Guild Wars 2

Ok, so the title might be a little misleading. What I mean is that I’m returning to the game (after about a 6 month break) and am starting a warrior. I brought GW at release, played engi for a month or so (but only ever made it level 40) and then went back to WoW cause all my pals still played it. But now im back!

I’m currently level 10 and starting to really enjoy warrior, I’m just after some general advice regarding warrior leveling, if anyone would be so kind as to help?

It should be noted that i will be leveling with 2 friends 90% of the time, a mesmer and an elementalist. I’m looking to try and build so that we can do large AoE damage as a group and so that we can combo together well.

From research I’ve done so far it seems that the cookie cutter leveling build for a warrior is the signet build (where you get precision for signets that are off cooldown but inactive. From the sounds of it this is very effective, and possibly OP(?) leveling build. I am more than happy to play this build.

What i am confused about is:
- What weapons are best for AoE damage, and for combo-ing with a mesmer and ele?
- What should i be trying to gear? I assume power, maybe?

Also any warrior and leveling tips in general would be much appreciated.

SORRY about the wall of text. I’ve not played this game in a long time, and when I did I wasn’t ever fully immersed. I therefore have very little knowledge of this game, let alone profession. So please, go easy on me.

Leveling is very simple in GW2 so I’m not sure if your build matters.

If you still want to, gw2 guru pve war thread likes to discuss pve and is more informed:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/38-warrior/

^ Some solid material in there.

Honestly general PvE is so easy you could do it solo with almost any build, in a group of 3 you won’t have any trouble whatsoever (unless you stumble into some group events.)

We don’t have AoE persay (very limited effectiveness on the longbow.) What we do have is glorious cleave damage with our melee weapons. We can hit 3 targets at once with the exception of Whirlwind on the Greatsword (technically only 3 at a time but you’re hitting enemies at different times during the attack) and Whirling Axe which has the same principal, I think it hits 5 at a time.

Pure damage spec for levelling – Power, Precision with Deep strike trait clad in signets. Though if you’re looking for a little more team play with the Ele and Mesmer then it may well be worth going more along the lines of a shout orientated build (banners are too clunky for the fast paced activity of open world PvE.)
Also look at which attacks are combo finishers, as Ele and Mesmer can lay down numerous Combo Fields. For instance when the target gets a giant purple bubble over it, that’s the Mesmer’s handiwork and laying down Whirl Finishers such as Cyclone Axe can stack confusion on your foe, I’m fairly certain that’s right… Learning to look for combo fields and timing your finishers is a rare and valuable skill to have, as many dungeon groups just spam their abilities with little notice of the possible combos they could be doing.

A few points is that Greatsword 100 Blades is your best damage dealer, however it’s auto attack (#1) skill is very weak compared to that of the Mainhand Axe. So having the minor trait Fast Hands in the Discipline Tree can give you a free flowing cycle between 100 Blades and the Axe for optimal damage. There’s a few more tricks but then where’s the fun in learning if you’re told everything :P

I checked that website, there are indeed some very useful thread there! Thanks.
And also yea, this time around I’m focusing a lot more on actually playing the game properly instead of just spamming everything and hoping. Looking out for combo fields/finishers has been a big thing for me, which is why I’ve been running A/A (as this seems to be have the most finishers).

Really like the sounds of that quick switching trait, the main problem I’ve found with warrior is wanting to switch and it being on CD, thanks for that tip!

I’m leveling a warrior currently as well (my eighth and final class to get to 80). I had a hard time for a while dying a lot with GS and A/A but recently switched to axe/mace. Mace 5 is a 2 sec AoE knockdown with 1200 range with a fairly short cd… and 2 seconds is plenty of time to burst something down as a warrior, especially if you have two other friends helping out. I use sword/horn as my offhand for the mobility and swap to longbow when I need range. I run the 5 signets with the precision trait and it’s insane. I’ve been downleveled in zones that make my crit chance > 100%. QQ Enjoy!

For PvE running about, axe/warhorn is a nice choice as axe has the highest autoattack dps, it’s second skill is a whirl finisher, the third is a projectile finisher, the first warhorn skill gives a decent uptime on swiftness and the second is a blast finisher (since you said you like combo fields.)