Guild Wars 2

Hey guys here is the melee warrior build I run in WvW.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s7-h;1NK-N0g4oLVQ0;9;5T-JJ;148B;108-29-5JF7;2sV2DsV2D5BZ

The build revolves around using your axe as your main DPS weapon and switching to GS to run away or chase someone.

General play
This is a very jack of all trades type build with a focus on doing damage. It also can be adapted without respecing to a strong longbow build when out of combat.

The focus is using frenzy combined with axe combo of skills 3 – 2 – spam 1 to burst people down very fast. Then relying on your warhorn and greatsword swap to get you back out of the enemy zerg. Also pop endure pain when needed to ensure you survive or if you get stunned/knocked down. You get the 25% frenzy trait to spike people right after you kill them. Also immobilizing them right before gives you the fury proc you need to burst better which is why the combo starts with throw axe. Remember your weakness skill on warhorn, that will save you when people start to damage you.

Support stuff
That’s the main concept, but then you have the support abilities all wrapped up in it. Starting with your elite skill to revive someone that just got downed. You also have 3 ranged immobilizes which you can use to stop thieves and such from killing your allies. And buffs/condition removal from warhorn. Along with some weak traits to make rezzing people easier.

Healing skill
Your healing skill is up to you, I almost always run with signet because I don’t feel I have enough time when in melee to heal myself. Every other warrior heal is valid, you don’t use adrenaline and more condition cures is always nice so pick what you want.

Frenzy/Endure pain
Frenzy and endure pain can be switched out to anything you consider useful. This does kill what the build was made for but you do a lot of damage even without frenzy so adding some better survivability stuff could be fun. I really enjoy destroying people in seconds so I always use these 2. But they aren’t always up. This makes me do a fair amount of fighting without them and it is just as deadly. If anything I would swap out frenzy maybe for balanced stance.

Sigil
I don’t have much flavor in the sigils I use. I use the 5% crit and damage on my axe/horn simply because I don’t want to proc the sigil cooldown. I don’t want to proc it because I use Hydromancy on the greatsword. This sigil is to help you escape you pull out your GS do an AOE chill for 3 seconds and then just run away with spin and then Rush it works great. Putting the fire burst or lightning strike on the axe/horn is always valid even more so because your going to be in the middle of people here.

Armor
So armor I run a glass cannon armor setup because I need to do the damage, some differences though. So everything is Berserkers besides your rings, and pants, which are Knights. Doing this gives you a solid 200+ toughness along with the 200 vit you get from traits to give you that tanky edge without sacrificing much damage. You can switch out your helm also for ~50 more toughness if you want.

Runes
For runes I am just running Ruby orbs for the moment. If you want a more tanky setup then switch to divinity if you want to spend the money. Other than that you can pick runes to boost stuff like swiftness maybe add some way to get more might this build lacks might.

That is it for the main build.

Adapting to the situation stuff:

PvE:
I would recommend switching your Greatsword out for a rifle and then picking up the rifle piercing trait removing the fury on immobilize, Swap out melee movement of the discipline traits for the crit chance with adrenaline trait. Along with this you can change your skills. If you don’t need to kite a lot switch bolas with for great justice or signet of might if you don’t need the fury. I like endure pain for PvE because there are a lot of times where 5 seconds of no damage can help a lot combined with your 200 vit and toughness it makes you tanky enough for dungeons, combined with the 2 or 3 imobolizes you can kite very well if something is on you. Frenzy isn’t so useful here so picking a banner or a shout can provide a lot of help. You can also use the Longbow build below if no one else is going to be burning.

WvW adding ranged attacks:

In WvW it’s the opposite of PvE switch your axe/horn for a rifle or long bow. The greatswords mobility cannot be matched so it is almost required. If you really want swiftness then switch out the greatsword with sword/horn this gives you the sword leap away skill along with the swiftness, not as great as a GS but it can work if you feel you need swiftness. Also sword leap gets you to a lot of places you can’t normally jump to in the EB jumping puzzle and some keeps. Also if you have the flame sword from GW1 that thing will light up the EB jumping puzzle too.

If you go rifle rout it’s the same changes as the PvE rifle way but you should use the heal skill with condition removal because your horn is gone. And switch the warhorn buff trait for your preferences unless you ditched the greatsword for sword/horn.

Long bow option:
If you feel like going a full bow warrior with some burning you can adjust your traits to do it. Switch out your axe/warhorn again, the mobility of the greatsword cannot be matched. Greatsword works better here than sword and horn because you don’t get the horn traits if you want the 10% extra damage from burning foes. You need to switch you two tactic traits to Stronger Bow strings and burning arrows. This is like the only setup you will be using your burst skill so switching the Arms traits to help get more adrenaline can be useful also get heightened focus on your 10 point discipline trait instead of melee speed. You also need to use Mending again for condition removal. Skills I will switch frenzy for signet of fury so I can start fights with full adrenaline to plant my burning field. I will then switch my other utility skills for more damage ones, signet of power or for great justice. When using this build it allows you to aoe on top of walls and put down a lot of burning with your Burst skill. It work really well, when you start fights open with something to put you in combat then pop signet of fury use your burst skill, I mainly place it closer to me then the enemy because I am going to be standing in it shooting arrows through it to apply burning. I will fire the burst skill at them if they are in a downed state or I don’t think they will move much. Also the 300 condition damage from arms helps with the burning.

sPvP
This could work in sPvP but you lack a lot of damage stats so you would want to focus more on support/tank stats and abilities. Along with getting rid of the frenzy/endure pain. Since the build is good at running away it’s not really ideal for sPvP unless you need to run around and capture stuff. Honestly though I don’t sPvP so i have not worked on adapting it to that situation and I don’t really know what sPvP needs are.

End
So that’s my build, it’s a solid melee WvW build with the option to switch into a good long bow build if you feel like you want to impact keep assaults more. The longbow build is a very good option in PvE if no one else is applying burning you can keep burning up on anything almost 100% of the time if you can do your burst skill right. And feel free to switch elite skill to your preference if you don’t like saving people with banner.

TLDR: There is so much flexibility and synergy that I had to write and essay. But at the end of the day it’s a frenzy + axe auto spam build at it’s core with the ability to run away from a zerg. you can also switch to a longbow build. Also almost full glass cannon besides a small 200+ vit/toughness.

If it works for you, then great.

Personally, I would love to run into you on the battlefield using my hammer & mace/shield build.

One of the bigger problems that I see is your utility skills; you have 2 stun breakers, and thats it. Pretty much just one though, because I’m assuming you pop both Endure Pain and Frenzy at the same time.

No condition removal? I bet confusion-based mesmers have a fun time with you.

above mars.4586:

If it works for you, then great.

Personally, I would love to run into you on the battlefield using my hammer & mace/shield build.

One of the bigger problems that I see is your utility skills; you have 2 stun breakers, and thats it. Pretty much just one though, because I’m assuming you pop both Endure Pain and Frenzy at the same time.

No condition removal? I bet confusion-based mesmers have a fun time with you.

Thanks for the input, But I actually have two condition removal abilities with my warhorn traits, not to mention immobilize removes with greatsword. and then another if you swap heal skill.

Stun breaks are an issue but you don’t pop frenzy and endure pain at the same time, and if you are in a smaller 1v1 or 1v2 fight you save them both for the stun break. You don’t need the frenzy unless you are bursting into a zerg to kill someone before you get noticed. That also depends on if people are bad or so much stuff going on you don’t load on their screen until you have killed them.