Guild Wars 2

The Monk build for warriors <- Link to build here. Use this variation when enemy comp has high spike, power-based damage and no enemy stunlock warrior.

Heavy condition removal variation. (Switch to Lyssa runes and Signet of Stamina. Save Signet of Rage usage for condition removal. You may use warhorn and the Quick Breathing trait for a near complete condition wipe every ~15 seconds.)

30 seconds of stability variation (Switch to Lyssa runes, Sure-Footed trait, balanced stance. Self-explanatory, but use this variation when enemy team has a stunlock warrior or a high amount of crowd control)

PvP analysis of build here. <- Feedback here is welcome.

This is just a simple guide to a build I have been creating for competitive PvP for several months. It took a lot of experimenting and refining but I would like to share the results now.

Pros:

• 900 HP healing per second forever, no cooldowns required.
• An additional burst heal of 4000 HP.
• High toughness and condition removal.
• Strong team support through AoE damage and AoE healing.
• Strong offensive pressure through condition damage.
• Thrives in 4v4s. Can handle 1v2s adequately. Can kill most classes 1v1.

Cons:

• Team dependent.
• Offers little to no crowd control outside of immobilizes (but does offer a huge amount and duration of immobilizes).
• Low power-based damage.
• Long cooldowns on all utilities (60 to ~120 seconds).

FAQs

• Why healing signet?
  Healing signet heals more than a max adrenaline healing surge over 30 seconds. Combined with perma regeneration and adrenal health, it’s like having a ranger’s troll unguent but permanent and always on. Think monk from GW1.

• Why banner?
  The banner fills up everything that the build lacks and more. It gives damage. It gives mobility (short CD dash and perma swiftness without having to use signet of rage). It gives good healing through perma regeneration, which heals for 22k HP per minute in an AoE. And finally, it allows the warrior to offer good team support because the stats are all AoE.

• What 3rd utility?
  The 3rd utility slot is flexible. Fear Me is a good option for the AoE 3 second stun. Other good options are Balanced Stance, Signet of Stamina, and Dolyak Signet.

Advice on how to use this build?

1. Start the fight by dropping banner and using longbow. Your basic combo is Pin Down, swap, Impale, Flurry. If you can get off all three of these abilities, the target is going to die if they don’t pop defensive cooldowns and start running.
2. As you get more advanced, you can do powerful combos like Pin Down into Combustive Shot, Arcing Arrow + put down banner for Might stacks, then swap to sword. You may pick up and put down the banner again for additional might stacks. Leap to obtain a fire aura, which gives you stacks of might every single time you receive hits. Finish the fight with an Impale, Flurry, and Final Thrust. Every stack of might gives 35 power and condition damage stat, so 25 stacks gives 875 power/condi stats. Maintaining your Might stacks will be the deciding factor in advanced fights.
3. Don’t forget about the banner! After you’ve finished destroying everyone and you’re ready to roam elsewhere, remember to pick up the banner and run with it. The banner heals you for 22k HP per minute and gives perma swiftness, so always bring it for improved roaming.
4. Fight on point. Doing this will force your opponent to make a decision: Do I stand on the point and be forced to eat the fire field damage? Do I step off the point to survive, but then lose the cap? Fighting on point is the easiest way to make full use of Combustive Shot.

Despite how tanky the build is, it is not a bunker. I repeat, THIS IS A TANKY WARRIOR BUT IT’S NOT A TRUE BUNKER. Remember this. Rather, it is a tanky DPS build that is used for roaming, home point defending, or far point assaulting (NOTE: must be an advanced player to pull this off. Hitting far point means you will be doing 1 v 2s constantly, so if you’re not comfortable with the build yet, don’t use this for far point assaulting right away).

This build is a work in progress and is still in experimentation. Feedback is welcome, and happy PvPing.

nice build. one thing though -
the trait desperate power is 20% increased damage while under 50% health…that is 52 extra damage per longbow hit.
Where as Empower allies is 150 extra power ALL THE TIME IN COMBAT which is 40 extra damage per hit. As well as giving this buff to your team mates.
(I say longbow because it was easier to test this is the mist)

I know which one I would rather have.

Hey i’ve been using your build for the past few days, and i gota say i absolutely love it.
Just wondering would you swap berserker stance for anything else?

I wonder how you calculate 1200 HPS?

~260 from regeneration
~450 from signet
~170 from adrenal health

That’s 880 HPS unless I’m missing something, and only when at full adrenaline.

Still, good regen off course.

It seems like a fun build and I might try it out. I bet 1v1 you can last forever.

But in a 2v1 situation, I doubt you have enough active defense to do better then, say, an engineer or guardian. Your weapons only give you 1 blind and 1 block, that’s it. Therefore attacking far point with this doesn’t seem very viable. You can’t burst them down fast enough to prevent help from showing up, at which point things get tricky.

The funny thing is it seems that another warrior with some CC and berserker’s stance would hard counter you after last stand wears out. Balanced stance seems somewhat obligatory, seeing as you have no active stability otherwise.

I’m just troubleshooting here, but all in all, nice and original ideas. I like the rune choices in particular. Great job!

Very unique and interesting build. I can actually see this thing working, I’ll definitely give it a try today. Maybe even banner of tactics for better “bunkering”.

Build link isn’t working for me. Was hoping to give this a try today ._.

Yup, build link not working

Intothemists.com is down at the moment, any chance you can add a gw2skills.net link?

Hey guys i noticed the link wasn’t working so i took the liberty of putting up a new one. Just one thing that i change was the adept trait in tactics. He had it as Desperate Power but i switched it to Empowered Allies
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAscDjkOpwtPMxBE0DNsKyiThkI9gMMj1A-TsAg2CrIcS5lzLjTSvseNCZFycBA

also for the 3 utility read OP.

Cygnus.6903:

I wonder how you calculate 1200 HPS?

I updated the post. I made a calculation error with adrenal health, since it heals every 3 seconds instead of every second.

Cygnus.6903:

The funny thing is it seems that another warrior with some CC and berserker’s stance would hard counter you after last stand wears out. Balanced stance seems somewhat obligatory, seeing as you have no active stability otherwise.

When the enemy team has a stunlock warrior, I find that using balanced stance as the 3rd utility, switching out Dogged March trait for increased stance duration trait, and using lyssa runes, is a hard counter to the stunlock warrior. 12 + 12 + 6 = 30 seconds of stability, which basically makes the stunlock warrior absolutely worthless against this build. After the stunlock warrior’s berserker stance wears out, they usually drop extremely fast to 1 pin down, 1 impale, and 1 flurry. Kiting the warrior with immobilizes means they will struggle to cleanse off your conditions.

One thing to remember: The CC from this tanky dps build is actually quite strong.

If you think about it, a stunlock warrior puts out a 4 second stun and a 2 second stun. This build puts out a 4 second immobilize, a 3 second immobilize, and a 1 second immobilize from two sources if traited. It’s not a hard CC like a stun but it does lock the target down and makes it super convenient for your team to focus the target. Stuns can be cleansed by stun breakers; immobilizes cannot be cleansed by stun breakers. It can be quite powerful in team fights.

Cygnus.6903:

Therefore attacking far point with this doesn’t seem very viable. You can’t burst them down fast enough to prevent help from showing up, at which point things get tricky.

I find that far-point assaulting with this build works because of how long the build lasts in a 1v2. The longer I can keep the far point neutralized with 2 enemies tunneling me, the easier it is for my team to control the rest of the map due to number advantage.

Good feedback. Keep up the good work.

You obviously know your stuff, and utilise what fits the situation.

I’m still in doubt as to the viability of this spec for far point assaulting, so I guess I’ll try it out to see. Thing is I’m trying out so much stuff lately, who’s got time, right?

Also, I know using banner seems very odd, but don’t hate on it before trying. It’s actually extremely strong, and I consider it the key part of this build.

The banner heals your entire team for 22k HP each over one minute. For a warrior, offering that kind of support to the team is huge.

I like the build, been playing it for few days allthough i changed it after some matches because the damage was so low. With undead runes you gain nearly 300 conditiondmg because of the high toughness and with sigil of geomancy you have a nice aoe bleed, especially for my friends with their spiritarmy.

Bratpirat.6137:

I like the build, been playing it for few days allthough i changed it after some matches because the damage was so low. With undead runes you gain nearly 300 conditiondmg because of the high toughness and with sigil of geomancy you have a nice aoe bleed, especially for my friends with their spiritarmy.

Thanks for the feedback. I updated the build because I agree, Undead Runes are very strong with this high toughness build.

Undead Runes makes this build really bursty. It’s actually kind of frightening.

Bratpirat.6137:

I like the build, been playing it for few days allthough i changed it after some matches because the damage was so low. With undead runes you gain nearly 300 conditiondmg because of the high toughness and with sigil of geomancy you have a nice aoe bleed, especially for my friends with their spiritarmy.

Hah, crazy, I was just about to come in and suggest the same change! From the old build, you lose around 90 healing power and the rune based heal procs, but gain around 300 condition damage as you said. I felt like I was overhealing in the old build and not putting out quite enough damage – once I changed runes I felt far more effective.

Guide updated with newest build information and tips on how to utilize the build in the FAQs section.

I’ve been using Sigils of Energy; it’s amazing with this build due to how the banner procs the energy regain. I like sigils of energy because of the potential of avoiding thousands of damage in one evade. It’s really the best survivability sigil in the game, and it synergizes well with this build.

Of course, one could normally just swap weapons to proc the energy sigils. However, since this build doesn’t have the Fast Hands trait, swapping weapons has a lengthy 10 second cooldown. Sometimes you don’t want to swap off the swords, since you’re in a pinch and you need the mobility.

The solution? Pick up the banner and/or quick-drop the banner (by using the weapon swap key). It will proc the energy sigil without having to actually swap weapons, so you don’t compromise your mobility in the process!

How viable is this for WvW small group / roaming situations? I especially want to try this build as I just dinged 80 and don’t want to drop 10g on melandru runes, which nearly all builds revolve around.

Can drop only 5-6g on Hoelbrak instead.

Hi, I wanted to show an idea that came into my little stupid brain.

Premise: no matter how hard I try, it just seems I can’t do well as condi warrior. I end up getting killed against everything. Yeah, even those pesky training golems.XD

So I was thinking about something similar, not condi based but power based, and tried to add might stacking to it (because i have never seen nobody talking about it, although warrior might have a good potential).

It has less HPS, but has more health and the ability to maintain 23 stacks of might

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJARTjkOJvZPyQMxBEkCNsKMK+BgI9YMMj1A-ToAA1CnICSpjTHTQycs5MEZJC

Alas I can’t test it, so it might be crap. I was just thinking that GS damage with might and all the bonuses might be something big.

I thing you might change Soldier Amulet for Valkyrie one.

Do you think that might stacking might be a good idea in spvp, or is corrupt boon/boon steal too predominant?

I’ve been experimenting with the Stronger Bowstrings trait. Absolutely amazing. I’ve updated the build guide and replaced the CD reduction trait for banners with Stronger Bowstrings.

Why Stronger Bowstrings?

• This trait has several hidden benefits that aren’t shown in the trait description. First, the trait makes Dual Shot and Fan of Fire 100% projectile finishers.
• What does this mean? It means that if you lay down a fire field and use Fan of Fire on a target in melee range, you instantly apply 10 seconds of burning on the target.
• Combined with the actual fire field and a couple dual shots, you’re outputting 15+ seconds of burning on the target almost instantly. It’s insane.

Each tick of burning with this build is about 550 damage – higher if you have minor corruption stacks and might stacks. 15 seconds of burning…yes, it’s awesome.

Any negative side-effects of this trait?

• There is a misconception that Arcing Arrow deals less damage when using the Stronger Bowstrings trait. Although it is true that the tooltip updates with 33% less damage for Arcing Arrow, the actual skill deals the same amount of damage. So, no, the damage of Arcing Arrow is the same with the trait.
• Dual Shot’s base damage is reduced by 10%, but this is negligible as the skill is 100% guaranteed to apply burning on the target in a fire field, per arrow hit.

Just wanted to let you know that I am loving this build. Switched out a bit for money’s sake (full rabid equip and trink, undead runes and passionflower on trink) and it rocks. I especially love this build because I just hit 80 (only my second lvl80) and I was able to achieve full exotic equip with about 10g, some karma and some BoH. Thanks zone!