Guild Wars 2

With the advent of Zealot’s gear being released I thought I would try to come up with and test a build using it. My findings are that it’s a great gear set for warrior when used in combination with other stats. I have been testing this concept in WvW and am finding great success. If you are still interested, read on.

Preface

My goal for this build was to basically create the melee equivalent of the “meta condi/healing warrior” that we hear so much about. Like the condition build mentioned you are going to sacrifice some direct damage for healing power. There are two condition focused builds for warrior: dire or rabid gear and going full on condition damage; settler, shaman, or apothecary gear for condition damage and healing power. You might be thinking that cleric’s gear would work, and it does, but the problem with it is you lose a ton of melee damage also. There really is not a good combination of stats that can give you what, as an example, settler or apothecary gear does but in melee form. So the only thing you can really do to create an equivalent melee build is use a combination of gear, food, and stats.

Pros/Cons

Using the strategy outlined here can make you an unstoppable annoyance that people will bring their friends to fight. Like the condi/healing build before it, this build only suffers from heavy amounts of pressure from berzerker focused players, and only if they get the drop on you. However with this build, since you are not confined to condition based weapons, you have a lot more choices to defend. Used in the build outline here is a rifle, which is basically a compliment to the longbow before it. You could easily use a hammer or greatsword if the situation presented itself.

Stats (Zealot, Magi, Cleric)

This build focuses on trying to achieve a maximum balance between melee damage and healing. Power, precision, toughness, and healing power are the focused stats. The goal is to achieve 2800+ attack, 30% critical chance, 20% critical damage, 2800+ toughness, 25,000+ health, and 1000+ healing power. Through the usage of consumables, bloodlust sigil, sigil of battle, signet of rage, and borderlands bloodlust this is definitely obtainable and can increase attack over 3000. By keeping attack over 2800 and your critical chance around 30%, combined with 20% critical damage from traits you can net a good hard hit against any player. You won’t be making berzerker level damage, but it will be enough to put pressure on the opponent. While you’re doing that you have over 2800 toughness which is basically a sweet spot for mitigating enough damage to be worthwhile. With over 1000+ healing power as well you are regenerating roughly 450 hp per second from healing signet and with your banner out another, again roughly, 230 hp. Through the combination of melandru runes, lemongrass poultry soup, and dogged march trait you can mitigate up to 98% of incoming condition duration depending on the condition, but at all times you will be mitigating 65% incoming condition duration of all conditions.

Traits

0/0/20/30/20. Dogged march to add condition duration mitigation and extra regeneration. Cleansing ire to gain adrenaline on hit to improve regeneration and cure conditions. Leg specialist to create an immobilize out of throw axe and aimed shot. Inspiring banners to improve your fight radius and banner cooldown. Inspiring battle standard to create regeneration from banner placement, the cornerstone of any healing build. Signet master to reduce signet cooldown to keep your stats at max as much as possible. Sharpened axes to reduce axe cooldowns and create extra adrenaline. As a side note, sharpened axes plus cleansing ire will max your adrenaline creation making sure you have a lot to play with and also lots to regenerate from via adrenal health.

Weapons

One of the best things about the condi equivalent of this build is its ability to do melee and ranged damage using conditions and this build does the same thing but with melee damage instead. The axe and rifle are great “power” weapons and utilize power and critical chance much better than some other weapons. Throw axe and aimed shot with leg specialist trait can slow and immobilize twice. Shield bash and rifle butt give you one stun and a knock back. Cyclone axe and brutal shot give you 12% increased incoming damage. Eviscerate and kill shot give you two very powerful finishers. If that wasn’t enough you still have shield stance for three seconds.

Skills

I will let you figure out the best attack rotation for your play style. For me, I don’t actually have a rotation. My skill use is based solely around the opponent and distance. Don’t use healing signet as much as possible because it only heals you when it is not being used. It isn’t that great of a direct heal so make sure to use it only when you have to. Berzerker stance gives you 8 seconds so use it wisely. Use it only when you need to against condition focused players. Dolyak signet like healing signet only increases your toughness when not being used so only use it when you fear a stun or knock back. Place your banner a few seconds after engaging the fight. Don’t throw the banner right away and don’t throw the banner until the opponent is close. Keep the element of surprise and then when you are ready throw the banner. Make sure signet of rage is up at all times, even when you are not fighting anyone, because you never know when they will come out of nowhere and you’ll be wishing you were “pumped up”.

Build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAneUjMdUFajHugwJaABpQDrClC7wNSPEjwYNA-zUCB4NCiUgQEEAkIgZrFRjtMqIasqGYaVER1uEFRrmUAMpMC-w

Note: I thought about using solely zealot’s gear for everything, but the gear itself does not have any vitality. I felt this would make the warrior come up short so I chose not to. Also you can see that you are lacking some mobility. Feel free to replace axe with a sword, rifle with greatsword, and rework some skills or traits.