Guild Wars 2

Hello

Here it is
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAneTjgOBvxQ6OMxBEzDjoI+P9B7IzQMGQA-T0AA1CtIETJmTMjYSisEN6Y1xpjJIvOA

I’ll provide analysis on each relevant part of the build.

Weapons

Longbow has been buffed considerably. Pin Down is dangerous with 6 bleeds and the 34% duration makes immobilize a problem for cleansing. Warriors will do their best dmg in melee, which pin down is threatening them with. The power makes arcing arrow nasty. Fan fire hits fast, and all three can be spammed for spike and dots. 4 skill is a free miss. Combustive Shot is critically important. Have this up ASAP, because your movement control will lock your target into the field and make life hell for them.

Axe and Shield provide defense, sustain, and control. Stun locks them in place, you have another immobilize and cripple with Throw Axe, and the best autoattack on the Warrior. Shield stance is good for stalling for a heal, blocking 100B, blurred frenzy, etc. You have two leap, one projectile, and a whirl finisher too so you maximize the fire field with all the finishers, including blast from arcing arrow.

Healing, Utilities, and Elite

Mending is the most important heal for Warriors. Condi cleanse is not as strong as other professions. Stamina clears all condis too, so that’s a strong combo. Not as good as shout soldier runes, or lyssa and stamina, but you’ll see why it’s enough. Balanced stance is great at stun breaking and keeping control off you. Might signet is to raise power, and give you an edge against guardians, shield warriors/engineers, and anytime aegis comes up on your target. Keep it up as much as possible though, you’ll see why. Also, you can’t larcenous strike away the power you get from signets. Signet of Rage is awesome b/c of fury, might, and, most importantly, swiftness. This lets you roam efficiently.

Traits

This part is going to be the part that surprises/offends/confuses people. Why Strength? Condition duration makes movement control very strong. If you can’t keep running fast in circles around a warrior they get more hits in. Immobilize is even worse. Next, your Mending gets stronger with more condi cleanse. You get more health and more damage with different levels of adrenaline. I like traits that don’t require micromanagement.

Tactics provides more health and extends boons from Rage signet. Immobilize on cripple makes axe even better at controlling movement. Shrug it off adds more condi cleanse without any fuss or micromanagement. You also get the fastest revive, which helps a lot in teamfights.

Discipline is to give you near permanent boons from Rage signet and make switching weapons really fast. 15% crit bonus is nice too.

Runes, Sigils, Amulet

The Sanctuary runes provide retal at a pretty high proc rate with a lowish cooldown. When it comes up on a warrior nobody expects it. That’s what guardians are supposed to do. When you have 2300 power retal becomes deadly. It gives you an edge in 1v1 fights and if ppl use smite, rapid shot, or other many hit skills. After using it several matches I’m finding it to be quite valuable. Extending condition duration more makes movement control even better.

Soldier is awesome for adding survivability and power. There are no precision procs or RNG in this build. 2k vitality has a great advantage because you already have 1.5k toughness for direct damage and the health makes conditions less painful. That is why the “subpar” condi cleanse isn’t as much a problem. This isn’t a cleric build where condi cleanse is a matter of life and death. Even HGH engis take a bit more time to deal with 30k hp and the condi cleanse we already have.

Doom might be puzzling, but it’s the same reason why we’re using longbow instead of rifle, hammer, or something else. Conditions last longer, and are important to have even though we don’t have high condi dmg. It’s guaranteed damage and pressures them to cleanse. That makes our movement control better and that means more axe hits because cleansing burn, bleeds, poison, cripple and/or immobilize is annoying. Hydromancy is great for melee in general. I don’t think you get an extension from runes, but if I’m wrong great.

Final Analysis

The diversified approach of direct damage and condis, fire combo field and all finishers in one character, excellent movement control, sustain single target damage, retaliation at its most deadly on hit, high health, decent toughness, strong swiftness duration, fury, might, unblockable attacks, stability, condi cleanse, and no RNG makes your performance reliable and consistent. You can help in teamfights and duel pretty well. It takes practice and understanding other professions’ tactics though.

Thanks for reading if you did the whole way through. I’d like to see feedback based on trying it. If you don’t like how the build looks please try it first before criticizing it. If not, oh well.

jmatb

I’ll add that builds alone are not going to make you an excellent player. The more you pay attention to how people that kill you are playing, do research on different professions, check out how the pros play, etc. the better.

I don’t have a mic or videos so TLDR textwall of jmatb is all I got. Sorry.

It does look interesting and it might do decently in spvp, but I don’t really see it working in Tpvp, over all I might give it a try when I’m bored enough to go back to spvp and let you know how it went for me.

I can’t give much more feed back cause, for one classes with condition based builds such as necros will put all those conditions you cleansed with your heal right back on you. Axe auto attack hits the hardest but misses the most due to the horrible animation, also with sword you get bleeds, a jump closer skill and the same control from the cripple immobilize.

Bow is great but without sustainable condition damage it really can’t do much if the enemy is smart and dodges your aoe’s which they should if they are in a competitive level, in wvw the bow is a god send though.

I used to run signet of stamina along stances in a sword/warhorn + hammer build and it was quite successful in it’s days lol. And that means when I didn’t find Spvp to a boring version of Call of Duty…and that is saying a lot. “Oh and for the record I know CoD sucks but that’s how bad it is atm.”

Thanks.

I do tpvp and this works. Finalized the build after running matches there. You’ll last a long time against one player, even the “unbeatable” rangers and guardians. If you have a partner combustive shot makes a perfect battlefield for boons and burns.

The format of soldier amulet, high power and vitality traits, and 4 sanctuary actually crosses over really well into other professions too. My ele D/D with cantrips and retal wrecked shop. Never done a thief before, but I did tpvp with s/d and shortbow and soloed a guardian bunker.

*Updated the build. Strength XII makes every SoRage Berserker’s Stance, so having 12% extra damage is pretty much all match long if you choose the right time for burst right.

I tried this myself when i swap out my GS for the LB and the mobility is lacking. If I get caught with a LB im as good as dead in melee.

Interesting build but your runes are strange, you picked one with increased freeze duration only freeze you have is on a weapon swap not too reliable