Guild Wars 2

I’m currently playing a Warrior and wondering if I should switch to Guardian.

I looked at a level 80 build which was full of signet passives for utility abilities. While I enjoy the ease of a lot of passives, I am worried that having so many passive stat boosts will just simply be boring.

I know that Guardian is similar to a Paladin, but is it the kind of class where one can fight and heal himself? I am finding that I die very easily as a Warrior.

Warrior has tons of heals with the Defense traitline. Guardian can avoid a lot of damage by blocking attacks or blinding their attacker, but has much less sustain than warrior.

Kharneth.7931:

I’m currently playing a Warrior and wondering if I should switch to Guardian.

I looked at a level 80 build which was full of signet passives for utility abilities. While I enjoy the ease of a lot of passives, I am worried that having so many passive stat boosts will just simply be boring.

I know that Guardian is similar to a Paladin, but is it the kind of class where one can fight and heal himself? I am finding that I die very easily as a Warrior.

I tried rolling a Guardian not once, but twice. Both times I gave up out of sheer monotony & boredom. The Warriors have among the best Offensive Support outside of a Chronomancer – PS / Might, Banners, Empowered Allies, and you can do it all while still being an offensive powerhouse.

Trust me, if you have a well-geared PS Warrior / Berserker and know how to run him, you’ll ALWAYS have a place in a Raid, Fractal or Party. Period. I can promise you, after the Chronomancer and Druid are invited, you’ll be next. Guarantee the same cannot be said for a Guardian.

The idea of raiding does not impress me, though, I’m not against giving it a shot in Guild Wars 2 (this isn’t WoW, after all). I usually prefer PvP, but I feel like the biggest noob in this game and PvP pre-80 is a no-go because it’s just disorienting. But, ideally, the class I choose will be effective and fun for me in PvP.

There are a couple red flags I’ve found about the Warrior. One of them is the Greatsword moveset. I’ve read that the greatsword is the warrior’s best weapon, and it is the weapon I prefer, but the Hundred Blades seems like the best ability (plus Rush), but it cannot be used while moving, which feels nearly useless in PvP, or situational at best.

The other red flag was that the build I was looking at (granted it was a solo PvE build) had 1 banner and 5 signets for his utility abilities. I can only imagine that being incredibly boring.

PS? Is this Power something? As in, burst damage?

How is it like to fight things at the end game? Because I’ve played on every class in the 1-15 starter zones and one issue I have with melee (mostly Warrior) is that things die so fast, when I am fighting at an event with others I spend the whole time running around and things just die right as I get to them. It makes me feel like I’m doing very little, while the Rangers and Elementals are taking down all the foes.

Kharneth.7931:

There are a couple red flags I’ve found about the Warrior. One of them is the Greatsword moveset. I’ve read that the greatsword is the warrior’s best weapon, and it is the weapon I prefer, but the Hundred Blades seems like the best ability (plus Rush), but it cannot be used while moving, which feels nearly useless in PvP, or situational at best.

Outside of pve, Whirlwind is probably its best move, followed by Arc Divider/Arcing Slice. Hundred Blades is good if you can get someone pinned down or for down pressure, but the root otherwise makes it fairly poor. Rush… good for getting away, sometimes good for closing a cap, pretty poor as a damage dealer (often misses, great when it connects though).

But, if I’m not mistaken, guardian’s generally seen as pretty poor for pvp, especially if you don’t have HoT. If you do have HoT, the build I believe is the strongest there doesn’t actually use the greatsword (m+sh/lb). I don’t really play pvp (I’m mostly wvw), so I could be wrong about that.

all guardian weapons and traits are really boring and weak

no unique flavor

But Warrior is fun?

Even with 5 signets being used as passives and single 120sec CD banner that provides yet more passives?

How is that fun? I really want to main a warrior, but I don’t understand how the class is fun at all with only 5 abilities, half of which are purely situational.

To me, it seems like warriors have no flavor.

Kharneth.7931, avoid guardian atm, guardian was supose to be something like a paladin but it is not.
Guardian is in a very bad state, since Anet keeps buffing all other classes.

Warrior can be pretty fun, imagine a mixture of soft paladin(alot of sustain compared with guardian) and a arena figther(while can keep up the damage and bursts).

You can have excellent damage and being tanky, guardian in sturdy gear is squisher than warrior on non sturdier gear, and guardian looses all damage in that gear and its support is useless all class can sustain themselves.

Kharneth.7931:

But Warrior is fun?

Even with 5 signets being used as passives and single 120sec CD banner that provides yet more passives?

How is that fun? I really want to main a warrior, but I don’t understand how the class is fun at all with only 5 abilities, half of which are purely situational.

To me, it seems like warriors have no flavor.

Warrior is a fairly straight up and simple class, yet surprisingly effective. If you’re gonna do mostly PvE, then warrior could be quite boring, as warriors are the best might stacking class in the game, so most people only use them for that, since as a warrior, using your greatsword is pretty much 90% of your rotation. Guardians on the other hand, bring lots of healing, cc, blocks, blinds, boons, but don’t have as much damage or might stacking as a warrior and their rotation is drastically different and varied, except in raids, where you pretty much just use hammer autoattack, as it has some godly utility (aoe protection, good dps, healing, cc, …)

As a rule of thumb, banners and to a lesser extent signets belong to PvE, not PvP. There are some exceptions of course: Healing Signet is a great heal and provides Resistance, the War banner can help in group fights, and there are some rifle builds which benefit from signets. However, you cannot go into PvP with a PvE build, or you’ll get shredded so fast you won’t even have time to get bored.

Warrior can be played in various flavors, so you can usually find your fun in it. Naturally, if you don’t like the class mechanics, then you’re pretty done with it. As a power warrior, I enjoy the fast and powerful game play: changing weapons every 5s thanks to Fast Hands give you a lot of opportunities for chaining skills, and the damage of a power warrior is significant.

GS #2 is king in PvE, but only situational in PvP. You use it mainly to cleave down opponents and barrage incoming foes. Ideally, it can be used after you’ve controlled the opponent (immobilization, stun), but in practice there are so many ways to defend against CC that it’s unlikely to be fully successful.

In PvP, GS #3 is IMHO the best skill (it’s an evade), F1 is great (easy to land, triggers burst effects such as Adrenal Health), #4 is okay (learn to use it without a target) and #5 is quite good too (use it to close in, use it without a target to reposition, learn to re-target during the channeling).

Thanks guys, I’ve been playing my warrior again.

I did not know whirlwind was an evade, that’s pretty amazing.

For PvP Warrior, Power = 2 handing, right? Do you swap between GS and Hammer? That is the PvP build I found online. Do I need to reliable switch between movesets, or will I be okay with only 1?

GS / Hammer was an old power build, fun and violent, albeit a bit fragile, but I don’t know if it’s still competitive, given that lots of classes now have access to stability and stun breakers. Probably not.

If you want to try power warrior, then you should try GS+Axe/Shield, it’s the most common setup. GS+Mace/Shield could also be good to start with I guess, it provides lots of active defense, but more 1v1 oriented.

Vanilla setup example:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR3ejMdQZIWFCehAnIGKCKbAegAALhWIE0uI6zCA-TpBHABts/QBPAAxPCAAcQAI4CAkfZAA

Berserker setup example:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR3enMdAlhgVhAehAElilqA7d0mantK9gYXOApA0ACAA-TpBHABifEAK4BAkfZgW2fggLAAAHEAA

Also, the carrion GS warrior has been recently played in the pro league, it’s an hybrid setup (power/condition damage):
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Warrior_-_Carrion_Hybrid

You’ll find yourself swapping sets quite often, every 5-7s or so, but it’ll take some training before you get used to it. There’s a cool video which has been recently posted, maybe you can have a look and see how the player swaps weapons?

How do you use the vanilla set up? I will probably take it with me to PvP today.

Do you ever activate the signets? If so, then when? Because I know the passive stops working until the CD ends.

When do you use the utilities? Endure Pain I’m assuming when you are about to die, but before that, when you perceive some burst damage coming, or maybe when a foe pops some offensive CDs. But with my lack of experience, I’m likely not going to use it this ability well.

Berserker Stance I imagine is best used when you have a number of conditions on you, or when you really need adrenaline, but I can’t imagine the extra adrenaline being a life saver.

Balanced Stance???? Idk… when I need to reach my foe and my throwing sword and rush are on CD. Or… when I predict I’ll need some stability, but again, with my lack of experience this will likely not be used tactically.

Would you please correct me and/or elaborate on this build?

Also, got my warrior up to 18, and my god! I did not realize how big of a difference these passives made! The Power passive increased my power by 33% and my precision passive increased my crit chance by 20%. It’s insane!

You activate the Healing Signet only to deal with conditions, either when you’re condi-bombed and need the Resistance to deal with it, or when you want to avoid being soft controlled (cripple, immobilize), for instance when retreating. Otherwise, if possible, do not activate it – if you need to heal, gain time by kiting around, or by using your invulnerabilities and block(s).

There’s no definite rule for the Signet of Rage – some want to keep the passive up for the adrenaline, some use it before attacking, to get buffed before attacking. You may also activate the signet and cancel the activation right away (by stowing weapon), effectively using it as a bait (many opponents will see the signet animation and act on it). Also, there are some runes which provide effects when you use an elite (e.g. Runes of Leadership), in which case you use the signet to trigger these effects, when necessary.

You use Endure Pain as a way to mitigate severe incoming physical damage, when other options are not available (dodging, block, evading). Opponents will monitor your usage of stances, to be able to strike once they’re on CDs, so you need to be careful with this one. Also, you have Defy Pain which procs at 50%. Personally, I do not hesitate to use it early in the fight – if I’m in trouble then, I just kite away.

Your analysis for Berserker’s Stance is fine. Early Adrenaline is quite useful though, in that it allows you to burst soon enough, and benefit from Adrenal Health (+495 HP/s for 15s at elvel 3) and Berserker’s Power from the start of the fight. Still, it’s safer to use it as a defensive stance.

Balanced stance can be used in a versatile way. It is a stun breaker, so if you get hard controlled it’s a good way to break from stun and have some pulsing stability to move on. It can also be used in an agressive way, when you attack and don’t want to be interrupted during the attack (warrior attacks are telegraphed, you’ll get interrupted a lot). Finally, it’s quite useful to finish downed opponents (you won’t be dazed, pushed away and so on).

So, I had like 20 hero points (because the passives were all I needed haha), so I spent some of them on the few stances that are in the build so I could try them out in a more controlled environment. I learned what pulsing is and how it works. I’m a little confused as to the point of pulsing, the most I can see it being used for is preventing dispelling type effects. Stability pulses every 3 seconds with a duration of 3 secs. This happens 3 times for a total of 9s Swiftness and 9s Stability (being swift and stable is a sick combo!), but what is the purpose of a 3s buff every 3s instead of a single, 9s buff?

The best way for me to git gud is to start PvPing with a solid and consistent build and simply learn the visuals for important enemy abilities, right? It seems like the biggest factor is your ability to read your foe.

Pulsing is important in PvP, less so in PvE, because lots of opponents can remove your boons. Mesmers can remove it on shatter, thieves on steal, necro by corrupting and so forth… It’s pretty common now, more than it was in the past, and unfortunately very accessible as it’s usually bound to the core mechanics of the class by a single trait.

The biggest factor to be good at brawling is actually to know your opponent. If you’ve got a competitive mindset, you’ll eventually try and play all nine classes, to get familiar with their mechanics, strengths, weaknesses and patterns. It’s a bit of time to invest, but it’s usually quite fun. Learning visuals is good of course.

As for getting good at PvP, beyond mere brawling (which is already plenty of fun) – you’ll need to learn and play Conquest, how to manage nodes, rotate across the map, handle team fights…

Note that you don’t need to farm for gear and skills to try and play in PvP. Just create a class, hop into the mists and you’re good to go – amulets and skills are automatically unlocked there.