Guild Wars 2

In almost all PvE content warriors run PS builds. They have amazing offensive support, but mediocre damage. I’ve been wondering how high of dps a warrior could get if they sacrificed their support in favor of pure dps.

I did some work on figuring out such a build, with no luck. I started out thinking back to pre-HoT dungeon meta, where warriors would run fast hands and axe/mace on swap if they were the second warrior in the party. I figured taking discipline instead of tactics would let me access other weapon skills that could up dps, but whatever I tried quickly dropped dps below standard PS berserker. What I found is that with the berserker specialization, there is very little need to autoattack in gs in the standard rotation, and avoiding gs auto was the main reason to fast hands swap, so fast hands doesn’t have much of a place in berserker builds. If someone has a rotation that shows otherwise, please share because I love that trait.

Other alternatives to tactics are defense, which doesn’t have anything useful for dps, and arms. Arms has some useful things being adrenaline regen, and some minor dps boosts, but not as much as tactics since they are mostly condi based. Because of this, I feel like tactics, with empower allies and empowered (1% damage per boon on you), is actually the best dps choice even though it is mostly taken for the support.

So when it came down to it, the best dps I was able to get was the regular PS berserker build with the banners replaced by other things. Signet of might and wild blow for some damage. Is PS berserker actually the highest damage power build for warrior in addition to providing all that offensive support?

DPS testing was done on the golem with all buffs and all condis.

Fluffy.1932:

Other alternatives to tactics are defense, which doesn’t have anything useful for dps

Armored Attack: with no additional toughness you still get 100 additional power.
Cleansing Ire indirectly gives you more dps by allowing you to fill adren faster
Cull the Weak is effectively a 1.6% damage boost.

Yeah, those are minor and not the best, but they’re still useful. And, I realize I’m being pedantic; sorry.

Fluffy.1932:

Arms has some useful things being adrenaline regen, and some minor dps boosts, but not as much as tactics since they are mostly condi based.

I disagree a bit here. Dual Wielding increases your damage by 15% just because you’re attacking 15% faster. Bloodlust is an additional 5% when your enemy is bleeding, and it certainly doesn’t need to be bleeds you apply… the 33% longer can be effectively ignored (but if you want to add bleeds yourself, then roll a charr and use shrapnel mine). Rending Strikes for my build usually keeps up at least 3 stacks of vuln, and I’m not geared in ‘zerk gear. So, if my enemy is bleeding I do roughly +23% dam… that’s more than I get in tactics.

~EW

edit: but, I recognize that it’s all on paper as far as what I stated above… I don’t have golem tests for you, sorry.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Fluffy.1932:

Other alternatives to tactics are defense, which doesn’t have anything useful for dps

Armored Attack: with no additional toughness you still get 100 additional power.
Cleansing Ire indirectly gives you more dps by allowing you to fill adren faster
Cull the Weak is effectively a 1.6% damage boost.

Yeah, those are minor and not the best, but they’re still useful. And, I realize I’m being pedantic; sorry.

Fluffy.1932:

Arms has some useful things being adrenaline regen, and some minor dps boosts, but not as much as tactics since they are mostly condi based.

I disagree a bit here. Dual Wielding increases your damage by 15% just because you’re attacking 15% faster. Bloodlust is an additional 5% when your enemy is bleeding, and it certainly doesn’t need to be bleeds you apply… the 33% longer can be effectively ignored (but if you want to add bleeds yourself, then roll a charr and use shrapnel mine). Rending Strikes for my build usually keeps up at least 3 stacks of vuln, and I’m not geared in ‘zerk gear. So, if my enemy is bleeding I do roughly +23% dam… that’s more than I get in tactics.

~EW

edit: but, I recognize that it’s all on paper as far as what I stated above… I don’t have golem tests for you, sorry.

No, attackspeed modifiers doesnt work like that, it will use the max one (quickness) they are usualy garbage.
Just play with arms and full berzerker gear because of signet mastery

ADTempys.6382:

No, attackspeed modifiers doesnt work like that, it will use the max one (quickness) they are usualy garbage.
Just play with arms and full berzerker gear because of signet mastery

Since I don’t give myself quickness, that’s a moot point. Atm with what I’m running, that’s the only attack speed bonus I grant myself…. and unlike quickness it’s on all the time.

~EW

I was thinking about this in terms of a warrior filling a dps role in a dungeon/fractal/raid group. It would never be better than other classes at dps, but how good could it get? This means that I’m assuming there are other people there to give you buffs, so I was assuming 100% quickness uptime from the resident chrono.

Fluffy.1932:

I was thinking about this in terms of a warrior filling a dps role in a dungeon/fractal/raid group. It would never be better than other classes at dps, but how good could it get? This means that I’m assuming there are other people there to give you buffs, so I was assuming 100% quickness uptime from the resident chrono.

What if there’s no chrono in your group, then?

I guess I’m too solo-minded in builds.. in that I don’t ever build in consideration of what others are giving to me, since it’s not something I can depend on always getting. It’s also why I’m super-skeptical any time I see test golem stats when someone has piled on all the buffs they can get; that’s not anywhere close to realistic from my (limited grouping) experience.

~EW

If there is no chrono, then there is probably some merit to taking attack speed buffs. However I mostly play raids, and so I was coming at this from mostly that perspective. Although all buffs is not an accurate depiction of how much damage you will do, it is an accurate way to compare builds for raiding scenarios.

I suppose I should rephrase my question as, if a group wanted to put a warrior in a dps slot in a raid, what could they do to get some more dps? That should narrow the focus enough I think.

Fluffy.1932:

I was thinking about this in terms of a warrior filling a dps role in a dungeon/fractal/raid group. It would never be better than other classes at dps, but how good could it get? This means that I’m assuming there are other people there to give you buffs, so I was assuming 100% quickness uptime from the resident chrono.

Full dps condi berserker gets 27k dps on small hit box wuth realistic raid buffs and 29k wit full buffs. 30.5k vs large hit box with full buffs.

This is likely as good as it gets for warrior unless anet buffs heavily.