Guild Wars 2

Greetings everyone,

I’ve been playing this game for quite some time, haven’t yet reached any major leaps and bounds- but have spent many hours so far. One thing is troubling me, however, and it’s a question I think you folks here on the Warrior forum are best qualified to answer:

In terms of sword and shield use, how do Warriors stand up to Guardians? And, if so, how should I build my Knight (stats to focus on, traits, etc)?

I know there is a huge focus on Greatswords, Axes, and even Warhorns amongst the Warrior community, but this is more for understanding the pros and cons of a particular playstyle. To my knowledge, there is a great AA with Guardian sword and a focus on burning potential (radiance, condition damage, I think precision), not sure how Warriors build them though.

I don’t want to turn this into a “contest of damage”, since staying alive and having movement options are incredibly important- there’s many factors to consider, I just want your opinion on it. Again, I appreciate any help- and I wish you all good day.

I should also probably clarify that this is mostly for PVE and dungeoning, not necessarily for any type of PVP play. If anyone has any information or opinions on the matter, I would like to hear them.

Been playing my Asuran warrior a lot lately (63 now) and I mostly do dungeons when I’m not collecting transmutation stones to keep his look with new gear.

One thing I notice is in a lot of dungeons, especially the earlier ones, there is a distinct lack of bleeding. After tanking some mobs and going down/dead at one point in CM, I was curious and let myself stay dead as I watched the group clear up some mobs and…they were taking forever on a pair of bandits. Minimal bleeding or condition damage, really.

So I pull out my sword and longbow and start going to town with conditions. Granted, I’m slotted in Rampagers/Carrion gear and I have various ways to apply conditions but stacking 9-18 stacks of bleed + some confuse + some poison + burn and mobs were practically melting in a fraction of the time.

Basically, yeah you can dish some serious pain with a sword on a Warrior IF there isn’t a Necro or another Warrior or Thief applying bleeds already…and if you slot for condition damage (like I do), it makes a bigger difference.

I’m no expert though, I just like to play in dungeons and the place where bleeding and Warrior Sword/Rifle shine is in PvE dungeons where mobs have a ridiculous amount of HP. If a mob lasts more than 10 seconds and you’re applying 60-80ish dmg a second, that’s 600-800dmg on top of whatever damage you’re doing.

No good experience with Guardians so couldn’t tell you how it fares against their combo.

Mainhand sword does good bleed damage, but it’s more of a hybrid condition/power weapon.

Warriors in general do well as a hybrid of condition damage and direct damage. Easy solo might stacking to 8 stacks, a +50% bleed duration tactic and a 33% bleed-on-crit tactic is part of that. You can maintain 10 bleed stacks with just sword auto-attacks, and spike 20 stacks for 5 seconds with the burst skill.

With knight jewelry, rampager armor and 10 stacks of might, bleeds tick at 80-90. So, the bleeds are rolling for ~900 DPS, on top of 500-1000 direct damage on each attack.

Offhand sword would add more bleed stacks, but that risks hitting the cap on bleeds. But guardians capping burning has the same issue.