Guild Wars 2

Hello guys. I’ve been running GS on warrior for the longest time as I’m sure most of you have but recently, I decided to try and see if I could make an interrupt condi build work. I know Mace would probably be more ideal with this sort of build but I just really wanted to use Sword also as the final thrust is pretty awesome and the gap closer on Skill 2 is really nice to have for full melee.

Here are my results:
https://youtu.be/0NZWKFW48FM

Now I know I made some mistakes in some of these fights but that was entirely on me and not the build. Overall, the build does feel pretty solid and deadly. I will be the first to admit that it’s not the greatest for roaming though. I can’t count how many times I wished I had that sexy GS mobility when being chased down by zergs but it’s still good for 1v1’s and small group roaming. It is also REALLY good for PvP. I have had a ton of success with it in that game type as the combination of CC’s and conditions really punish enemies who dare try to 1v1 you on a point and stunlocking enemies for your team to burst down helps a lot too. Just call them targets out! Anyway, hope you guys enjoy. I’m not too amazing on Warrior but I think I did pretty good

I’ve tried it as well. Some things I found.

Bull’s Rush seems very suboptimal, although the added mobility is nice since you do lack GS.

The runeset, obviously, Perplexity is better. It is that confusion spike that allows you to fight outnumbered. You spike the confusion on one guy, then focus the lockdown on the other.

I went with a combination of Carrion armor and Celestial trinkets, combined with Sigil of Intelligence on Hammer. Along with Merciless Hammer and sigil of intelligence, you can pull of a decent 6-10k direct damage lockdown burst depending on your target.

Fun build, you can faceroll a lot of enemies in WvW thanks to the surprise effect of a warrior stacking 12-20 stacks of confusion whilst retaining decent direct damage.

Cygnus.6903:

I’ve tried it as well. Some things I found.

Bull’s Rush seems very suboptimal, although the added mobility is nice since you do lack GS.

The runeset, obviously, Perplexity is better. It is that confusion spike that allows you to fight outnumbered. You spike the confusion on one guy, then focus the lockdown on the other.

I went with a combination of Carrion armor and Celestial trinkets, combined with Sigil of Intelligence on Hammer. Along with Merciless Hammer and sigil of intelligence, you can pull of a decent 6-10k direct damage lockdown burst depending on your target.

Fun build, you can faceroll a lot of enemies in WvW thanks to the surprise effect of a warrior stacking 12-20 stacks of confusion whilst retaining decent direct damage.

Ah perplexity runes! I totally forgot those existed haha. Good suggestions overall though. Thanks for the feedback. Gonna play around some more with my stats especially with the new gear stats they added to the game.

The thing is, your uptime of Confusion isn’t very high. It doesn’t look like you were able to chain interrupts together, so it never went above 4 stacks. Bleeds and even direct damage contributed way more than confusion did in your video.

True, Perplexity runes would both extend the duration and give you additional stacks, but they’re crazy expensive. It would improve the confusion on the build, but I’m not so sure it’d be worth it.

As for gear, have you considered moving away from Rampager to Sinister? Imo, condition damage would be a much better primary stat for your build than precision. Or you could shift some of it over to whatever stat you want, vitality, toughness, power. But I think condi would be your better bet.

I did want to run Sinister but I don’t have armorsmithing yet haha. I was only able to craft the Sinister weapons. Also the bleeds were supposed to be the main damage from this build which is why I was originally running krait runes but I feel like perplexity might be a bit better. However there have been new runes added to the game. Gonna see if any of them have good synergy with this build

Rain.9213:

I did want to run Sinister but I don’t have armorsmithing yet haha. I was only able to craft the Sinister weapons. Also the bleeds were supposed to be the main damage from this build which is why I was originally running krait runes but I feel like perplexity might be a bit better. However there have been new runes added to the game. Gonna see if any of them have good synergy with this build

If that’s of any help to you, I run a carrion mace/sword hammer build in PvP and I found Nightmare runes to work best with it (condi damage, duration and a free interrupt).

No Pulse.2967:

Rain.9213:

I did want to run Sinister but I don’t have armorsmithing yet haha. I was only able to craft the Sinister weapons. Also the bleeds were supposed to be the main damage from this build which is why I was originally running krait runes but I feel like perplexity might be a bit better. However there have been new runes added to the game. Gonna see if any of them have good synergy with this build

If that’s of any help to you, I run a carrion mace/sword hammer build in PvP and I found Nightmare runes to work best with it (condi damage, duration and a free interrupt).

Whoa now that you mention it, does the fear on that count as an interrupt? If so, I totally never thought of that! Haha that’s amazing if it does! I thought I was getting a good grasp of the condition playstyle but looks like I still have quite a ways to go. This is my first dedicated condition build so excuse the noobiness xD

Rain.9213:

No Pulse.2967:

Rain.9213:

I did want to run Sinister but I don’t have armorsmithing yet haha. I was only able to craft the Sinister weapons. Also the bleeds were supposed to be the main damage from this build which is why I was originally running krait runes but I feel like perplexity might be a bit better. However there have been new runes added to the game. Gonna see if any of them have good synergy with this build

If that’s of any help to you, I run a carrion mace/sword hammer build in PvP and I found Nightmare runes to work best with it (condi damage, duration and a free interrupt).

Whoa now that you mention it, does the fear on that count as an interrupt? If so, I totally never thought of that! Haha that’s amazing if it does! I thought I was getting a good grasp of the condition playstyle but looks like I still have quite a ways to go. This is my first dedicated condition build so excuse the noobiness xD

Yep, it does. And no need to apologize, we all started as noobs.

Evaluating your video:

First, some general advice.

- If you keybind “Stow weapon” you can use it with hammer 5 to bait evades. Start the long cast, wait for evade, cancel it (doesn’t work if you’re playing with high ping).

- Hammer lacks gapclosers (Earthshaker is too valuable most of the time). Always swap to it when you’re in melee range.

- With your kind of build, you shouldn’t combo CC very much to ensure many Distracting Strikes procs (exception is hammer 5 since the cast time is too long to reliably interrupt anything).

- Don’t expect very long combo chains to be effective. Bait evades, blocks and stunbreaks before you try going for one. Short and effective combos are ideal (one of the reasons I like Distracting Strikes so much).

- Most of the time, people won’t dodge 2 times in a row. Time your CC right at the end of the first one. Expect stunbreaks and evades.

-When you dodge roll, dodge towards the enemy to proc Reckless Dodge (unless you’re trying to run away/line of sight).

Now to the specific fights in your video:

- You were on sword/shield when the ranger used his LB#5, but you used Flurry instead of Shield Bash.
- When the ranger used Rapid Fire, you dodged twice, even though Shield #5 was up.
- You were not in melee range when you swapped to hammer against the engi in the 3rd fight.
- Wait for Gear Shield to end before attacking. Expect a dodge roll right after the gear shield (I don’t know why, but so many engies do that).
- You close gap with Bull’s Charge, immobilize the engi, swap to hammer and… dodge away from him – why?
- The next fight you did much better. Shield #5 at the right moment, Reckless Dodge, you actually interrupt LB#5, very nice. You lose momentum after Sword#3 > hammer swap, luckily the ranger doesn’t realize his advantage and self roots himself with LB#5 again instead of kiting you.
- The fight afterwards, good use of Bull’s Charge and nice comboing of weapon skills.

I’m talking as a pvp player btw, so correct me if anything I said doesn’t apply to wvw.

@Rain
I agree with No Pulse. I’ve actually used Nightmare runes for duels in a guild arena, and the stat buffs along with the fear works well (and yes, it is an interrupt that will get you 4 additional stacks of confusion).

I also agree that replacing a bunch of your Rampager gear with Carrion would be a good idea. It’ll maintain your power where it’s at, and then trade your excess precision for higher condi damage and a little more survivability.

Tbh, you could also go all dire gear because crits don’t do that much for your build, but I respect the desire to run glassier for more offense over the lazier turtle approach to condis.

Also, No Pulse’s combat tips are spot on, especially the bit about not stun locking. It’ll seem unnatural if you normally play hammer, because long periods of disabling is exactly what that weapon is usually used for.

But you’re trying to build up stacks of confusion, which is why you want to maximize the number of times your disables interrupt. So you need to give your opponent some time to try to do something before you use a cc skill.

I theory crafted something similar, but replacing Hammer with Mace+Mace. I also used Berserker because Skull Grinder adds an extra 4 confusion. You get one reflect on each season set, mobility from sword, shield, and bulls charge. You’re saturated in cc, which might actually be too much at the cost of some defense. You get a taunt on activating Berserker mode which is nice as an instant interrupt plus bleed (and can help land a Skull Grinder). If the taunt isn’t needed, you can get some extra stability from the other Berserker GM.

Food for thought

cool! I guess it’s CC god build