (which is basically 2/3rds of my attacks since I have 93% crit fully buffed), meaning when you are cleaving 3 enemies you are basically getting healing for 676 health every half a second. Longbow is really good for this on your swap as well, because double hit auto attacks, piercing 3 hit number 2 skill, and huge burst AoE damage of 3 skill and it’s usually good to have a ranged option just in case.

Your build just focuses too much on yourself rather then your group as far as dungeons are concerned which is really the ultimate PvE content, because any build can farm Orr. You need to think more about what Warrior brings instead of wasting things skills on things like Frenzy, Endure Pain, and GS. Those things are fine for solo PvE which maybe what your guide is partly about, but they are inferior in dungeons for anyone that ever wants to run an organized group. I would say a large portion of good warriors I run with in dedicated speed run groups run axe/mace over anything else.

I don’t mean too be so harsh on your build, but those are just my thoughts after literally hundreds of dungeon runs in highly skilled and organized groups. Warriors and Guardians are basically the offensive/defensive counterparts of each other and are pretty much the gods of dungeons right now. Shouts and group boons are already good for yourself, but when they are hitting 4 other people as well, the amount of damage or survivability they bring to a group outweighs anything that only benefits yourself. That’s why 2 guard/2 war/1 support groups are so godly for dungeons, they have near 100% uptime on most offensive and defensive boons with the support laying combo fields or for situational skills depending on the dungeon/path. This lets the full party stay in melee range almost 100% of the time for 95% of the content, and since melee is naturally balanced to do more damage then range and has natural cleave to hit 3 enemies, this is what lets you speed clear every dungeon quickly and easily.

Anyone done the math on 5 points in discipline instead of strength, you get 5% more crit dmg that way. How does that add up incomparison to 50 more power and a % more dmg when endurance is not full?

Eviscerate is ok but not that good reason to use Axe over GS. In my opinion damage you can do with GS skills 2,3,4 is quite respectable.
In pug teams you really can’t expect to get that much out of your utility anyways.

Just saying X is better than Y is quite bold because there are lot of different factors.

Of course damage with GS is still respectable, I’m not saying it’s a terrible weapon. Eviscerate isn’t the only reason to use axe/mace as you can see from my post.

good guide but personally i hate frenzy in PvE, the taking 50% more damage for the duration always screws me over lol

“switch to GS, run in with frenzy, start going through rotation, but infact youre dead cause the boss/large mob/whatever just one shot your glass canon kitten ”

i also run a GS/longbow PvE spec and i find im much more useful with some more survivability and more sustained melee combat. it takes me longer to get through my “rotations” yeah (which is essentially dodging when needed and using 100B when its up instead of #1 lol) but if i can get up close, hold the bosses attention, actually live/survive, and deal almost as much damage i think ive done far more then simply running in and getting off some burst before running if i somehow survive.

i also run healing shouts though, upping my and my teams survivability by a lot. but thats just my own personal preferences and playstyle.

Dignity.1389:

Anyone done the math on 5 points in discipline instead of strength, you get 5% more crit dmg that way. How does that add up incomparison to 50 more power and a % more dmg when endurance is not full?

i have not done the math, but this is how i look at it:

do you have a high crit chance?

- if the answer is yes then go for increased crit damage.

- if the answer is no then go for more power.

Strifey.7215:

Of course damage with GS is still respectable, I’m not saying it’s a terrible weapon. Eviscerate isn’t the only reason to use axe/mace as you can see from my post.

Well, you actually made it sound like GS has nothing to bring (“don’t waste your time with GS”).
Sure, it’s great that your team-composition gives you plenty of Might. That doesn’t happen on average teams. Also Mace 5 is not that great unless as you said have someone to pull them all together (+ not much reason to remove Defiant anyways). Vulnerability is nice if your team can also do good damage.
+ GS has extra dodge.

I would prefer to say that weapon choice is largely situational. I almost never run through the entire dungeon with the same set of weapons.

So knowing the content actually helps alot, especially if you’re doing speed runs. Going with a axe/mace is cool, especially on bosses that take more than few minutes to kill. But for trash clearing, i’d still prefer greatsword with longbow, simply due to more AoE damage. And also the fact that i don’t want to auto attack through the content. If i wanted that, i’d simply play a shortbow specced ranger.

Anyhow i did forget to point out “For great Justice”, which is quite vital for dungeon play, so thank you for pointing it out. Though newer players still might want to get endure pain until they get used to the content and are confident enough to play without defensive abilities. ‘Cause when you’re playing with a glass canon build, you have to know the content, you need to have good reflexes, and you need your party cooperation for combining combo’s and being fully effective. Otherwise you’ll just be a rag doll dying all over the place.

Props to you Ravenous.

When I first saw you in WvW take on 5 guys and killed them all in a few seconds I had to ask what you’re build was. Still using the same build 3 months down the line.

Top build and a top guy!

Tres Bien.2193:

Props to you Ravenous.

When I first saw you in WvW take on 5 guys and killed them all in a few seconds I had to ask what you’re build was. Still using the same build 3 months down the line.

Top build and a top guy!

Thread Necromancy is forbidden here. Warriors do not use magic.

what about runes in that build?

dmitrycx.7465:

what about runes in that build?

Ruby orbs, Boon runes, Forge, Earth… the usual.

Oh and btw that build was based on obsolete informations (3 months ago) where Mending was still our go-to heal, nowadays with Surge buffed I’d go with that.

couple more questions
1 what sigils can be used here? is it always sigil of strength or it can be replaced?
2 so.. didnt get why it is 25\25 not 20\30
what u get is +3% damage not all the time. you want your endurance be full to have chances dodge out or smth. While in 30arms u can get 33% to get vulnerability on crit that is not really so bad and you need just 3 stacks of it to have the same damage improvement for you BUT this also will up other team damage by 3%. Or you can take ‘crits get adrenaline’ which is really great if you use axe\axe for the second set (you can swap, evisicrate, whirl and you are full again), or anything else.
Basically i dont see why stick and move can be better

dmitrycx.7465:

couple more questions
1 what sigils can be used here? is it always sigil of strength or it can be replaced?
2 so.. didnt get why it is 25\25 not 20\30
what u get is +3% damage not all the time. you want your endurance be full to have chances dodge out or smth. While in 30arms u can get 33% to get vulnerability on crit that is not really so bad and you need just 3 stacks of it to have the same damage improvement for you BUT this also will up other team damage by 3%. Or you can take ‘crits get adrenaline’ which is really great if you use axe\axe for the second set (you can swap, evisicrate, whirl and you are full again), or anything else.
Basically i dont see why stick and move can be better

1. Depends on what weapon you use.
For GS go Accuracy, for Axes Accu/Force, secondary wep I suggest Perception or Energy.

2. I hate stick and move too, especially since dodges recover quick when using Vigor or SoS.
I much prefer to get 30 arms and get more traits or Furious/Last Chance instead.