Guild Wars 2

Good day Tyria. I recently started playing GW2 as Warrior and was charmed by the aethetic appearance of Greatsword so I started from it with day 1.

However, the more I progress the more difficult the game becomes with the Greatsword that it has nearly become unplayable without dying every large encounter at level 38. My general strategy is to use On My Mark, For Great Justice, and Signet of Rage, for burst damage while stacking vulnerability with auto attacks and throwing in Hundred Blades for the big hits. When things get out of hand I usually switch to Sword/Warhorn to use Charge and Call to Arms to heal while my Wurm can do the decoying. It’s a lower version of the Sonic Boon build that appeared like a good guide for GS.

The problem about this build is that things die, and things die so quick that once I pop my CDs they die half way through my HS anyway and it’s not very statisfying. And the bigger problem is that I can handle things to a maximum of 2 maybe 3 mobs and from then on my Warrior just shatters with anything bigger. Ideally, I tend only to pick mobs I can handle but with dynamic events happening all over the show sometimes there’s no escaping of fighting large scale of mobs.
During my research I came across the Axe/Mace build which supposedly has similar GS output in DPS, which I’ve tried and found that it works well. Since there’s no damage counter I can’t actually measure if I’m doing more damage but things tend to die fast enough and I can actually dodge stuff and walk around, have a stun up my sleeves and generally… never die with this build.

However, as much as the Axe/Mace fits my playstyle and is an effective build, I don’t like the appearance of it and would like to get back using GS. There’s just so much more satisfaction in throwing around a huge GS than using the Axe/Mace.

I know that GS is the more popular build, so I would like to ask how people manage to survive using GS at lower levels. I tend to be solo and mostly PvE orientated currently and I cannot seem to survive long enough when HS demands me to stay at one position.

I’m pretty sure that people just rely on the leveling content being pretty easy to survive with greatsword at early levels. HB kills non-threatening junk pretty quick and hey it looks cool.

Honestly greatsword isn’t a particularly strong weapon until you can spec into Forceful Greatsword at level 40. The base damage is significantly lower than Axe, and as you mentioned Hundred Blades is really a trash killer. Once you get Forceful Greatsword the entire set changes, since you get huge Might stacks whenever you’re fighting multiple foes. As for the play style, basically you just blow things up until you take heavy damage, then you whirlwind out and heal before doing it again.

Keep in mind that Warrior is not a finesse class for the most part. Either you are stronger than what you’re killing, or you aren’t. As such, the key to survival and successful leveling is being able to gauge your effectiveness and keeping your gear relatively up to date so that you can continue with the ideal warrior play-style of charging in headfirst and blowing everything up.

Whirlwind is also a great defensive ability on the Greatsword – while you’re in the spin you Evade everything thrown at you.

Thanks for the replies. In the meantime I levelled my Warrior to 40 and fully specced into Forceful Greatsword. I must say my damage has exponentially increased thanks to the number of Might stacks it comes with but as I feared, it really still is the glass cannon that shatters on a boss fight or large encounters.

I did take the advice to use Whirlwind Attack to evade attacks, heal back, and get back in the fray which has improved my survivability but overall I just die less often in my Axe/Mace combo. Perhaps its something to do with my inherent playstyle that GS does not mesh with. I’ve decided to pick up Axe/Mace in longterm for now and thinking about returning to GS once I get my Grandmaster specs so I can fully try out the Sonic Boon build in PvE.

Thanks again all

It gets easier once you can equip Knight’s items. These gives you Power, Precision and some most welcome Toughness.

A few things to think about and I’m sure some of them won’t mess with your curent spec. I love sword/ax with riffle the signate that lets u dodge more and the power trait that hurts those at end of your dodge. You can leep in with sword 2. Do aoe with basic sword attacks (take the pression trait for 50% longer bleeds) u can also tag and hurt tons of things with ax 4. If you need you can dodge into a fight for more aoe or out if things go bad and can switch to riffle with penatrateing rounds for kiting boss or groups. The bleeds from riffle and sword will still tic as u do damage. My build may not be optimized but I enjoy it can kite dungeon bosses and rarely get droped by anything. Its 10/30/30/0/0 with soldier gear for power tough vit and rapager weapons with sigil of percison for higher crit chance and blood for healing on crit.

Typo. Ax 4 givs u pluse 20% to crit. Ax 5 is the whirling that u can still move and tag hurt everything

I like 20/20/15/0/15. Great survivability and dmg. My 100 blades crits for 17-20k.

Durability comes from the Toughness on Knight’s gear, grandmaster Tactics traits, and Pie. None of those are really available while leveling.

When it comes to leveling never worry about dying…. I leveled with a greatsword (to the point I never weapon swapped) and did just find taking on 4-6 mobs at a time of my level. I didn’t even get optimial gear, instead I threw on upgrades going “I think this is better”…. when it comes to dungeons though- you’ll learn very fast you need to learn defensive maneuvers and how to dodge. Whirlwind is both better dps than thousand blades as well as the greatswords ONLY defensive skill (you cant consider blade trail defensive even if you use the word kite- if your kiting on a warrior your doing something wrong). Now I said something very important, dps- not damage…. Greatsword defiantly is the go to damage bringer of the party at warrior’s disposal but, its important to know when and how to use that to your advantage as you don’t want to end up on the ground.

I Personally use:

Greatsword [Main] / Hammer [Switch] (Both with Signet of Fires)
20 V, IX
30 V, X, XII
0
0
20 V, VII

With Full Berserker gear using Ruby Orbs.
Healing Surge as my heal.
Frenzy, Endure Pain, Situational open slot
Signet of Rage as my elite.

Now- you may notice or you may not, I have 0 ‘tank stats’- it can get very dicey at times if I mess up, especially since at my level of fractals things can just about 2 shot you in my gear. I capitalize on the mobility of my two weapons. Its easy to do the most damage in a group when you run full nuke. Though its also easy to be that guy the party wants to kick if you run full nuke and end up on the ground every 2 seconds into the fight. My best advice depends upon your learning curve- what I did was I started steep and just kept going up, if I ran into a wall I broke it down headfirst. Skill in this game determines if you accomplish your task when you’re weak in an area.

Try using Signet of Stamina. The increased endurance regeneration combined with well timed evading with Whirlwind Attack as others suggested should give plenty of survivability. I know what you are saying about killing things too fast – it isn’t very gratifying. Plus it screws with loot dropping when you steam roll through everything. You could also spec 15 points into the Defense trait line when you reach level 45 and get the Adrenal Health trait it really helps with survivability.