Guild Wars 2

I’m really tired of the pack of diversity in wvw zerg builds, it’s always hammer + sword/warhorn and stances or shouts or rarely banners + signet of rage or elite banner.

I tried fiddling with other weapons and it became apparent why hammer is the optimal option:

1- it is brimming with aoe skills.
2- it has a lot of soft cc
3- it synergizes with the trait line that is best suited to survive in zergs.
4- it has a gap closer that is sufficient for the ranges it operates in.

So i tried to replicate that using other weapons and here is what i found:

1- mh mace has absolutely no soft cc, targets always get out of range.
2- oh mace was quite fun actually, but is tricky to land skill 5.
3- mh axe suffer the same deal with maces, good damage but can’t keep targets within range.
4- oh axe very fun with lots aoe damage and builds adrenaline fast, but has no cc and you’re very vulnerable when using it.
5- mh sword actually very good when traited with one exception, the hit detection on skill 2 is very dodgy and i rarely manage to hit with it and it becomes very frustrating to make use of the leg specialist trait.
6- oh sword in 1v1 very good, outside that you’d be gimping yourself.
7- shield is quite good when using skill 5, gets you out of a lot of situations, but skill 4 is pointless outside 1v1 encounters.
8- gs is good as an escape tool and stacking some might, but has no defenses and skill 2 is crippling and makes you a sitting duck.

I may be doing this wrong, but so far the meta build has been the same since forever and i just can’t stand doing the same bloody thing with my warrior in wvw.

No, you pretty much have it right. The reason the meta hasn’t really changed for this is nothing has particularly changed for that style of play as far as warriors are concerned.

But there’s nothing saying you have to go with what’s optimal. Fun is a pretty integral part of why people play games, so if you don’t find the meta fun, don’t play it.

Worker warrior is lame. No one wants to run worker warrior @ a raid.
Destroyer warrior is were your future is^^

What about roaming instead of zerking with the zombie ehh I mean randoms?

Hi,

About the hammer, you also forgot about 5: Earthshaker is a Blast Finisher, and in an optimized group it is of utmost importance to blast combo fields, both on impacts and repacks. Warriors are the primary source of blasts (except when you pack in a D/D elementalist).

In the end, it’s a matter of which role you intend to fulfill, and whether you run in optimized group (for instance in a GvG guild). The hammer/sword+warhorn is simply excellent at what it does (melee “aggro” support role): 2 regular blast finishers, AoE heal, AoE condition removal, AoE boon, hard control.

But you could put yourself in another role, for instance running a full GS berserker warrior and taking care of casters around, like a thief. It’s quite fun to play, and still brings a lot to the group (casters have little defense, but are the originators of combo fields and damage, so they’re really important as well).

If you don’t run in optimized groups, then you may very well try whatever you want – provided you include some elements in the build that support the group, it would still be more than most lambda players. If you want to run optimized settings, but not the two kinds of warrior mentioned above, then it could be the opportunity for you to try and play other classes, if you still haven’t

When power/toughness/condition damage gear is released, then sword will work.

The pr0blem with sword is not its potency, it’s the bad hit registration on skill 2.