Guild Wars 2

hello, I am trying to decide how to best maximize two of my warrior builds and could use a little help.

the first is a LB/R 30/30/0/10/0 with great fortitude, distracting strikes, and phys train from strength, deep cuts, crack shot and opportunist from arms and stronger bowstrings from tactics. full zerk, due to not being in melee range for most part, but cannot decide on runes/sigils. also the utily are bolas, FGJ and stomp. stomp as more cc to keep off pressure, and bolas as another snare for KS. elite i swap between Hounds and SoR.

the other build is Ma/Ma/Ham that focuses on taking advantage of distracting strikes.30/10/30/0/0, knights gear, with mesmers runes, but again cannot think of sigils. i was thinking doom to add a cover con for confusion, but am still unsure. utily are stomp, bulls charge and kick. traits are restoritive strength, distracting strikes, and physical training from strength, rending strikes from arms, and cull the weak, merciless hammer and sundering mace from defence.

any thoughts as to how to maximize these builds any better? open to any suggestions. thanks in advance for the help.

1st Build:
Superior Runes of the Scholar since your health should stay above 90% if you’re ranged.
Superior Sigil of Bloodlust is a no-brainer. Get it on your main weapon if you’re too lazy to farm the 25 stacks or on an alternate weapon that you don’t use in your bag.

Superior Sigil of Ice if you don’t want them getting away.
Superior Sigil of Force if you want that extra 5% damage.
Superior Sigil of Accuracy if you want to crit more.
Superior Sigil of Earth if you want to utilize the 10% increased damage from Arms ²⁵.
Superior Sigil of Air/Fire if you want more on-crit damage.

For your utilites, I’d probably go for Fear Me over Stomp just because Stomp has a relatively long animation/cast time. If you’re running with full Berserker’s Gear you’re gonna’ be fairly squishy, and if enemies are already within melee range Stomp won’t do as great of a job at keeping them at a distance.

Bolas… isn’t that great at all if you’re ranged. It’s mainly used for setting up melee attacks and catching up to enemies as a melee. The 900 range is less than your Rifle and Longow’s ranged so you’re better off getting Tactics [I] for your Rifle’s Aimed Shot which would basically turn it into Bolas but with a much longer range and half the cooldown if you’re really committed to getting an immobilize.

Although honestly, I’d suggest just going FGJ, SoM, SoR/Frenzy for your utilities just because if you’re already going Glass Cannon build, you might as well commit to it and do a great job instead of trying to mixing some CC or Physical Utilities that won’t go really well for your ranged weapons. Activate FGJ, SoM, and Frenzy as they get closer to you and you should be able to down them right away – especially if you have full stacks of Bloodlust and a complete Scholar’s Rune set.

I’d also suggest going for Signet of Rage just because you’d always want to keep some sort of movespeed increase as a ranged warrior. Also, the added damage and Fury should help with your damage.

2nd Build:
If you’re committed to using Distracting Strikes you really, really, really have to be good at interrupting enemies.

Superior Sigil of Doom would be a really bad idea because that poison only works once and that’s right after switching to that weapon. It also doesn’t last very long.

Superior Sigil of Earth/Ice if you want a cover for your confusion. These two sigils have a 2 second cooldown. Earth has a 60% chance to bleed and Ice has a 30% chance to chill (really helpful if you’re full melee).
Superior Sigil of Purity for condition removals. Very important if you’re full melee without much escape or condition removal.
Superior Sigil of Blood for life steal for sustain since you don’t really have that much health pool (relatively) and the lack of condition removal (I’m guessing you’re using Mending for your heal) and the lack of gap closers will leave you susceptible to multiple stacks of condition damage at range.
Superior Sigil of Energy for more endurance.
Superior Sigil of Hydromancy for chilling them and keeping them at melee distance.
Superior Sigil of Paralyzation for an extra 15% stun duration.

I would also suggest considering using Shield as your offhand since it also has a stun (Shield Bash) that’s great for stun as well as a little bit of gap closer. Shield Stance will definitely help with ranged enemies.

Also, I can see that you’re going full toughness on this build. Toughness doesn’t help at all with conditions, and the lack of condition removals or stun breaks on your utilities as a melee user is incredibly risky and probably not a good idea. The only thing saving you from dying right away form conditions are the two condition removal from Mending and your Vitality so you might want to look into that.

Also, most classes usually auto attacks as their main dps. How can you interrupt enemies that will be using their skills at range or the ones that don’t use that much skills at all? Using up a trait slot for a trait that won’t even come into play as much is a bit weak in my opinion because let’s say you do give them confusion. It doesn’t do any damage over time on them if they’re not a skill caster. And it’s only one condition which can easily be removed by multiple condition removals that other people have. And it doesn’t last very long. If you can somehow find a way to get around this then by all means go for it.

Cons:

• No gap closer
• Very little condition removals
• No stun breaks

I have also been considering a build with Distracting Strikes, though I was looking at using Mace/Shield and Sword/Mace or Hammer in the second slot. Sword bring mobility, hammer more ways to interrupt.

I take it from the post above however that stopping someone’s auto-attack chaing does not give an interrupt?

My build is almost identical to your confusion build but I went with mace/shield and Hammer for secondary. I took the Hammer and Shield traits in Toughness line as the cooldown for mace skills are already low and with so many interrupt abilities, you will not be spamming #1 skill very often for the weakness benefit. With this build you have perpetual interrupts and confusion on your opponent at all times with the proper rotation. Timing and rhythm is key with this build. Button mashing will get you slaughtered. Practice practice.

You may want to consider Rampage as your elite. Yes, Rampage sucks by itself, but coupled with Distracting Strikes it lights everybody up with purple hats due to the massive interrupt skills. Plus 20 seconds of stability and double health is not to shabby. I think the devs balanced this elite with Distracting Strikes in mind.