Guild Wars 2

I am looking for some advice. I like the playstyle and utility of the warrior in SPvP, and I know they are good for it, but I personally am having trouble. Most of the warrior’s heavy hitting attacks, whether it’s with GS, Hammer, Bow, even sword, are pretty slow with obvious tells, and are thus pretty easily dodgeable. I notice this both while playing my warrior in SPvP and against warriors while I am playing other classes (it has at least helped me when I am fighting against warriors, I don’t really have trouble against them anymore). This has made me pretty much suck on my warrior, I can never really land any good hits on my opponents because they can just dodge everything very easily. But I know warriors are good, so many people do very well on them.

So my question is: how do I ensure that I can land those heavy hitting attacks?

Warrior is a combo class, you won’t hit with anything if you don’t setup your opponent.

The following skills are combo openers:

-Shield Bash (Shield, combos into 100 blades, eviscerate, final thrust, or hammer combo)
-Throw Bola (Physical Utility, combos into killshot and 100 blades but is not a reliable projectile and is often stopped by terrain bugs)
-Stomp (Physical Utility, combos into killshot)
-Bull’s Rush (Physical Utility, lines up best with 100 blades or eviscerate, can sometimes bug if hitting dashing targets or targets that are slightly elevated)
-Skull Cracker (MH Mace, Combos into anything)
-Rifle Butt (Combos into Killshot, hammer combo)
-Earthshaker (Hammer Burst, begins hammer combo, full combo is Earthshker > Staggering Blow > Backbreaker > Anything)
-Backbreaker (Hammer Knockdown, Combos into anything, namely eviscerate and 100 blades)
-Staggering Blow (Hammer, push and is part of hammer combo. Can link into bullsrush or killshot)
-Flurry (Sword burst, immobilize and can be canceled to combo anything with the weapon swap key -advanced tactic)
-Pin Down (Longbow immobilize, combos into shield bash > final thrust, 100 blades, eviscerate, or hammer combo)
-Pommel Bash (Daze, combos into bullsrush, shield bash, hammer combo or any follow up stun)
-Tremor (Combos into killshot, bullsrush, hammer combo)

Here are some reliable weapon combos:

-Longbow/Axe Shield: Pin Down > Shield Bash > Eviscerate

-Longbow/Sword Shield: Pin Down > Shield Bash > Flurry (weapon swap cancel) > Final Thrust

-Longbow/Hammer: Pin Down > Combustive Shot > Earthshaker > Staggering Blow > Backbreaker > Arcing Arrow

-Longbow/Greatsword: Pin Down > Bullsrush (Optional or if enemy cleanses) > 100 Blades

-Greatsword/Rifle > Bullsrush > 100 Blades > Stomp > Brutal Shot (Optional or if have quickness) > Killshot (After weapon swap with sigil of intelligence) > Volley

-Greatsword/Hammer > Earthshaker > Staggering Blow > Backbreaker > 100 Blades

-Hammer/Sword Shield > Earthshaker > Staggering Blow > Backbreaker > Shield Bash > Final Thrust

-Sword Shield, Axe Mace > Bulls Rush > Crushing Blow > Tremor > Eviscerate > Shield Bash > Final Thrust

This isn’t everything but should give you a basic idea of what is possible. Just about every weapon set has a set of reliable combos that can be used to land big hits. When you play warrior you have to play it like a fighting game and think of setups like you would in a game like Tekken, Guilty Gear, or Street Fighter.

It also helps to try and keep track of how many dodges your enemy has used. If they have dodged twice, with little time inbetween, then they are likely prone to obvious attacks. Additionally, you can use stow cancel to bait dodges (start an obvious windup such as pidown or backbreaker, and cancel with a keybound stow weapon key if they dodge (the skill only gets a 3 sec cooldown).

You can also take leg specialist (Tactics I, immob on cripple) to land telegraphed attacks. For isntance, Hammershock —> Earthshaker (make sure you have the enemy you want to hit targeted, or else the immob may proc on a pet or something), or Savage Leap --> Final Thrust.

Also, try not to be predictable (a very easy thing for a warrior to be). Mix things up mid fight to keep them on their toes. For instance, use Earthshaker while moving away from your oponent (helps to set up a “look behind” keybind). I think I have yet to miss with a backwards Earthshaker.

But the key is setups, and sometimes setups for your setups.

Talking about offensive zerker builds here. Whirlwind and Arcing Slice aren’t that slow. However, I find that most of the damage against good players comes from Reckless Dodge, Fast Hands weapon swaps with with Hydromancy/Leeching and on-crit Sigil procs. You should only use your hammer combos when the enemy wastes his dodge. Pay attention and stow cancel Staggering Blow, Fierce Blow and Backbreaker if you know they’re going to miss.

You can use Bull’s Charge or even Kick in place of Balanced Stance to set up big damage combos, but the loss if Stability sucks big time. The stun from Kick actually lasts just long enough to land Earthshaker.

Stability is still pretty scarce in the current meta. If you can avoid getting your attacks chains destroyed by blind/block spam, you can seriously ruin someone’s day with stunlock combos.