Guild Wars 2

ok… i wanna make a support warrior and i have seen many builds that incorporate shouts
to do this. but i noticed that with so many shout warriors i have not seen a banner warrior? based on the traits i can see that the tactics trait line just about forces you to pick either banner or shouts( grandmaster trait choice of either banners or shouts heal)

so my question is which build is more viable in pve ( DE/dungeons and normal levelling)
and if possible which is better in WvW( not really a pvp person :P)

oh and finally i also saw that picking banners would allow me to get the trait for warhorn(master trait in tactic) which would have clashed with shouts so if i do go with banners/warhorn, whats the most suitable mainhand? and is there a need for a good swap weapon?

thank you

edit: oh and can someone tell me if banner cooldown starts when the banner is placed or only after it disappears? and can you plant multiple banners?

I’m currently making a banner warrior. I really like this playstyle so far. When combined with a double handed hammer, banner of defense allows for a surprising amount of AOE crowd control. Banners take a bit of getting used to though. Knowing when to pick them up and how to make use of their skills, when to drop them to perform special combos, etc.

Also the cooldown starts as soon as a banner is placed. You can plant multiple banners, but only one of each banner type at a time. You can only carry one banner with you at a time too, so unless you travel with teammates, it’s probably best to only use one banner skill at a time, and two other utilities when soloing.

I like banners a lot, but unless you can contain combat to a small area, they become less useful. They’re great in dungeons where you can plant a banner in a room and it’d be hard to get out of its range. They’re also good in DE’s where your defending the entrance to a camp or protecting an NPC/Trebuchet. I like Shouts for their instant casts and healing if your traited that way.
I just find to often that I plant a banner and the fight moves away from it or some idiot picks it up and runs off to play with it somewhere else. I pretty much always keep Warbanner slotted though.

Here is my perspective. Shouts are better hands down.

Shouts provide “instant” healing (Vigorous Shouts trait)/buffs with low cooldowns & when using superior runes of the soldier are amazing for debuff removal. Shouts can be used while CC’d in most cases.

Banners provide regen which is bad. So many other professions provide regen so all your doing is stacking onto the duration. Banners also require a brief pause to deploy. Other players have to remain near banner to gain effects.

hmm i guess that just about settles it, thanks for all your replies and i guess a pure banner build is not practical, as life said,there isnt much point having more than 1 banner in utility as you can only take one along once you move, the point that rip and snow made about the healing pretty much makes banner regen useless next to shout healing so i guess i will go with tactic trait line that has 20% banner cd and 20% shout cd with healing shouts. On the other hand this does free up both hands as i wont use warhorn so maybe i will try hammer since the 1h combinations dont seem to interest me and seem to do better with condi, crit and power builds
So thank you all for your posts and helping me decide on the best path my support warrior will take

That depends if you want to use banners solely for the purpose of buffing though. They can also be used for their skills and utility. I treat them as I would treat an engineer’s weapon kit. The large AOE knockback of the defense banner, charge gap closer, and swiftness buff are nice, as are the other banner’s various skills too.

For pure heal/buff, shouts are defiantely the more practical option, but banners provide a CONSTANT AOE boon that’s not limited by your cooldowns. By placing or running with a banner, you’re creating a zone in which you and your allies are considerably more powerful, regardless of whether or not they were in range for your shout to affect them. The buff re-applies whenever anyone comes close to the banner.

Banner skills also provide you with easy blast and whirl finishers. Good in combination with short bows and their fire fields. I personally would suggest a mixture of banners and shouts. Banner of defense is obviously my personal favorite

smacking someone in the face with a banner sounds awesome :P anyway as i said i guess i will take 1 banner in the utility( maybe defence too :P since the great justice shout gives might and fury) and trait for both banner and shout cd but the grandmaster trait will be for shout heal
so now i was looking at weapon choices and i have no clue what would suit a support warrior. i looked at hammer first but i dun really wanna use it cuz i got a crithammer guardian already :P and i dun wanna use GS either cuz…. every warrior is using it and it feels like a power weapon to me
so i’m already traited 30 into the healing line so i guess this warrior isnt meant for much direct dmg so i was thinking of 20 into precision and 20 into toughness and using sword and shield, would that be any good for pve? in WvW i’m quite sure i wont be getting much direct action so lets ignore it for now :P

You may find these links useful:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70934-supportive-warrior-builds-think-tank/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/71682-supportive-warrior-builds-part-ii-numerical-analysis/

wow…. awesome, thanks time to sit up and do some heavy reading

edit well,got done reading faster than i expected and it came up to the simple conclusion that shout builds do better with healing gear(full cleric) but banners do better if you dun got the gear….hmmmmm

I personally love Banners compared to Shouts. With Banners + Healing Signet and the healing from Adrenaline, I get about 500 health a second, and 1100 on the 3rd second.

In dungeons I find them better than Shouts. While it’s not instant healing, I can spread 2-3 Banners around the room so there’s a large area covered for extra healing, not to mention the extra damage/defense Banners give. It’s harder to hit allies with Shouts in my experience, since I have to be near them, but they can get over 30 seconds of regen just being next to my Banners

If you want to heal yourself, shouts, if you want to heal yourself and the team, banners.

dam….. banners make sense since their regen is dependant on the warrior’s hp so you dun need much gear to make it good….hmm wait i think you can reset traits right? so maybe i’ll just go with banner regen first then switch over to shout healing when i get gear for it

Banner regen has nothing to do with the warriors health. It is entirely dependent on the lvl of the target receiving the buff. And the caster’s (the Warrior) healing skill.

Banners are stationary and provide a buff that someone else can provide.
If you are in a stationary environment (dungeons, hold point in pvp) and noone else is using banners nor provide regeneration banners are good.

In every other situations shouts are better since they’re more bursty and you don’t need to carry them over in the battlefield. Carrying one is bad, carrying 3 of them is a nightmare. I really hope they will rework banners in some way.