Guild Wars 2

Itchen.8754:

For some reason I cannot access that site to check out the build

Here try this instead:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sBxg;1NKkP0d4NL-60;9;5JJ-T;139-48;225A4oF0;2CoF2CoF26Bl

Forgive me my lack of knowledge, I used to play warrior the first few months after release and now have been trying out this build in spvp the last few days. I have some questions:

1. I got kited to hell by mesmers, eles and especially rangers with entangling roots. While this might be due to my lack of practice, I recall that I used to trait for “mobile strikes”. Wouldnt that trait be more useful than “warrior sprint” (wich got mentioned here quite often) in any case? Is there any other way of avoiding being kited?

2. skull crack with the sigil of paralyzation should, given 3 full bars of adrenaline, stun for 3,45 seconds, probably rounded to 3,5s. Your HB takes exactly those 3,5s, but you have to switch weapons first and activate it. Including server lag, I have never been able to get the last (hardest hitting) strike of HB in. How do you perform doing it?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

derbaer.1284:

Forgive me my lack of knowledge, I used to play warrior the first few months after release and now have been trying out this build in spvp the last few days. I have some questions:

1. I got kited to hell by mesmers, eles and especially rangers with entangling roots. While this might be due to my lack of practice, I recall that I used to trait for “mobile strikes”. Wouldnt that trait be more useful than “warrior sprint” (wich got mentioned here quite often) in any case? Is there any other way of avoiding being kited?

2. skull crack with the sigil of paralyzation should, given 3 full bars of adrenaline, stun for 3,45 seconds, probably rounded to 3,5s. Your HB takes exactly those 3,5s, but you have to switch weapons first and activate it. Including server lag, I have never been able to get the last (hardest hitting) strike of HB in. How do you perform doing it?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Mesmers are really strong against this build because of the number of get out of jail skills they have. As for why no Mobile Strikes immobilze is used by so few and Mesmers have fallen out of favor in TPvP Warrior’s Sprint is more useful.

If you time it perfectly you should be able to hit the entire duration of 100b unless they have Runes of Mel. I’ve been using it so long it’s just second nature to switch the instant it lands and with practice you should be able to as well.

I have a question. I’ve been running this with melandru runes in WvW lately. My crit chance is too high right now, I feel 30% would be enough (reaching 100% with fury, on which I have ~67% uptime).

So I’m about to change my gear to adjust for more toughness/vit instead of crit chance. Would you advise to use hoelbrak runes? I’ve already bought them, but I am unsure if I would prefer them over melandru.

Melandru Pro’s regarding Hoelbrak;

165 toughness
5% extra -condition duration
25% -stun duration (unsure if this also works on knockdowns/dazes?)

The con’s;

165 Power
Small chance to gain 1 stack of might
20% extra might duration

Hoelbrak obviously gives better damage. I don’t feel that I am lacking that damage right now though.

25% less stun duration is great vs for instance other mace/shield GS users.

20% might duration seems very cool, but the might gained from Forceful Greatsword only lasts 5 seconds to begin with… Turning that into 6 seconds still probably won’t give you extra damage on the next Skullcrak/HB…

The 6 extra seconds on the 5 stacks from SoR are nice, but not ground breaking.

All in all, Hoelbrak does provide more damage, but it seems to be no more then a ~5% increase. Is it worth sacrificing Melandru survivability for?

derbaer.1284:

1. I got kited to hell by mesmers, eles and especially rangers with entangling roots. While this might be due to my lack of practice, I recall that I used to trait for “mobile strikes”. Wouldnt that trait be more useful than “warrior sprint” (wich got mentioned here quite often) in any case? Is there any other way of avoiding being kited?

Well you know, this build has flaws, or it would be broken. This warrior is pretty bad against ranged power builds that have many stunbreaks. That is almost the definition of a Mesmer (2 or 3 stun breakers, 2 invulnerabilities, massive ranged dps) ! So yes, Mesmers own Skullcrackers badly.

For the same reasons I think it’s normal you also lose against Engies and non-spirit Rangers. Thieves are a better matchup I think because they either need to get close with their berserker build and a single stun might be enough to kill them, or they play more ranged and use condis which is a something you can endure.

Cygnus.6903:

I have a question. I’ve been running this with melandru runes in WvW lately. My crit chance is too high right now, I feel 30% would be enough (reaching 100% with fury, on which I have ~67% uptime).

So I’m about to change my gear to adjust for more toughness/vit instead of crit chance. Would you advise to use hoelbrak runes? I’ve already bought them, but I am unsure if I would prefer them over melandru.

Melandru Pro’s regarding Hoelbrak;

165 toughness
5% extra -condition duration
25% -stun duration (unsure if this also works on knockdowns/dazes?)

The con’s;

165 Power
Small chance to gain 1 stack of might
20% extra might duration

Hoelbrak obviously gives better damage. I don’t feel that I am lacking that damage right now though.

25% less stun duration is great vs for instance other mace/shield GS users.

20% might duration seems very cool, but the might gained from Forceful Greatsword only lasts 5 seconds to begin with… Turning that into 6 seconds still probably won’t give you extra damage on the next Skullcrak/HB…

The 6 extra seconds on the 5 stacks from SoR are nice, but not ground breaking.

All in all, Hoelbrak does provide more damage, but it seems to be no more then a ~5% increase. Is it worth sacrificing Melandru survivability for?

I personally use Hoelbrak in WvW because with my setup I get past 3k Attack and Armor, also it makes the might from Forceful GS to last a bit longer which has nice synergy. I now actually prefer Hammer with Sword Shield in WvW because of the great amount of AoE and I bring a sigil of battle on the Sword to still get my use out of Hoelbrak’s (2) effect. It can cause some serious havoc but the Mace build is still good especially if you want to try and lock down a commander.

I built a power build BM ranger to try and counter this build and it works quite well I must say. Weapons I use are Greatsword and Sword/Axe. Have a wolf withyou (for CC and Fear) and Rampage as One as your elite(don’t use it before fight begins the Warrior will kite you till RaO ends) with a Stun Break utility skill and you’ll beat most of the Skullcrack Warriors unless they are highly skills, there it would depend on who plays best.

But I have to admit tho I use my Warrior for fun sometimes with a build similar to this and I have a blast playing it. You are right alot of people don’t want to find counters and they end up calling for nerfs when they could find solutions to counter the build itself. Which is why I got rid of my Spirit Ranger.

Spirit Rangers is a boring build to play with anyways haha!

Ouroboros.5076:

derbaer.1284:

1. I got kited to hell by mesmers, eles and especially rangers with entangling roots. While this might be due to my lack of practice, I recall that I used to trait for “mobile strikes”. Wouldnt that trait be more useful than “warrior sprint” (wich got mentioned here quite often) in any case? Is there any other way of avoiding being kited?

Well you know, this build has flaws, or it would be broken. This warrior is pretty bad against ranged power builds that have many stunbreaks. That is almost the definition of a Mesmer (2 or 3 stun breakers, 2 invulnerabilities, massive ranged dps) ! So yes, Mesmers own Skullcrackers badly.

For the same reasons I think it’s normal you also lose against Engies and non-spirit Rangers. Thieves are a better matchup I think because they either need to get close with their berserker build and a single stun might be enough to kill them, or they play more ranged and use condis which is a something you can endure.

Well, being kited to hell happens less often in tournament matches. At some point the enemy has to get to the point. And you’ll be there.

Kiting is less effective if you don’t have to kill the kiter.

Ive been playing on some 1v1 servers against good opponents (mainly mesmers and thieves). As a mace/shield + GS warrior I won around 9 out of 10 times against pretty much any class. Only if I messed up my defensives I would lose. The key to winning 1v1 is just staying defensive (mace+shield actually does good damage) and only switching to raw damage when you land a stun combo. Sometimes it took me a full minute just to land my first effective stun on a mesmer, which would mean I could pressure him and let me regen back to a high percentage.
A stun warrior is pretty much one of the strongest 1v1 classes atm. Stunbreaks aren’t a big problem since you have many stuns. Stability is the only issue.
If we’re just talking about tournaments. A warrior of this spec is durable and extremely quick. I’m a roamer and focus on capping points and helping objectives (charge in -> stun) and if they don’t have a stunbreaker you WILL down them. After that just use Doljak/balanced stance and enjoy your free kill.
In conclusion, a correctly played mace/shield + GS warrior is an extremely deadly 1v1 opponent without a hard counter. In matches, the roaming is pretty much unparalleled. Extreme speed, good defensives and a really nice CC/burst combo makes the warrior one of the top classes in the game who can stand up to ANY class and ANY spec. (Conditions are easily cleansed and power builds can be dodged/blocked or even LoS-ed). Even if you are against multiple opponents (considered the Achilles’ heel of this spec) you can stun/daze your opponents or block them long enough for your team to help you. If you can land a nice stun you can even down/kill them with your combo.