Guild Wars 2

I’m playing a GS/Rifle/Longbow Shout Warrior and was looking for advice as to a min amount of Toughness that most of you take to WvW?

I aim for 1700 – 1800, buys that’s not on a shout warrior.

I have 2.3k. I’m not playing shouts atm. but i am a hammer warrior that can do everything quite well. High CC, crit damage, boon duration and even condi removal because of utilities. Only HP is a bit low. 22.5k (with food). I like playing hybrid but toughness is defy my highest stat (without food buffs, might etc.)

What gear are you guys using to get so much toughness? All knights with knights gems or? Our Warrior with full knights draconic only has 1407 toughness

I have between 2600-2800 armor or something in WvW, depending on what I feel like. Over the silly amount of hours I spent playing it today I only died once, and that was because my targeting bugged out and I [Rush]ed into an enemy zerg instead of away, lol

If you concerning play as frontline melee, you must have at least 3k armor, this is minimum for pug zergs. If you want to be real frontline melee is serious guild, then you have no alternative, you must have full PVT setup (armor, weapon, back, jewelery, EHP is a king here, you must have 50k effective hp minimum), otherwise you will not survive long enough inside enemy zerg.
Stats:

I would gauge the amount of toughness needed by your armor rating. I shoot for a minimum of 2700 for my rifle warrior. I use a sword/warhorn alternate set for mobility and stomps which is knight’s and that puts me well over 2800 for the close range work. (My rifle is Berserker.) That seems to be a good minimum to shoot for. I find I can keep myself up OK if I don’t get overrun. A lot of WvW is learning your limits and learning to surf the zerg. You will die a lot in the beginning until you do. Always best to latch on to a good group and focus on objectives as opposed to roaming solo with a warrior.

Rednik.3809:

If you want to be real frontline melee is serious guild, then you have no alternative, you must have full PVT setup (armor, weapon, back, jewelery, EHP is a king here, you must have 50k effective hp minimum), otherwise you will not survive long enough inside enemy zerg.
Stats:

That is just plain false and masssacring your DMG for having 2/3k extra hps and 100 extra toughness no worth it unless you are a raid leader.

Zerg Surfing/PUGs:

More or less what have been said, if there is a tank train go for 3100 armor, otherwise go 2600 armor and use your range weapon.

Guild Groups.

Depends of the setup of your guild (have a lot of guardians or not?), the weapons you use (in you case GS give some extra survivability), the tier where you play (easier to play in lower tiers) and a few other things.

You basically have to try it yourself until you find the point where you feel confortable.

SAC.7862:

That is just plain false and masssacring your DMG for having 2/3k extra hps and 100 extra toughness no worth it unless you are a raid leader.

Zerg Surfing/PUGs:

More or less what have been said, if there is a tank train go for 3100 armor, otherwise go 2600 armor and use your range weapon.

Guild Groups.

Depends of the setup of your guild (have a lot of guardians or not?), the weapons you use (in you case GS give some extra survivability), the tier where you play (easier to play in lower tiers) and a few other things.

You basically have to try it yourself until you find the point where you feel confortable.

Damage didn’t help you if you dead. My setup is for T1 frontline melee in guild group, with all T1 melee trains, grand enemy blobs, assaults under tons of AoE and siege (VZ guys says hello). Never tried charge inside RG or ZD zerg as first line of guildgroup, eating all still unscattered aoe and conditions? Pure toughness gear won’t save you. It’s good if you go as second line damage dealer, good if you roaming, but not as good if your task is attack through tons of damage and survive,

Ah. See, I’m on Ehmry and the zerg sizes aren’t nearly so large. Further you really never know who you’ll be fighting with or against if you’re not part of a dedicated WvW guild. I actually do fight melee with my low toughness, but I dash in and out dealing large damage in mobile sweeps or taking out enemy flanks. I imagine you probably would want extremely high survival with zergs the size of Texas.

If you need all PTV to survive a frontline charge is because your guild is just plain charging like bulls or not enough players or guardians. Going double endure pain and full PTV just so you can be the last standing man is absurd, its a lot better to find the point between mitigation and dmg where you die more or less at the same time than most classes and full PTV or berserker is not the only way to go.

Going double endure pain

rofl rofl

One is all you should really need and I only use that in the REAL “ohgodohgod” moments.

Rednik.3809:

If you concerning play as frontline melee, you must have at least 3k armor, this is minimum for pug zergs. If you want to be real frontline melee is serious guild, then you have no alternative, you must have full PVT setup (armor, weapon, back, jewelery, EHP is a king here, you must have 50k effective hp minimum), otherwise you will not survive long enough inside enemy zerg.
Stats:

What crafted set would give pvt?

Is what I run with, I might have a lot but as commander I get targeted the first so I just went totally tanky and still can do neat damage.

SAC.7862:

If you need all PTV to survive a frontline charge is because your guild is just plain charging like bulls or not enough players or guardians. Going double endure pain and full PTV just so you can be the last standing man is absurd, its a lot better to find the point between mitigation and dmg where you die more or less at the same time than most classes and full PTV or berserker is not the only way to go.

I think you don’t understand role of frontline melee. It’s not about doing large damage or fast finishing people. It’s about getting on enemy zerg first, eat first focus, scatter enemy AoE, apply your control and disrupt skills (hammer says hello) and stay alive inside, following commander still as first line while second-line melee and ranged rip enemy apart. You act as heavy shield bashed into enemy face. Sword into guts will follow after.

Bailey.6892:

What crafted set would give pvt?

There is no crafted PVT sets in the game. Only for carma (armor from Orr temples, jewelery and backpack from Grenth temple), dungeons (armor and weapons from Ascalon Catacombs) and WvW badges.

Rednik.3809:

I think you don’t understand role of frontline melee.

And i am telling you that isnt necessary to go full PTV to be in a competive frontline guild, if thats the ony way you can play thats not my problem.

And i am telling you that isnt necessary to go full PTV to be in a competive frontline guild, if thats the ony way you can play thats not my problem.

How would you know you have guardian boons on every dive you make in that vid on your sig. You could probably play naked and not notice a difference. I had to fast forward to get to the parts where you actually hit ppl. New vid please?

Thats not me, is just a video from a guildmate, i dont use GS so play slightly different, i only stream, well not after the patch yet.

Everyone that is running in a competitive guild is megabuffed and since protection, weapon set and RL movements have a much bigger impact in your mitigation than anything else. Then thats why you dont have to go full ptv

so bring more guardians?

SAC.7862:

And i am telling you that isnt necessary to go full PTV to be in a competive frontline guild, if thats the ony way you can play thats not my problem.

I.e. you insist on gear setup for specific event-based guild with strict setup, which become insta-fail when you lost access to full-time protection buff. Sure, this is great recommendation for anyone.

Yeah because having a few extra hps and 100 200 toughnes is going to turn you into a rock.

NO thanks. i insist play with your PTV but dont tell others that is the only way to go in a serious guild.

Are you folks running the typical 0/0/30/30/10 or 0/0/20/30/20 builds for these setups?

PTV build should be 10/0/30/30/0 mine is usually x/x/+20/30/x

SAC.7862:

Yeah because having a few extra hps and 100 200 toughnes is going to turn you into a rock.

NO thanks. i insist play with your PTV but dont tell others that is the only way to go in a serious guild.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/

Build 0-0-30-20-20.

In full Knight, soldier runes, bers hammer (Bloodlust), all exotic, Loaf of Omnomberry Bread+Superior Sharpening Stone:
Effective Power 3214.16
Effective Health (EHP) 40444

In full PVT, soldier runes, soldier hammer (Bloodlust), all exotic, Loaf of Omnomberry Bread+Superior Sharpening Stone:
Effective Power 2825.39
Effective Health (EHP) 52127

Sure, PVT soooo uneffective…

Well mine is between those 2 setups and i do fine.

Rednik.3809:

Sure, PVT soooo uneffective…

never said that was uneffective, just that there are other ways to go.

By the way, if you really want to be front-line PUG Zerg material you may want to consider rerolling to Necro in Soldier (PVT) gear or Guardian (with couple of different options – I prefer Consecration builds).

Warriors basically have mobility (mainly coming from Greatsword) or AoE CC (coming from Hammer) but to survive anything more than small Zergs with directly correlated to counter-condition lockdown issues is difficult at best for Warriors. If you don’t know why, you haven’t Wv3 enough.

TL;DR Knights armor/trinket setup doesn’t help you survive condition lockdown. Your EHP doesn’t mean diddly-squat.

Atherakhia.4086:

Are you folks running the typical 0/0/30/30/10 or 0/0/20/30/20 builds for these setups?

Standard 0-0-30-30-0 (‘+10’), but honestly, really needed only 0-0-30-10-0 (‘+30’) (or even only 20-25 in defense). I prefer 0-0-30-20-20 with warhorn boost in tactics, it’s allows use of Battle Standard (if needed) without dramatic loss of mobility, more anticondition tools and give you more valuable options with on-switch sigils.

Link:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|2.1c.h4|c.1c.h1l.g.1c.9c|1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x|1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c|0.0.u1ab.k19.k6a|3t.1|5y.69.6b.6g.6m|e

Artaz.3819:

By the way, if you really want to be front-line PUG Zerg material you may want to consider rerolling to Necro in Soldier (PVT) gear or Guardian (with couple of different options – I prefer Consecration builds).

Warriors basically have mobility (mainly coming from Greatsword) or AoE CC (coming from Hammer) but to survive anything more than small Zergs with directly correlated to counter-condition lockdown issues is difficult at best for Warriors. If you don’t know why, you haven’t Wv3 enough.

TL;DR Knights armor/trinket setup doesn’t help you survive condition lockdown. Your EHP doesn’t mean diddly-squat.

I have to agree with this. Overall front line you can have more EHP than anyone without a condition wipe (several actually) its over. Closest I have gotten is running signet of rage with lyssa and SoS.

even for DD ele unless you are the full 30 in water the conditions are what kill you.

<—- armor junky

Can’t live without my 57k EHP anymore, I tried with 52k but changed my spec back to 57k 2 days ago. This is for WvW, not for sPvP or PvE. Keep that in mind ^^, but it is hilarious against thiefs, cloak and dagger for 1.5k and backstab a stunning 2k damage :o.

I downed a thief today just with retaliation, he spammed everything on me while I was running to my commander. priceless

MiLkZz.4789:

<—- armor junky

Can’t live without my 57k EHP anymore, I tried with 52k but changed my spec back to 57k 2 days ago. This is for WvW, not for sPvP or PvE. Keep that in mind ^^, but it is hilarious against thiefs, cloak and dagger for 1.5k and backstab a stunning 2k damage :o.

I downed a thief today just with retaliation, he spammed everything on me while I was running to my commander. priceless

What is the build you are running and weapon sets?

And thank you for the reply Rednik

I always found it pretty dumb to base one’s tankiness on how much eHP they have on a website which is all theoretical and on paper. Which has moderate at the very best translation to how tanky and survivable you actually are in WvW. eHP doesn’t mean a whole lot in my opinion. eHP shouldn’t be confused with survivability and tankiness either.

Things that eHP does not take into account that are equally if not more important for survivability for a warrior which are also relevant specifically to a warrior.

1: Condition Removal
2: Healing/Regeneration
3: Dodging/Vigor
4: Blocking/Aegis
5: Invulnerability, i.e Endure Pain
6: Mobility/Mobile Strikes trait
7: Protection
8: Map Awareness, skill and experience
9: Stability/Offensive CC

Now, if you could actually quantify all of these into eHP, it would probably triple your “eHP”. You could possess 2000+ Toughness and 2000+ Vit, but face it, if you possess little to none of these intangibles chances are you are not lasting very long in WvW combat.

For example, a damage dealing GS + S/Shield build can have more survivability than a more “eHP” oriented Hammer + Axe/Mace build for example. Why? GS and Sword has superior mobility, an extra evade, and a block while the hammer build has zero mobility and no blocks.

Builds will depend on your playstyle, what certain situations you are more likely to encounter in world v world, and in the context of the classes and builds your guilds run with. Obviously if you have a guild with a few good guardians, you can afford to go more damage on your warrior because they will have you covered in protection, regeneration, burst healing, etc. If you run with necros, mesmers, eles and guardians, you can probably afford to drop some of you condition removal and go for more offensive related utilities.

PVT everything isn’t the only option for frontliners, you can still be a very survivable frontliner while speccing a bit more into damage, it depends on so many different factors for one to conclude that.

Same goes for Effective Power, it is meaningless if you go down like a 2 dollar kitten in WvW.

While GW2buildcraft is a great site for devising builds, being a statistician just ends up misleading people and being so fixated on numbers that they forget the intangibles and what was is even more important. It lacks real-world validity. I’ve been through so many types of gear and builds, now I didn’t assume "oh if I reach an “x” amount of toughness and “x” amount of vit I should be fine in WvW. I actually tried out these builds for myself to see if I was comfortable with the types of gear, traits, weapons. Now this is a more expensive method but it is necessary if you want to get the most of what you have. Some people aren’t comfortable till they hit 2,700 armor, some aren’t comfortable till they hit 3K+ armor, its playstyle, skill level and preference.

Mobility is extremely important, as is removing conditions to avoid being locked down or slowed too much.

Since I’ve started WvWing more after the culling removal patch, I have been using a GS/Axe+Warhorn combo and deal pretty decent amounts of damage while being almost impossible to take out when I want to make my exit. The goal is to move in, cause a substantial amount of damage to softer targets or lock down ones nearer the front who need to die via immobilize and possible other CC skill (sometimes even Kick for lolz), while drawing the silly amount of aggro that two legendaries will get you before escaping. Do this repeatedly to make people rage and focus you even more. I feel I offer good frontline support with the warhorn as well, randomly giving people Regen, Protection, Retaliation, etc. on top of the normal stuff.

The Vamp runes I’m using are something of a new experiment and I may change them depending on how much I actually find myself using them. I find the Restoration sigil surprisingly useful given the sheer amount of things you should be tagging. I’ve played pretty much constantly in WvW since the patch and have died maybe…three times? Always from targeting being odd and causing me to [Rush] right back into an enemy zerg though, haha. When everything is working properly almost nothing can catch you if your group wipes.

I do run in Ehmry Bay, so there aren’t always the gigantic zergs you see in some of the higher tier servers, but I feel I’ve been very effective in say 10v10 or 25v25 situations.

Anyway, still a work in progress:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|1.1c.h1|7.1c.h8.g.1n.hz|1n.7f.1g.7f.1n.7f.1g.7f.1n.7f.1g.7f|4s.d1i.3s.d1a.1n.67.1i.67.1n.67.2s.d14|a5.k5a.0.k19.k6a|15.7|5y.6f.6i.0.6m|e

My toughness isn’t anything special. Conditions seem to slide right off though.

2,3xx for my Knight build – combo with my dual axe

This is what I’ve been running recently:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|1.1g.h1|c.1g.h1d.e.1g.h1l|1n.7i.1g.7i.1n.7i.1g.7i.1n.7i.1g.7i|4s.d1e.2v.d1e.3v.d1e.2s.d1e.3s.d1e.2s.d1e|k59.0.u28c.0.k6a|3a.8|5y.6f.6i.6g.6m|e

Breakdown by abilities

1) Mobility:
- Mobilestrikes: GS 3, 5; Sword 2 and Shield 4 will remove snares
- Rush, Sword Leap
- 35 sec of swiftness out of 48 (weakest spot of this build)

2) Condition cleans:
- Lyssa, Signet of Stamina

3) Invulnerability:
- Endure Pain, Shield Block

4) Counter CC
- Balanced Stance, Last Stand

5) High damage
- 4.6k effective power before fury / might
- 75% crit rate with fury and 87% crit damage
- 2.1k Power

6) Armor (dodge most attacks, but you need a bit of armor for those hits that do go through)
- 35% Damage reduction (ignore buildcraft as it includes turtles defense and thick skin)

7) Control
- 2 Cripples (Sword 3, GS 4)
- 3s Chill on shield weapon swap
- 4s Immobilize on Sword
- stun on shield 4

You don’t need full PVT to be front line but you also can’t be glass cannon.

Having run full cleric on a shout hammer build, I’m reducing some of the cleric and adding in zerker with a backpiece will the only PvT(started fractals the other day for the first time.) I’m reducing by one piece at a time and testing to see how well it works out.

0/10/30/30/0. Soldier runes. My armor is down to just over 3k. Shouts still heal for over 2k. My hits are close to 1k per hit, I can crit for about 3k. I use mago pie and superior oil. Great justice or any other skill that will give you 20% crit will put your crit chance just under 50% with 4 pieces of zerk. Damage isn’t that great solo but with a group with buffs, it goes up.

This build is pretty sick. You can zerg surf with this one. When you are running with a group that can provide fields to buff in, it just gets better. One problem though, I’m pretty sure the other side has gotten used to me and either just leaves me alone until the rest of my side is wiped, or they jump on me and get me out of the way. If they don’t do either, I will smash and cc till they are dead. Getting adrenaline on hit fills up my earthsaker real fast so I can hit that every 8 seconds.

If you want your shouts to heal, you’ll want some cleric. On my PvE build, the trinkets are cleric and shout heal for over 1k but not quite 1500.

I wouldn’t look at toughness as a target to strive for, more like how much armor instead.