Guild Wars 2

I have been going with the fact I was going to be tanky, but reading the forums today I realized that’s not a popular theory.

I have been spec’ing into Shield Mastery and survivability, and taking Toughness and Vitality when I can, and I use a shield and mace.

Thanks in advance for the help

:)

Find out for yourself.

We could tell you, but then we’d have to nerf you.

I’ve tried a mace/shield tanky build in sPvP and it’s friggin awesome. Very fun to play.
You can go for a glassy build and get oneshotted by BS thiefs every 20 seconds or you can go tanky, counter them and watch em run.
Ofc, sword/warhorn takes care of catching up to the fleeing squishies.

so what alot of people will tell you is warriors dont tank as well as guardians, and they are wrong or are doing it wrong. i tank with no problems at all anyways shout heals is the way to go clerics gear and saphire jewlery if your going to tank i perfer axe/shield because the axe scales the best to power. sense there will be no condition dmg on the toughness/healing gear it makes sense not to use the sword. the mace is decent it was the one i was tossing off with but in the end i perfer axe more and the arms trait that gives chance of putting vulnerability on targets. that with number 2 axe skill stacks lots of vulnderability hense helping out your group with more dps. im not sure if you ment pvp or pve sense in pvp you dont really tank the targets go where they want to. in pve they tent to go for the meatest players not all the time but i ran ac last night an tanked 90%of the time with 3 other guardians in the group. if you can stay out of red circles and use ur healing shouts wise you will do great. i have a guardian and a warrior and i perfer my warrior over guardian for tanking dungeons i just have more fun and the dps with axe is nice.

For dungeons i find it’s better to spec a more all-around build, which is very easy for warriors because of their raw stats.

My warrior runs 20/0/20/30/0 with Soldier’s armor and Sup Soldier’s rune. That puts me @ 3k attack, 3k def and 27k HP. You can dish out some good pain, party-heal and remove cond with your shouts. I usually go with Axe/Warhorn, but in dungeons with less conditions, i’d use GS for more dmg.

You can have all that and still be a solid tank.

The warrior more or less take the hits and shrug them off because of a big HP pool. The guardian heals some of the dmg, blocks some with aegis and reduces some incoming dmg with protection (but also shares these with the party).

Wobels:
If I understand you correct you built around power toughness and healing while getting Vit from shout traitline.
There are several questions:

Going almost full healing how much healing you got ond how much healing does 1 shout in your current gear?

Is a max defense built much different? I mean do you survive hits you wouldnt have if you geared a mix of defense and offense? Can you facetank stoff much longer than you would in said mixed gear? And If so how great is the difference?

Ok So you are loosing health slower than without that Defense but you still loose it. Are shouts and healspell enough to keep you healthy?

What are you doing If you need burstdamage because stuff needs to die fast (like burrows in AC)

Does Eviscerate hits multiple targets or just one?

Please link your built. Id like to see it.

In before “Guardians-are-better-baddies”.

Yes, a 110% yes to warriors as a “tank” class… (obviusly not a wowish tank, but a GW2 wise tank).

How do you manage durability in PvE/WvW without resorting to the Soldier set? I’ve been using a mix of Cleric, Knight, and Valkyrie items, but I still find myself getting bursted down by a glass cannon thief.

As a player that has a Guardian in full Power/Toughness/Vitality gear, as well as a warrior in the same gear, apart from accessories, using Knight on them. I can say once you learn to play Warrior well and get the timing down well, they can be more tanky especially in boss encounters than a Guardian, however it does involve timing “Counter blow” well, being able to block an attack with that one skill alone every 8 seconds, is incredibly powerful.

And while Weakness can be weaker than protection, some times weakness really dampens the spikes more than protection when it really counts. Do not be put off playing your Warrior as a tank, there is a wagon full of DPS players that will scream foul that you are not DPS as well because they need to justify their own build to make them selves believe their own value.

This is from a perspective of PVE Dungeons, Timing your blocks will make a huge difference, learning to combo that with dodge will make an even huge difference, and then learning to cycle your CC will top it all off.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApejAJ/mfAA9wqrAzU4n0DAQLNA;TsAqsMZJyymlLLZWrLGFc24txcDA

Current build I am using, may not be perfect but have done most content in Melee with no issue with bosses focusing on me, including Melee on Lupi during phase three.

No, warrior tanks are not very popular.

In PvE, tanks in general are not popular. Dungeons are easy enough that speed clearers will use 5 glass cannons and still have no issues with survivability.

In PvP, warriors tanks are definitely outclassed by Guardian tanks. This may change soon though, as guardian tanks are considered to have a huge negative impact on the competitive meta.

Gorge about your comment on PvE being easy and doable by 5 glass cannons. Might be true, you might have your occational wipe and it’s pretty stressfull dodging and jumping around ressing one glass cannon after the other.. Ever tried with a beefy guard or war and a water ele and 3 dedicated DPS? … So much easier! and not all that slower! This combined with the new dungeon coming where difficulty progressively gets harder and harder and harder i don’t think your theory of 5x glass cannon will get you very far!

That being said – warrior tanks are awesome in all parts of the game. Guardians might be able to soak more direct dmg on paper but they also hit like wet noodles. As a wammo warrior you will still be able to dish out semi good dmg and be VERY tanky.

I either run a bruiser greatsword/hammer build or i run a full wammo setup with shout healing

Yea i’ve done groups with more tanky setups. I have even ran tanky setups myself.

It’s noticeably more difficult. It’s not very noticeable in the easier dungeons, but very noticeable in Arah. The tankiness is not enough to save you, and enemies take longer to kill. All the hardest PvE challenges in this game are currently a matter of dodging and/or killing the enemy before you mess up.

Currently, tanky builds get LESS useful as the difficulty progresses. This may be the case in the new dungeon too.

That said, i do greatly appreciate certain support builds. For example, Guardians can give perma protection without sacrificing much damage, and elementalists can give perma protection, fury, and swiftness with an aura build.

i use gs;axe+shield, 0-20-30-0-20 with knight armor+soldier rune, i have two sets of weapons and jewelry knight+berserk. Need more dmg use berserk need more defense use knight. My crit chance is still around 85% FB so i use omnobery pie (66% chance steal life on crit) and weapons with sigil of blood (30% chance steal life on crit ICD 2s) than lot of HP goes back Only what i miss from guardian si Protection boon which help alot. Oposite side we have better shield stance.
You can be tank and one funny definition warrior tank=guardian tank + 8k HP

soldier / aurora armor pieces, knights trinkes, ruby runes, pearl GS.

21k hp, 3.1k attack, 3.5k armor, 37% base crit, 20% crit mod.

i lose against kiting condition damage necros who outlast me with their 3 life bars but thats about it.

20/0/20/30/0 here shout warrior here, soldier runes 29k hp axe/shield then whatever the next encounter needs for the other weap, I wouldnt change my build, I enjoy it in dungeons and wvw, if I feel like glass cannon I play my alt

Gorge Express.7163:

Yea i’ve done groups with more tanky setups. I have even ran tanky setups myself.

It’s noticeably more difficult. It’s not very noticeable in the easier dungeons, but very noticeable in Arah. The tankiness is not enough to save you, and enemies take longer to kill. All the hardest PvE challenges in this game are currently a matter of dodging and/or killing the enemy before you mess up.

Currently, tanky builds get LESS useful as the difficulty progresses. This may be the case in the new dungeon too.

That said, i do greatly appreciate certain support builds. For example, Guardians can give perma protection without sacrificing much damage, and elementalists can give perma protection, fury, and swiftness with an aura build.

Hmm, can’t really say that I agree. A good tank (in GW2 terms, not WoW) can allow EZ AoE hotspots and combo points. We’re not talking about pure facetanking for 20 seconds, of course, but it’s a huge chaotic mess of running and dodging around like crazy otherwise. That’s my own experience. Anyone else have anything to add to this?

The only tank build I know that can work is confusion and bleed damage stacking. Then again the only reason why you ever get toughness with that build is so you can initiate for the team. You have better pray that your group can back up your initiation otherwise its going to be pointless.

You cant face tank in this game on any spec. If you stand in the fire no matter what your vit/toughness is your dead. Some boss mobs you can use heals and tank just fine but most you will melt.

If you know the bosses and how the instance works, full DPS is fine.

Warrior’s make awesome Tanks. I’m running 10/0/30/30/0. Hammer and Mace/Shield (Knight’s Hammer Exotic, Knights Mace Rare, Pact Shield. These will all eventually be Tough/Vita from dungeons). Full Rare Sapphire Jewelery. Running runes of Earth for 6 seconds of Protection every 30 seconds. Utilities are Healing Surge, Banner of Defense, Fear Me (sometimes Shake it Off), Endure Pain, Battle Standard.

Traits: Strength (III), Defense (V, IX, X), Tactics (II, V, and XI if I remember right). At level 80 with buffs from both of my banners, I have 3500 Armor, 3K attack, 26K Health

I use healing banners so I can give my party steady Regeneration, which also outheals 2 Healing Shouts on a 20 second cooldown from my calculations.

Best tanking experience I’ve head was holding off a Graveling Burrow all by myself in AC exploreable (first and only time through) while my group finished off all the other ones. Was downed a few times but got up from killing something.

Koop.4602:

If you know the bosses and how the instance works, full DPS is fine.

As a more “solid” warrior than a full DPS, I have to agree. It comes down to knowing the boss and the dungeon you are doing more than what spec you are really…

If you want to be the best tank possible, Guardian is better at it.

If you want to be able to tank, warrior is perfectly fine tanking; I run shout heal tank build most of the time for dungeons. Guardian can just do it better/easier. I keep 2 armor sets on me now though; If there’s no guardian, i wear my tanky setup, if there is a guardian, i’ll just swap to dps gear. Keep a shield handy at all times.

Monki.5012:

Wobels:
If I understand you correct you built around power toughness and healing while getting Vit from shout traitline.
There are several questions:

Going almost full healing how much healing you got ond how much healing does 1 shout in your current gear?

Is a max defense built much different? I mean do you survive hits you wouldnt have if you geared a mix of defense and offense? Can you facetank stoff much longer than you would in said mixed gear? And If so how great is the difference?

Ok So you are loosing health slower than without that Defense but you still loose it. Are shouts and healspell enough to keep you healthy?

What are you doing If you need burstdamage because stuff needs to die fast (like burrows in AC)

Does Eviscerate hits multiple targets or just one?

Please link your built. Id like to see it.

sorry took so long but i was sick. so here is a link to a post that i made about tanking and all my stuff about my build
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Warriors-looking-for-dungeon-tank-support-builds/first#post718751

alot of your questions i cant honestly answer to the T cause im at work and not able to hop on and check it out but i have alot of healing im not sure how much.. anyways each shout is ruffly 1900hp? give or take i can face tank anything honestly when i run with the guild im the heavy tank all the rest are glass cannons. most of the time the mobs come to me cause i have more toughness and defense using shield. in ac instead of me bursting the mounds the group does it. i keep the stuff off him wile they burn the others then when they run by i grab agro from thier mobs and just hold them till they finish up. i have been with 2 tanks then i would switch to my other axe and do bursts on the mounds since power scales well with axes its decent dmg. there is a huge difference without all the toughness and healing i am glass cannon in magic find gear and im amazed at how fast i drop lol not used to it.
eviscrate is a single target only unfortunatly but that axe just auto attack is decent dmg and its very fast.
its totally support role no doubt your helping out other so instead of picking them up off the ground all the time with them being cannons. they can unload and in turn knocks stuff out quick. its all about managing shouts and knowing when to use stand your ground its the biggest life saver and shield block is amazing although the cooldowns on shields abilitys are long hopefully they fix that tomorrow but we will see.
to add to this running a tank with full dps group its alot less time you spend picking others up and wiping it saves time in the long run. alot less chaotic as well since all the mobs gravitate to you your team can practicly just aoe stuff down hense killing multiple targets faster then 1 target at a time cause they are so scattered chasing everyone. the 1shots will still get you thats just part of learning when to pop shake it off and block.

Wobels.1679:

the mace is decent it was the one i was tossing off with

o_o

0_o what? did you not read the rest of it?

Could try 2x ways, I use them both depending on my mood.

1.) kinghts armor with runes of the pack (god mode for dungeons) emerald trinkets soldier class (power/vit/tough) mace and shield with on crit party heal and life steal.
traits are 0/0/30/30/10 taking shield master, Embrace the pain, defy pain ( could swap adren when hit for stance duration i think) then in vit tree regen banner is a must then whatever else you like. and in dis I do shouts gain adren melee weps make you run faster or increased crit based on adren.
with this build you should never lose aggro because you have a shield you are the closest and you’re doing alot of crits. and this is also probably the better of the 2 builds for lvl 70+ dungeons as your crit chance and healing arnt capped as much.
mending/FGjustice/shake it off/1 banner (I do tactics)/signet of rage

2.) soldier armor/weps with rune of soldier and any sigils you want clerics jewelry (until soldiers jewelry can be gotten >.>)
0/0/30/30/10 traits same defense traits vit traits need to be taliord for shouts (shouts heal+ 20% faster CD) and in dis you will need insipiring shouts
use either mending or healing surge ( you have a ton of condition removal with your shouts) FGjustice/on my mark/shake it off spamming the first 2 for CD removal and more dps for the group using shake it off to break stuns or remove more then 1 CD if needed elite can be whatever.
this build doesnt have as much healing for the group but is great for low lvl dungeons because your HP pool and toughness are so high for the lvl teirs, keeps decent aggro since your are usually the closest and you have a shield though you dont crit as much.