Guild Wars 2

After weeks of consideration, contemplation by the sea, and a thousand waypoint recalls, I decided to see what would happen to my WvW warrior if I focused on survivability. So, I put away the swords, axes and greatswords, picked up a hammer and headed to AC to grind tears for exotic power/toughness/vitality armor. I slotted six Superior Rune of the Soldier pieces, made a set of exotic emerald jewelry, and moved to a 10/0/30/30/0 trait build. Now, I run around 3400 armor, 3000 attack, 27k hps and a crit rate around 25%.

It’s been enlightening. Since the change, I don’t think I’ve lost a legitimate 1v1 encounter with any class in open field (not a kill every time, sometimes they just run away after a minute of me not being dead), and I’ve revived people while being focused fired from a wall and rolled away with 60% health. Suddenly, I feel like the berserker I’ve always knew I could be, ever since first grade. My takeaway from this is the understanding that toughness is insanely important for a warrior in PvP. Damage done is mainly a comparison between the attacker’s Attack and the target’s Armor. Since every ranged class, and thief, is stacking power and precision, strolling into range with low toughness is a recipe for disaster when you consider that you’re certainly going to be CC’d 90% of the time. Since warriors have limited damage avoidance, like guardians, we have to focus on damage mitigation (toughness).

Dual axes and 5 signets is great while leveling, but a glass cannon build in WvW is suicide unless you’re part of a VERY coordinated group with overlapping support. We’re not thieves, we don’t have their surprise and escape abilities, so we shouldn’t play like them and expect to kill like they do. Like I mentioned, I run a 10/0/30/30/0 build with three shouts, a hammer primary and sword/warhorn offhand (for escape):

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2067-juggernaut

Anyone else have a similar experience and/or revelation?

What is missing on your link that makes your stats so much lower than what you say you have?
Attack: 2126 , Crit: 4% , Armor: 2477 , Health: 23022

Where do you get 25% crit when you have full focus on power vit thougness gear?

just wondering since im intresting in building the same but need to know what you actually use and what is your stats :P

Do you actually fight competent people? No seriously are you basing your statements off of fighting good players or..?

I’d like to see how far you can get with that build on my Necro though.

Rissou.7213:

What is missing on your link that makes your stats so much lower than what you say you have?
Attack: 2126 , Crit: 4% , Armor: 2477 , Health: 23022

Where do you get 25% crit when you have full focus on power vit thougness gear?

just wondering since im intresting in building the same but need to know what you actually use and what is your stats :P

The gw2db build doesn’t include the AC armor or weapon stats. Not at my computer at the moment, but I’ll post the full stats here tonight. The precision comes from 5 Emerald Orichalcum * of the Knight jewelry pieces and a Berserker back slot item.

Rissou.7213:

What is missing on your link that makes your stats so much lower than what you say you have?
Attack: 2126 , Crit: 4% , Armor: 2477 , Health: 23022

Where do you get 25% crit when you have full focus on power vit thougness gear?

just wondering since im intresting in building the same but need to know what you actually use and what is your stats :P

all GW2 build tools on the internet are woefully inadequate and don’t have accurate stat allocation, PvE gear or trinkets.

The build looks nice, tho I’d suggest putting 10 points from Strenght to Discipline and get the 20% signet recharge rate. Even tho Superior runes of Lyssa don’t have vitality + toughness. Instead, ALL conditions removed + aegis, protection, stability, regeneration for 5 seconds every 48 seconds is awesome. Also a random boon everytime you use a heal.

Signet of stamina is way better in terms of condition removal than Shake it off. I mean, comeon… which is better, one condition removed or all.

Robique:

Interesting. The Lyssa rune six-piece bonus is pretty huge, but I’m not sure I’d replace the Soldier, since the trait/Soldier rune combo does AE healing and condition removal. But you’ve got me thinking about 10 in Discipline for the 20% signet recharge… Combine that with Restorative Strength for 10 in Strength – heals remove movement conditions, and that would be every 16 seconds. Hmm… Think maybe I’d go Dolyak signet for the stability (since this build doesn’t have any), For Great Justice and Shake it Off. So, 10/0/20/30/10, Dolyak would help compensate the loss of 100 toughness…but it would lose Defy Pain and Armored Attack. Need to play around with it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Have you considered the Orr armor? rune of Melandru has got some nice condition removal effect on top of toughness.

http://www.gw2db.com/items/49501-superior-rune-of-melandru
http://dulfy.net/2012/09/08/gw2-templegod-karma-armor-sets/

Cool build, you might want to post it in the build thread.

@Stanholo
Dolyak Signet is bad choice compared to Balanced stance.
Dolyak Signet has base 60s CD and 48s CD when traited.
It grants -10% damage reduction when off CD, meaning that you will have to wait 48s (lets assume you take the -20% signet recharge) to get that 10% damage reduction.
It grants Stability upon activation for 8 seconds BUT Does not break stuns.

Balanced stance has base 40s CD
Grants stability for 8s (can be traited up to 10s) and break stuns upon activation.

I dont think the 10% dmg reduction is worth over a stun break and shorter CD.
I say if you want to have some stability, definetly go for Balanced Stance and keep away from Dolyak Signet untill it gets reworked.

And btw, Healing Signet plus 6 Runes of Lyssa and Restorative Strength is way too good.

I was thinking about something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNBiYDbk0J5NGS4hJSAgeYFXbZUY0PqC2lKUGA;TsAA1CtoKyUkoIbRuikFtEZAxGCA (copy → paste the link)
(sry its a PvP Builder so there aren’t those Emerald Jewels)

Basically stacking Lots of Toughness, Vitaly and Power (trough Trait lines, Armor and Accessories) and some crit (not shown because of missing emerald jewelery). And also making the Power, Vit and Toughness scale from each other.
Having SUPERIOR Condition removal (Heal removes some, Signet of Stamina and Signet of Rage /w Rune of Lyssa.
The 1st Utility slot being a free one, you can fill it with anything you want (FGJ/Fear Me/Frenzy/Signet of Rage – for insta Earthshaker/Banner of your choice… but the Balanced Stance and Signet of Stamina probably being mandatory for a frontline fighter.

Unless you want to have Empowered/Longer longbow range or improved banner, i think its better to drop those 10 points into Discipline, either for Movement Skills breaking Immobilize (Hammer F1, Sword 2) or 100% to Rally if you kill someone in Vengeance. Oh And faster weapon swapping. (don’t think thats major thing since hammer will probably be your main wep most of time)

Sigils are for +Power when near kills, since i don’t assume you should be dying much and this will make you hit even harder.

So what do you think?

I would try switching around the 30 points in tactics for 30 points in discipline. You lose healing shouts, but gain mobile strikes and a cheaper burst attack. Just think of being able to stun more as increasing your effective HP.

Madtavish.9037:

I was thinking about something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNBiYDbk0J5NGS4hJSAgeYFXbZUY0PqC2lKUGA;TsAA1CtoKyUkoIbRuikFtEZAxGCA (copy -> paste the link)
(sry its a PvP Builder so there aren’t those Emerald Jewels)

Basically stacking Lots of Toughness, Vitaly and Power (trough Trait lines, Armor and Accessories) and some crit (not shown because of missing emerald jewelery). And also making the Power, Vit and Toughness scale from each other.
Having SUPERIOR Condition removal (Heal removes some, Signet of Stamina and Signet of Rage /w Rune of Lyssa.
The 1st Utility slot being a free one, you can fill it with anything you want (FGJ/Fear Me/Frenzy/Signet of Rage – for insta Earthshaker/Banner of your choice… but the Balanced Stance and Signet of Stamina probably being mandatory for a frontline fighter.

Unless you want to have Empowered/Longer longbow range or improved banner, i think its better to drop those 10 points into Discipline, either for Movement Skills breaking Immobilize (Hammer F1, Sword 2) or 100% to Rally if you kill someone in Vengeance. Oh And faster weapon swapping. (don’t think thats major thing since hammer will probably be your main wep most of time)

Sigils are for +Power when near kills, since i don’t assume you should be dying much and this will make you hit even harder.

So what do you think?

Probably a better overall build for solo PvP. It looks like you’re losing about 100 vitality, not a huge deal, and gaining 100 power by going Strength 20 and dropping to Tactics 10. You’re also losing around 20% boon duration in Tactics and dropping healing shouts altogether.

Better damage and condition removal, but shorter boons and they’re self-only, except for FGJ. I run with a group, so I’m addicted to the healing shouts and condition removal of soldier runes. But if you run solo, or you already have lots of people throwing boons around, this build is pretty solid imo.

Mad, I think your build is focused a little too much on trying to grab damage bonus traits for weapons that aren’t focused on dealing damage. If you want to use a hammer, that’s a sustained presence weapon. You’ll want to be on your target as often as possible, and your setup won’t allow you to do that. You’re going to be crippled, immobilized and so on more often than you’ll be hitting anyone.

Signet of Stamina is a terrible skill to bring for condition mitigation. If you’re frozen, are you going to use it to get back into the fight? Then what? You’re crippled for the next forty seconds. You also seem to be bringing FGJ for no real reason other than it gives you might. Your secondaries have no synergy with one another.

I’m sure you’ll kill a couple people, but you need to consider utility and what your build is DOING rather than just thinking, “I can disrupt people sometimes and deal a lot of damage in the process.”

Actually hammer rewards stacking power quite strongly, it has a very heavy hitting auto attack, and together with the tier 2 defence trait, the hammer hits quite hard.

When you use a hammer, every point of power grants a lot of result, I just wish hammer skills were better for pvp, or better in general, it only really has two useful skills, the burst skill and the #5 skill, the latter having a way too long 30 second cooldown, considering it is single target.

Imo, they should make hammer skill #4 better (now it’s a tiny knockback), and cut off 10 seconds from the hammer skill #5, or else cut off 5 seconds and make it aoe. Hammer skill #2 could also use some love, it’s only useful for pve.

What is missing on your link that makes your stats so much lower than what you say you have?
Attack: 2126 , Crit: 4% , Armor: 2477 , Health: 23022

Where do you get 25% crit when you have full focus on power vit thougness gear?

just wondering since im intresting in building the same but need to know what you actually use and what is your stats :P

Here’s stats with the current build.

I know. I run a soldier hammer build in PvP. But the point of it is not damage. It’s denial. My traits are all in defense and tactics for a reason. None of my traits raise damage at all. You can do that with gear.