Guild Wars 2

As a tank-specced Warrior, I just marvel at how much better my friend’s Guardian is at tanking. His health bar barely moves in dungeons. Even with 30/30 in Defense/Tactics, my Warrior isn’t anywhere near as tanky…

Not even close. Warriors are pretty bad at tanking. Big HP pool does nothing, you need spammable healing and avoidance, which Warrior lacks.

So what exactly are Warriors good for? If you go loldps you suffer from what I call “The Thief Syndrome” – if a mob as much as fart in your direction, you drop “dead”…

DPS bro.

90+% crit rate with vamp sigil and onom pies can go raw dmg, and regen health like a feind. add in banner regen on top of that and what you have is top dps, with strong survivability…not a bad combination on any day.

switch zerker for pwr/prec/toughness and ýou’re even more survivable. only prob is single target mobs or a boss with strong melee, your regen isnt’as good as when you are hitting 3+ mobs, (switch to rifle as needed) or if you get stunned (the dredge in SE). but as long as you’re swinging you are good, and you put your guardians dmg to shame.

the secret is omnom pies, your dead without them.

If I wanted DPS, I would’ve rolled a Thief or something.

How about this:
“Try to actually avoid taking Damage!”

There is a reason Movement+Dodge evades attks. So we can try to avoid them in combat with any class we play. It’s nice to have more vits for health, more defense and more dps rates, but what is the point if you’re going to stand there and soak damage for NO REASON?

Honestly, you shouldnt be standing still soaking damage with any classes.
Warriors, just like every other classes, have to deal “Damage”, stay in “Control” and “Support” themselfs to stay useful and self-effeciant, just like everyone else.

Build your character however you want, But for god sakes, don’t tank… Move out of the way of attks and stay active with meele and ranged weapons. Coordinate Control/Support with ur team and do some damage.

There are no Healers to babysitt you. And it’s nobody’s job to do that for you either.

Oglaf.1074:

If I wanted DPS, I would’ve rolled a Thief or something.

All classes must deal “Damage”,
All Classes must coordinate “Control & Support”

Honestly, playing a different class is just playstyle prefferences in how you enjoy executing them incombat. If all you focus on is DPS, you’ll be in trouble.

Oglaf.1074:

So what exactly are Warriors good for? If you go loldps you suffer from what I call “The Thief Syndrome” – if a mob as much as fart in your direction, you drop “dead”…

Sure, I’ll tell you what they’re good for.

1.) In sPvP, forcing out people’s stun breaks so they get focused easily. You have Skull Crack, Shield Bash, Bulls Charge as stuns in which you can chain HB if you aren’t planning to stay at a low skill level like Edelweiss. Therefore it is EASY to force out stun breaks as a Warrior because if they don’t stun break, you land HB or whatever easily. Your mobility is great (So long as its Great Sword) even though its not as good as an Ele. Difference between Thief and Warrior is that Warrior can initiate and chain stun better (So long as you actually have a Mace + Shield instead of the typical Axe + Shield which isn’t even a good weapon set in the first place anyways) while Thief is better at finishing people off at 50% HP.

2.) In WvW, please tell me what isn’t going to work in this mode.

3.) Tanking isn’t what you’re focusing on as a Warrior, you have to learn how to predict and “trade hits” efficiently. If you honestly need stats to carry you whenever you screw up then Warrior isn’t the class for you.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Oglaf.1074:

If I wanted DPS, I would’ve rolled a Thief or something.

All classes must deal “Damage”,
All Classes must coordinate “Control & Support”

Honestly, playing a different class is just playstyle prefferences in how you enjoy executing them incombat. If all you focus on is DPS, you’ll be in trouble.

Doesn’t change the fact that if you’re out for DPS, you’re better off with a Thief. When I read “Heavy Armour” I expected something other than a wannabe-Thief…

Class change token in Gem Store, please?

Oglaf.1074:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Oglaf.1074:

If I wanted DPS, I would’ve rolled a Thief or something.

All classes must deal “Damage”,
All Classes must coordinate “Control & Support”

Honestly, playing a different class is just playstyle prefferences in how you enjoy executing them incombat. If all you focus on is DPS, you’ll be in trouble.

Doesn’t change the fact that if you’re out for DPS, you’re better off with a Thief. When I read “Heavy Armour” I expected something other than a wannabe-Thief…

Class change token in Gem Store, please?

It isn’t a Thief duplicate.. the only Thief duplicate build that I know off is Rifle + GS. Ever played fighting games before? Ever heard of the term “juggling?”

It is a Thief-wannabe.

Plus, lets not pretend Guardians can’t do damage if they so please.

So I ask you again: what defining feature makes Warriors not a weaker version of the Guardian?

Oglaf.1074:

It is a Thief-wannabe.

Plus, lets not pretend Guardians can’t do damage if they so please.

So I ask you again: what defining feature makes Warriors not a weaker version of the Guardian?

Two different roles, you can’t really compare a bruiser to a support. Warriors can’t bunker while Guardians can’t roam. The question is what makes Warrior different from a Thief because Warrior is supposed to roam. A question which I just answered btw. Its important to have people forcing out stun breaks and Warrior happens to do that better than Thief.

Guardian is a bruiser as well. As I said, don’t turn a blind eye to the fact that Guardians do very, very nice damage if they so chose.

Anyway, you’re all (I assume) just talking about PvP. Show a PvE example where a Warrior is preferable to a Guardian.

There are none.

Oglaf.1074:

Guardian is a bruiser as well. As I said, don’t turn a blind eye to the fact that Guardians do very, very nice damage if they so chose.

Anyway, you’re all (I assume) just talking about PvP. Show a PvE example where a Warrior is preferable to a Guardian.

There are none.

OHHH you were talking about PvE?

Anything works in PvE to be honest. So long as you aren’t anti-social, get a party going, and not get wrecked by how predictable mobs are, anything should be fine.

I can see why you would pick a Guardian over a Warrior in PvE but I’ll be frank and say it will never hurt to have a Warrior in PvE. Killing power and the ability to res party members easy (Frenzy, Endure Pain, Balance Stance and Battle Standard) in dungeons while being glass cannon is amazing.

Still does not change the fact that the Warrior isn’t nearly as generally useful as a Guardian (who needs Battle Standard when a Guardian can hold a mobs attention 24/7?)

Oglaf.1074:

Still does not change the fact that the Warrior isn’t nearly as generally useful as a Guardian (who needs Battle Standard when a Guardian can hold a mobs attention 24/7?)

Thing is, for PvE, all you really want is damage. You want to be able to clear dungeons fast and smooth so you achieve what you’re trying to achieve faster. Of course Guardian does tank better, that’s a given. But Warriors definitely DPS better whether its AoE or boss fights. And to have amazing kill power be it AoE or single target (which is as good as survivability simply because death is as good as crowd control) on top of easy res is just too valuable in PvE.

TL;DR Measuring efficiency in PvE is mostly about damage and clearing as quickly as possible. Aggro-soaking is important yes but reaching that level isn’t really that hard.

Schwahrheit.4203:

But Warriors definitely DPS better whether its AoE or boss fights.

And all other classes DPS way better than a Warrior.

Schwahrheit.4203:

TL;DR PvE is mostly about damage and clearing as quickly as possible.

I disagree. You’ll want some beefy guy up front to attract attention. Clearing a dungeon with all DPS classes in Light Armor is a lot more time consuming than 4 DPS 1 Tank (read: Guardian) because you don’t wipe.

Oglaf.1074:

Schwahrheit.4203:

But Warriors definitely DPS better whether its AoE or boss fights.

And all other classes DPS way better than a Warrior.

Schwahrheit.4203:

TL;DR PvE is mostly about damage and clearing as quickly as possible.

I disagree. You’ll want some beefy guy up front to attract attention. Clearing a dungeon with all DPS classes in Light Armor is a lot more time consuming than 4 DPS 1 Tank (read: Guardian) because you don’t wipe.

Well here’s another point, its not like PvE was hard to begin with. That’s why I did say it wouldn’t hurt to have a Warrior considering you can already 4-man a dungeon anyways with any class with this game’s PvE standards.

You’re talking out of your behind. But I digress, that isn’t what this thread is about. Regardless of how easy or hard you feel PvE is, the point still stand that Guardians are so much better at it that they make Warriors pointless.

Warriors can’t tank many dungeon bosses in the traditional sense, but here are some things we can do:

- Provide massive DPS and might stacking, in a not-quite-glass damage spec (Sonic Boon GS Build)
- Clear conditions constantly with frequent heals, AoE weakness, AoE vigor and moderate DPS (Yojack */warhorn variants)
- Excellent single-target or AoE crowd control and interrupts (Mace/ Shield, Hammer)
- Plenty of straight up DPS specs (Axe/ Axe is nice, and you’re still in heavy armor)

Warriors have many options, and a good player can be very effective with them. If one class is better at one thing (not dying), that hardly obviates everything else.

In most games, i play the assassin/thief class, and i hate the warrior.. but ive taken to the warrior in GW2, i have a lvl 80 warrior and lvl 80 guardian. i have my guardian speced for support hammer, and my warrior balanced 20/20/10/20/0, with power prec and tough armor. i can stay alive and still knock out 34k+ HB. its all on play style, i like the mobility and feel of warrior instead of thief or guardian…. ive tried tanking spec with warrior (wanted to use the hammer badly with warrior) and guardian.. but guardian was better at support “tank” imo because of how i play.. ive seen an ele “tank”; just pick a class that fits you class doesn’t matter as much as it does in most games. which is nice imo. At the end of the day, no matter what class your are, with out dodging and using your class utilities properly, you will die… a lot.

Oglaf.1074:

Schwahrheit.4203:

But Warriors definitely DPS better whether its AoE or boss fights.

And all other classes DPS way better than a Warrior.

In PvE AoE dps the only thing that comes close to a warrior is a grenadier engineer. Admittedly the engineer can offer more dps for the team as a whole, by keeping up a constant 20+ vulnerability stacks, but I would still prefer 1 engineer + 1 warrior to 2 engineers for PvE.

Oglaf.1074:

You’re talking out of your behind.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

I don’t see any reason to condescend to the OP. I’ve honestly wondered where we best fit in for groups myself. I suppose it’s just semantics but I’ve never equated the term or act of TANKING with just standing there getting punched square in the face repeatedly. Unless of course doing so facilitates keeping agro, which it doesn’t seem to anywhere in this game that I’ve found so far. It kinda goes without saying that anything at your disposal to prolong your life and the lives of your group mates, and thus your individual and group’s ability to damage the target, should be employed to that end (strafing, dodging, singing it a song, telling it a joke, showing it pictures of your kids, etc.). I’ve always taken the term TANKING to primarily mean occupying the top spot on the mobs threat list and there by keeping it’s agro exclusively on you as opposed to on any of the squishies.

I haven’t played a Guardian nearly to the extent I’ve played my Warrior but, and this is a 100% COMPLETELY SUBJECTIVE OPINION, but I think in general Guardians just have their potential specs a lot more “cut-and-dried” than we do (if that makes any sense). Through our choices in traits, skills, armor & weps we can focus on the tankier side and, so far from my experience at least, pull it off without too much trouble. I think we have to get a little more “active” (for lack of a better term), through kiting, CCs, other tricks, and I think it goes without saying that we avoid damage period, as much as possible as opposed to mitigating through skills after we take the blow. In many games past, the “classic Warrior tank” often depended on getting hit as part of the class’ design to keep aggro but that definitely isn’t the case here.

Long story short. We definitely can tank (as much as any class can specialize in any of the formerly “trinity group foundation” roles) but I personally feel it requires more work to do so than a Guardian, in a sense. For that reason, anytime I find myself in a group with a Guardian that’s grabbing aggro and maintaining it (so far as anyone is able in GW2) I’m a lot more comfortable slipping into DPS mode. Not “Glass Cannon” but ready to pick up any wayward aggro that slips through and hones in on a squishy if possible to give them some room to get some distance from the boss at least. Mainly DPS built with banners and the skills for the banner’s radius and DOTs when there’s a Guardian (or other Warrior) who’s spec’d, geared and intent on tanking.

Just seems to me that Warriors and Guardians can both “tank”, it just seems to be more “natural” (again for lack of a better term) to Guardians than us. Likewise DPS feels more “natural” to us.

Heh, the one thing I am 100% sure about so far in regards to tanking in GW2 is – I haven’t got it all the way figured out yet and am definitely still learning. The subtlties of the “no Trinity” group dynamics are a much bigger curve ball than I had imagined when we get down to the intricasies and “where the rubber meets the road” so to speak.

I think a real, in depth, adult conversation in the Warrior community is over due about this personally. Which is to say without the e-kitten measuring and leet dude preening. An honest exchange of experiences, what works better and what doesn’t, and just to what extent we can fit in where and how best to.

• Pre-Flame Advisory: Above is the completely subjective, 100% personal, opinion of Mayann. No claim of official or significant expertise, knowledge, information, or experience is intended or inferred. All of the proceeding is offered purely as the summation of Mayann’s observations and experiences as relates to GW2, the MMO genre and video game entertainment, whole or in part, and for no reason beyond that of fostering friendly and open discussion.

Mayam.8976:

I’ve always taken the term TANKING to primarily mean occupying the top spot on the mobs threat list and there by keeping it’s agro exclusively on you as opposed to on any of the squishies.

This is the key point. Tanking is not being hard to kill. Tanking means reducing the overall damage taken and making the target predictable, so direct healers know who will need them. Tanking presupposes mitigation abilities (where guardians are better) and threat generation (where, near as I can tell, nobody is better).

If a guardian, or anybody else, is simply eating AoE’s or PBAoE’s without losing much health, that makes life easier for the player (less dodging needed), but it doesn’t really help the group. Unless the critter is attacking you instead of the thief and elementalist, it’s just not a big deal.

If anybody does figure out a way to reliably manipulate threat on bosses, I hope they post about it. It appears to me that GW2 uses multiple threat models, all with a significant RNG element. In that context, “tanking” only happens by accident, anyway.

So I tank on a warrior in pve i also have a guardian both 80 both exotics my warrior is my go to guy for tanking dungeons and ill let ya know why. axe main hand axe off hand or shield depends on what your doing sigil of blood on main hand axe and the healing one on off hand. i forgot the name of it and to lazy to look it up i think its life but not positive. 30 tactics 30defense 10arms the arms get the vulnerability on crit i run with clerics gear for the healing and toughness and axe scales best with power i use 2 emerald rings and rest of jewlery is saphire i run healing shouts. by the way i hold agro 90% of the time so heres why i like it so much its great survivability you do alot of dmg with axe cause it scales with power and your still a tank. and if you want more dmg in aoe situations you got your axes off hand 5 button its not so good vs 1 target but vs 3 plus its amazing and it also opens up alot of vulnerability increasing your groups dmg my tactics are i run in pop 2 and 5 then switch to shield and block wile group aoes why? lame right i dont do alot of dmg. no but i do put about 5-10stacks of vulnerability on every target in that short time everything is focused on me and my group can pop all thier big aoes without the hassle of dodging wich increases my groups overall dmg out put making things fast very fast. for bosses i usually use axe/mace for the controll it offers and vulnerability stacking if i have to range i run long bow for the aoe. anyways from my experiance warriors are better tanks then guardians beacuse they offer the group lots of heals with shouts stun breaker and might buffs vulnerability stacking. guardians are solid tanks but they have horrible output dmg with mace shield the best weapon they got to do dmg with and stay tanky is hammer both are good but i like warrior much better.

oh and by the way everytime somone says there is no tank in this game add me to your friends list and ill run a dungeon with you and ill prove you wrong i dont know what its based off of healing power or toughness or vitality or heavy armor or what but i hold agro 90% of a dungeon run

Oghier.7419:

… can’t tank many dungeon bosses in the traditional sense, …

This.
People really need to get out of the traditional “trinity” and start playing the game for what it is. I have no problem at all controlling mobs/bosses and I do so with a gun and gs. Most groups I find myself in typically consist of at least 1 guardian and guess who stays alive with control of fights? Skill of a player > all.

Oglaf, cant tell if your trolling or not but if you dislike the warrior so much roll a guardian.

Depends on player skill. A good warrior can tank just as good as most guardians, but ultimately, guardian is better tank at full potential because they have more mitigation/heals/combos.

Oghier.7419:

Mayam.8976:

I’ve always taken the term TANKING to primarily mean occupying the top spot on the mobs threat list and there by keeping it’s agro exclusively on you as opposed to on any of the squishies.

This is the key point. Tanking is not being hard to kill. Tanking means reducing the overall damage taken and making the target predictable, so direct healers know who will need them. Tanking presupposes mitigation abilities (where guardians are better) and threat generation (where, near as I can tell, nobody is better).

If a guardian, or anybody else, is simply eating AoE’s or PBAoE’s without losing much health, that makes life easier for the player (less dodging needed), but it doesn’t really help the group. Unless the critter is attacking you instead of the thief and elementalist, it’s just not a big deal.

If anybody does figure out a way to reliably manipulate threat on bosses, I hope they post about it. It appears to me that GW2 uses multiple threat models, all with a significant RNG element. In that context, “tanking” only happens by accident, anyway.

Good post Sir or Madam, couldn’t agree more. “Tanking means reducing the overall damage taken and making the target predictable”, interesting and perfect way of putting it – predictable.

Also, it seems I’m not the only one that can’t nail down just how exactly each boss prioritzes their “hate list” hence, who will draw their aggro first (so at least I’m not just plain stoopid, heh ;P). Sometimes it seems the player physically closest to the boss with the least HP gets it first – but not always. Sometimes it’s who loads em up with the most DOTs and debuffs and / or frontloads the most damage the quickest – but not always. Sometimes, in the case of bosses with a pull, it’s who is furthest with lowest HPs gets pulled and waylayed first – but no… you get the point. Basically, it seems to me that each boss’ priority list varies, most times very slightly too.

My best guess is, for lack of enough experience, having not faced every boss of every wing multiple times that is, I just don’t have a large enough pool of experience to see the determinant factors clearly yet. So, hopefully, over time whatever the determinant factors are will become evident and second nature as with any game. Kind of seems to me that doing away with the “basic group trinity” has put me on an altogether different learning curve for these kind of mechanics though as well. I guess? (Kitten if I know though LOL!)

P.S Incidentally I roll with a GS / Rifle, for dungeons and just in general but I am really trying to at least familiarize and get to the point that the Hammer and dual Axe are second nature as well. So far, loving Hammer for the CC – knockback, knockdown, and stuns are really awesome since I’ve started getting used to having em plus it’s really nice not having to give up a vuln. debuff (#2 attack). And Adrenal / gen speed of attack/mobility are far and away the sheez with dual Axe (can’t find the right words but if you’ve given dual Axes a fair shake you know what I mean).

Wobels,

PLEASE share how you so reliably hold aggro for that much of a fight. Far beyond any other aspect of the role of tank in GW2, reliably holding the aggro is easily the most difficult part of it for me and, in general, many people (or Warriors at least trying to tank in this strange land with no “Trinity”.

Most of the time, even though I’m laying into the boss with everything I’ve got, he’ll just up and switch targets for God knows why for what seems at random?

Also, even when grouped with a Guardian you don’t feel like you can benefit the group better by letting them tank so you can DPS and better buff / heal the group? (Unless the Guardian is built specifically for group healing and buffing I guess). Even when grouped with a Guardian I’m sure I can hold aggro much better than (honestly don’t think I’ve found myself in that situation yet though) I think I would feel like I could do more for the group if I could just put the “pedal-to-the-metal” DPS wise as opposed to watching for dodges, juggling weps and kiting, setting my traits and utilities for tanking, etc. and so on. That’s strictly my educated guess though.

FYI.
There are no tanks. There are no healers. Theres only glass cannon DPS, people with more survivability, and people with a bit more support. If I run a dungeon with someone that says hes a tank, I watch him get pounded senselessly after a few seconds.

If someone IS able to stand there and be a meatshield for 5 minutes, holding aggro and all, I urge arenanet to nerf the hell out of that class.

This should not be allowed in the game, however, I do not think any character has the ability to hold aggro and not get annihilated after 10 or 15 seconds.

cesmode.4257:

FYI.
There are no tanks. There are no healers. Theres only glass cannon DPS, people with more survivability, and people with a bit more support. If I run a dungeon with someone that says hes a tank, I watch him get pounded senselessly after a few seconds.

If someone IS able to stand there and be a meatshield for 5 minutes, holding aggro and all, I urge arenanet to nerf the hell out of that class.

This should not be allowed in the game, however, I do not think any character has the ability to hold aggro and not get annihilated after 10 or 15 seconds.

Semantics, but point taken. There’s certainly no classic roles as defined by many other MMOs. No one’s standing there in front of some dragon that’s 50 times their size letting it just beat their head in while some thieves stab it in the ankle and a healer stands as far back as possible playing “whack-a-mole” with health bars.

However, some classes were clearly designed to stand up to more punishment than others and I’ve seen some players of these classes garner a boss’ attention and keep it for some length of time. Doing so reliably is the big issue here though.

On the other hand I do still have only 3 months of experience in this game and like I said I haven’t hardly faced every boss, in every wing, of every dungeon many times over, so I would hardly call my self experienced in GW2 dungeoneering. I’m willing to accept that, while I think I’m tanking, all I’m really seeing is the delusion of an observer’s bias and just wanting to see any proof of their theory, whether it’s actually there or not, heh.

Heh, maybe I’m just so conditioned by the “cut-and-dried Trinity” of so many games prior to this one I’m having trouble just wrapping my brain around a dungeon group that doesn’t adhere to it at least to some extent. I admit, that’s entirely possible now that I think about it.

P.S Cuz I kitten sure rush in first on every mob in every dungeon and launch my biggest shot on it right off the bat, heh! And anytime a mage launches a bunch of big shots before I’ve got a couple hits in the thought still runs through my head, "KITTEN guys! Lemme get a couple shots in to establish aggro before you all go ape-kitten! LOL!

i understand there is no “tank” but put a thief up to my warrior you have a tank… lol anyways i dont know how i hold agro but even if i get downed i still hold it. thats the only problem that i have. but seriously ill keep a boss on me for 90% of the time face tanking him and taking a beating but i can keep my self alive with my shouts wile the others just dont worry about dodging we run a mesmer ele me warrior guardian and a necro and ill hold agro except for certian mobs like howlers those stupid things will run right past me to the clothies but the breeders and champions will hook to me like glue. in AC that is. i dunno if its cause im stacked with thoughness or what but as far as if there was a guardian in the group there is and i like him better with his staff and gs he can actually dps like that and with axe main hand your still a dps now if i went mace main hand i could be more tanky sure but lose a ton of dps.

PS if you dont like me using the word tank every time i say it sub in the word controller cause ultimatley thats what im doing controlling everything so the group can just aoe and not worry about single targets and dodging. anyways there is healing there is toughness there are tanks and healers it depends on what way you go and there may be no taunt but there definitely is tanks

heres a definition i found and is what i do : “Tank” characters are especially important in large group instances. A Tank’s job is to stand before the group, using their abilities and high armor values to force a particular “mob” (or group of) to continue attacking the Tank, while other characters contribute to over all damage while not taking damage themselves.

Well off-topic from the OP, but well said, Mayam and Wobels

Oglaf.1074:

Guardian is a bruiser as well. As I said, don’t turn a blind eye to the fact that Guardians do very, very nice damage if they so chose.

Anyway, you’re all (I assume) just talking about PvP. Show a PvE example where a Warrior is preferable to a Guardian.

There are none.

And all other classes DPS way better than a Warrior.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, and to be frank, I don’t think you do either.

Do you have an 80 warrior? If so, does he have full berserker’s gear?

If he did, you would notice that pretty much NO class can dps as well as him.

Autoattacks for 2k regular 3k crits, and every 6 seconds blast off 27,000 damage in 3.5 second channeled attack to everything in a frontal cone. Not to mention Bladetrail ranged AoE / slow, and up to 10k Whirlwind Attack every 12 and 8s respectively.

What class with what build/weapon set can meet that? And survivablilty, learn to dodge what is important, Endure Pain and profit.

Since your group design calls for 4 dps and 1 ‘tanky’ guardian, why not have up to 3 or 4 warriors to be perfectly honest? Tons of condition removal, tons of Vulnerability stacks, second-to-none dps — you fly through content.

And finally … warriors are not thieves. No. Just no.

Since your group design calls for 4 dps and 1 ‘tanky’ guardian, why not have up to 3 or 4 warriors to be perfectly honest? Tons of condition removal, tons of Vulnerability stacks, second-to-none dps — you fly through content.

Fair enough, but maybe some warriors would rather play defense and support and don’t like being a poor man’s guardian? I know I do. Quite frankly, I prefer tempering my defenses and monopolizing a mob’s attention than stacking myself on berserker gear to see cute numbers pop.

All classes have the option to spec into defense or support, why does one outclass everyone else at those roles, sometimes without even traiting into those roles? With all due respect for the game designers, I think they’ll have to review their decision to put a support-focused class, because the current design for guardians reminds me vanilla WoW’s warriors, where the class was a better tank then fully-speced druids and paladins even though most warrior tanks only put 15 points in protection and 31 in arms. Change “tank” with “defense and support” and that describes guardians pretty well.

Now, I don’t like this game’s dungeons at all (I kept WoW since I like the trinity and I like tanking.) so personally, I don’t really care who’s better in a high-end PvE setting, but if I did I know I wouldn’t be pleased to be pigeonholed into a class I don’t like too much just so I can be the best at defense and support.

@Oglaf

With the way you’ve been responding to every point in the warrior’s favor, I think your solution is obvious..

ROLL A GUARDIAN

Warriors perform far better than guardians at certain roles, and vice versa, if you’re only willing to listen to warrior cons and dismiss the pros, then just play a bloody guardian.

Back on topic, the warrior cannot eat hits like a guardian. The warrior can outdamage the guardian by far though.

The warrior can lock down single targets or entire groups, effectively saving everybody on their own instead of relying on shaky aggro tables. Less effective on bosses, true, but on trash a warrior is godlike.

The warrior, even when glass, won’t die if hit a few times. The thief… well a fart in his general direction will screw him over.

Yet thieves can stack vit toughness, spam pistol whips and blinds, thus tanking for a few seconds. But then like other classes hes in for hurting after that.

Fastest dungeon clearing class combi.

2 Guardian 3 Warriors for tough dungeons.
1 Guardian 2 Warriors 1 anything for easy dungeons.

Cant beat this

Hard to take a guy serious when he says warriors are just wannabe thieves. Warrior has some issues that need to be worked out, that much is granted. But lack of dps isn’t one of them.

Pssh my warrior tanks a hell of a lot better then my guardian both of them being lvl 80. And that being said my warrior signet heal more every second then my guard’s virtue of justice and my guard has the trait and fairly well specced into healing while my warrior isnt. Plus warrior has another regen trait and i run dolyak runes on him. And when you are looking to survive as a warrior run a hammer you can trait 20 20 20 10 0 have 3407 armor with 25k and crit for 3.5k with single attack much like the gs yet you can knockdown aoe stun aoe pushback aoe cripple CC= survivablitlit as a warior

DuhGeneral.8940:

Pssh my warrior tanks a hell of a lot better then my guardian both of them being lvl 80. And that being said my warrior signet heal more every second then my guard’s virtue of justice and my guard has the trait and fairly well specced into healing while my warrior isnt. Plus warrior has another regen trait and i run dolyak runes on him. And when you are looking to survive as a warrior run a hammer you can trait 20 20 20 10 0 have 3407 armor with 25k and crit for 3.5k with single attack much like the gs yet you can knockdown aoe stun aoe pushback aoe cripple CC= survivablitlit as a warior

I think warriors are fine in the tanking department compared to Guardians but you are not using the best Guardian spec for comparison if you think Warriors are more favorable ‘tanks’ (holding aggro and surviving for long periods of time) than a Warrior. Guardians are not just about healing, they also have several ways of gaining the Protection boon (perma), vigor boon (near/full perma) and also have Light fields for combo condition removals (to stay on the target) since there is a severe bias towards proximity aggro AI mechanic (along with Toughness being a heavy aggro modifier).

No offense, but people in this thread are kind of biased to think Warriors are always the best at the role of tanking. My Thief doesn’t use Pistol Whip, all you need to do is to spam Blinding Powder next to your target (autoattack in between) which is just slightly less cost than initiative regeneration. If the boss mob doesn’t move much and has a fairly slow standard attack rate (90%+ do), Thief can stand there all day with virtually no effort and tank. Add a Thief that does this with a Warrior or Guardian ‘tanking’ and 99% of boss mobs are so bland that PvE is virtually no challenge but a time investment.

Look at my thread count in this forum, I ‘main’ a Warrior but it is not because of PvE boss tanking. That being said, Warriors do a fine job at ‘tanking’ for most fights but requires a bit more twitch/dodge play. That doesn’t make Warriors less viable tanks, it makes them require more experience to tank as good as a Guardian or Thief (or Mesmer).

There are a lot of ways to “Tank”, but I think the design is that any class can spec to survive for a while if he’s the focus of a boss. This is above and beyond endurance/dodging

Warrior: EP, shield stance, high health/armor/regen, weakness
Thief: Evades/blinds/etc
Ele: missle reflect, healing abilities, boons (prot)

But as far as aggro goes, I think pulsing boons are an aggro magnet. My aura-share support ele draws so much aggro. Every attune switch and aura and shared regen probably fires an aggro-check. This really isn’t an option for warrior?

Don’t underestimate the amount of punishment a warrior can take. Even with a glass cannon build, a warrior has about 19-20k hp and 2k+ armor. Combined with something as simple as life steal and healing shouts, you can probably melee just about anything in the game (PVE perspective) while putting out the highest dps of any class. Really, you don’t even need a shield or anything to survive 99% of PVE encounters in the game.

One way to hold aggro / make the mob predictable is to stack immobilize. Even if they don’t target you they stay put. Sword and Board is great for this.

I’ve been currently “support tanking” in cleric gear with Mace, Shield, & Shouts. The third mace attack hits like a truck (for cleric gear) and has a surprisingly large cleave. Weakness is our cheap version of Protection. Even if your foes have unpredictable aggro, a fumble can prevent a glass cannon from being one shot and a few shouts can will reset their health pool.

Also, Guardian boons can really amp up your damage (with the Boons → % Damage trait), so taking a back seat to a tanky guardian isn’t so bad.

@Oglaf

I have 4 fully geared 80s; Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief. None of these classes can outdamage my Warrior. I also provide to myself, and my group perma Swiftness, Regen, Fury, and 3 stacks of Might on top of the 90 Precision, and +10% bonus to critical hit damage, the entire time I’m on my Warrior. What those boons, and extra damage brigns to a group, far supercedes the mystical lack of tanking you think there is.

When I ask people I run with all the time, do you want my Warrior, or my Guardian, I’m told my Warrior every single time.

What does my Warrior provide?

1) The highest single, and second highest AoE damage, with a very good set of weapons to choose from.
2) Very good CC, if I choose to use it.
3) The ability to increase the groups DPS, with a minor boost to survivability. That Guardian you seem to be upset about, is that much harder to kill because of the regen I grant him.
4) The ability to stack Vulnerability, and Bleeds PER CRIT, which stacks with any weapons attacks that also have Vulnerability. It’s common for me to see 13 stacks or more of both Vulnerability, and Bleeds. Vulnerability also increases the groups damage.
5) The ability to bring downed players up faster than most classes, all but the Guardian.
6) The ability to grab agro because of my insane damage, and dodge around, allowing for a Guardian to recover when they get overwhelmed.

Don’t sell the Warrior short. The Warrior is probably the most complete class in this game.

The build I came up with for my playstile.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/The-high-damage-utility-Warrior-build/first#post883663

Nergrom.7592:

@Oglaf

With the way you’ve been responding to every point in the warrior’s favor, I think your solution is obvious..

If they added class change tokens in the Gemstore, I’d be a Guardian faster than you can say “tank” though.
ROLL A GUARDIAN

Warriors perform far better than guardians at certain roles, and vice versa, if you’re only willing to listen to warrior cons and dismiss the pros, then just play a bloody guardian.

Back on topic, the warrior cannot eat hits like a guardian. The warrior can outdamage the guardian by far though.

The warrior can lock down single targets or entire groups, effectively saving everybody on their own instead of relying on shaky aggro tables. Less effective on bosses, true, but on trash a warrior is godlike.

The warrior, even when glass, won’t die if hit a few times. The thief… well a fart in his general direction will screw him over.

I can’t be bothered to level a Guardian from scratch. I’ve invested so much time and effort in my Warrior to gear him in full Exotics and crap…

Blame Anet for probably thinking it and the others that keep saying Warrior is in a “good” spot. The warrior is fun, but remains at the bottom of the list(with our good friend Ranger). I have said this countless times by now and in more detail, but…

1) 2/3 of our utilities are terrible.

2) Most of our grandmaster(tier 3) traits are terrible. Tier 1-2 worthy at BEST.

3) We lack effective self support, when compared to other classes.

4) Our “special” mechanic(burst) is lacking on most weapons.

5) Can be burst down quickly by serious damage, regardless of our high hp/toughness levels. This is because of class reasons(lacking support) and stat scaling(Damage > Toughness).

This is just the bare surface. Going deeper in detail could easily leave some healthy posts to read. Plenty of those lingering around.

So which is it then: warriors are OP or warrior are bottom of the barrel?

I’ve seen a lot of other threads where they’re continually said to be a top-tier PvE class.

Merthax.5172:

So which is it then: warriors are OP or warrior are bottom of the barrel?

I’ve seen a lot of other threads where they’re continually said to be a top-tier PvE class.

Every class can complete PvE content. “Top-tier” goes to the skilled players in a group. Warrior is just mainly good at damage, so we are far from “complete”. Unless you draw the lines for a Holy Trinity and call Warrior a dps class.

i have a guardian friend i regularly we play with in PvE, when we are hanging out at the temple of lyssa farming mobs and just generally having a nice relaxing time together i started to notice that his health bar rarely moved when we fought where as mine would move around from almost half way back to full as we battled waves of mobs.

we started to spend more and more time playing together, doing dungeons and such. honestly one of the better guardians i’ve ever met. what i’ve come to learn about his class in relation to mine is that where its perfectly normal for me to take lots of damage in the course of a fight i’m still far far tankier then he will ever be. a guardian works to mitigate damage away from himself, when it comes at him from multiple sources at once they can melt like butter.

against only a few targets a guardian can be pretty tanky with damage mitigation, but its been my experience that against multiple mobs a warrior is far far tougher to kill.