Guild Wars 2

Warrior Banner Build

With the upcoming buffs to the Warrior’s banners, I’ve been playing around with different banner builds and their viability in sPvP and WvW. This is what I came up with. I’m always playing with my girlfriend so the minor traits in Tactics isn’t completely wasted and both banners will be carried around easily (I can only carry one banner at a time). The buffs are pretty big (almost double) so I figured I might as well adjust to it.

What do you guys think?

I say decide one thing you want to augment, and just run 1 banner.
Look at what you’re both built for and what support she brings if any then make your choice. Looking at how you are? I’d just roll Discipline, and likely scratch the Dolyak runes.

ensoriki.5789:

I say decide one thing you want to augment, and just run 1 banner.
Look at what you’re both built for and what support she brings if any then make your choice. Looking at how you are? I’d just roll Discipline, and likely scratch the Dolyak runes.

Which runes would be the most beneficial to a banner build? Right now, I have a full Divinity Rune set but I’m probably gonna’ be changing that to something more useful once this patch comes out. Also, running with only 1 banner makes the Inspiring Banner trait a bit of a waste, doesn’t it? I’ll try out a single banner without Inspiring Banner trait and see how it is though so thanks!

Skamlic.8041:

I’m not sPvP player, but I’m a bit skeptical how useful banners really are in sPvP or WvW.

Skills:
Banners are “truly shining” when used to gain regeneration. (Inspiring Battle Standard). Even with new buffs, they are a bit inferior to shout healing in sPvP and WvW (if you play solo or duo, but in big zerks they are great).
Mending is currently your only condition removal, which sucks big time.

Traits:
Leg specialist (Tactics) usually goes well with Opportunist (Arms). Defy Pain (Defense) on its own won’t give you enough survivability, but it’s still a good trait to have.

Sigils:
Sigil of Superior Blood is not that great even if you have 80% crit chance. You currently have less than 50% which is bottom baseline for me.

Runes:
Dolyak runes are alright, but you are getting only 30 hp/s, with adrenal healing (minor trait) you also get around (360 / 3) hp per sec.

Your build could work well, but if I were you, I would do few tweaks to make it even better.

Banners weren’t really all that useful before which was why I never bothered using them outside of CoF Path 1. However, with the upcoming patch, the attributes that banners give will almost double (from 90 to 170). That is a huge buff considering 90 Precision from Banner of Discipline already gives 5% critical chance. After the patch, it will easily be giving 8%+ critical chance as well as its 10% critical damage. Banner of Defense will be giving 170 armor and 1700 additional health which is insane as opposed to a mere 90 armor and 900 health before the patch.

As for condition removal, that does suck although conditions have always been a huge problem for Warriors.

This was my build before for anyone interested.

Inspiring banners is giving you near 100% upkeep on your banner, and is increasing that meh range. So it’s still a fair choice though you can whip it out.
I’m not a creative war, I’d still be bursting the hell out of people and using Discipline knowing I’d lose some functionality from another skill at the idea that the loss is negligible and straight insignificant when partnered with another individual.
I’d run the divinity. Drop Defense, Hope your Girlfriend’s got some support going on and roll-face. Switch either the Sigil on GS to flame or the sigil on Axe to Intelligence+Bloodlust or something along those lines. You’re crit rate is good enough due to baner 180+ that you don’t really need the accuracy sigil unless you were pve smashing on something really, really sturdy. However since you have ICD’s to think about then sure consider running accuracy on GS if you want to eviscerate face.
That is my perspective.

Banners are a PvE thing, and WvW if you go full support with healing power.
Else I would stay away from them.

Banners in WvWvW are extremely useful and after the next update will become even more useful. My son is currently playing a Banner warrior and he is a real force to be reckonned with. Not my playstyle but it works very well and makes for a useful healer on the battlefield.
I can not wait to see how this form of Warrior is going to play after the update. I believe (from what i have seen) these Banner warriors are going to be great.